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City unveils Access Albany 3-1-1 app; board hears features, launch plan and contract terms
Summary
Staff presented Access Albany, a new 3-1-1 app using CivicPlus/SeeClickFix technology, describing automatic routing, geo-fencing, multilingual support and dashboards; staff said the public hard launch will begin in September and QAlert will be deactivated by Oct. 1.
City staff introduced Access Albany, a new 3-1-1 customer-service app (CivicPlus/SeeClickFix platform) intended to replace the legacy QAlert system. The presenter described features designed to streamline citizen reporting: photo upload, automatic routing to the appropriate department by problem type and location, geo-fencing to route city vs. county requests, bilingual question-and-answer prompts to reduce incomplete reports, duplicate-request suppression and customizable dashboards to produce KPIs by ward and district.
Nicole Sprawl, the 3-1-1 call-center supervisor, explained that submitted requests create work tickets routed to the appropriate department and that departments can set service-level agreements; she said tickets escalate to supervisors if not completed within configured SLAs. Staff noted the app supports anonymous submissions (without real-time updates) and that the public-facing soft launch is in place; a media campaign will begin in September and the legacy QAlert app will be removed from public app stores starting Sept. 1, with public-facing deactivation of QAlert scheduled for Oct. 1 so outstanding requests can be processed.
Board members asked about ownership, integration with other city systems (including advanced metering, AMI), contract term and cost. IT staff said the vendor (SeeClickFix/CivicPlus) retains ownership of the software and source code but the city can heavily customize the portal and embed it into city websites. Staff said the subscription is billed annually; the first-year price was cited at roughly $39,382–$39,853 in the meeting (staff provided two closely similar figures during discussion) and annual uplifts were described as about 5 percent. Staff said they will consider multi-year terms and potential interfaces to AMI or other city systems after the first-year implementation.
The board expressed general support and asked staff to share launch dates and marketing materials with council members and constituents. Staff will bring any longer-term contracting decisions back to the commission for approval.
