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City will roll out 'Access Albany' 311 app; board hears demo and approves first‑year subscription funding
Summary
City staff demoed 'Access Albany' (Civic Plus/SeeClickFix) as the new 3‑1‑1 platform, outlined features — automated routing, GIS location, multilingual support and dashboards — and said the first year subscription is about $39,382.58; the board discussed integration and data migration and accepted the presentation.
City staff presented the new 'Access Albany' 311 platform on Aug. 14, describing a soft launch already under way, a planned media push in September and the deactivation of the city’s legacy QAlert public app by Oct. 1.
Ms. Monk, the project presenter, said the platform is based on Civic Plus/SeeClickFix and will route requests automatically to departments by type and geographic location, allow anonymous or registered submissions, support multilingual prompts, provide real‑time status for registered users, and produce dashboards and KPIs by ward. “Our goal is to help the residents get what they need, as quickly as possible and this will help us do that,” she said.
Nicole Sprawl, the 311 call‑center supervisor, explained that once a ticket is submitted it will route to the appropriate department and can serve as the service ticket if that department uses the app’s workflow; departments can set SLAs and escalation rules. Staff said the first‑year subscription cost is approximately $39,382.58 with a year‑over‑year 5% uplift thereafter and that Civic Plus offers customization and embedding options for the city website, though the vendor retains ownership of the application and source code.
Board members asked about integration with the city’s AMI and billing interfaces, data migration from QAlert, contract term lengths and lead‑time for vendor deliverables; staff said historical tickets will be accessible during transition and that embedding and API‑style links are available though full source‑code modification is not.
Next steps: staff will proceed with the contract process and a public outreach campaign timed for September and October, and will monitor first‑year performance for possible multi‑year pricing discounts.
