Population: 244,000

Building Permits (2005): 7,996

e-Plan System includes:

• Electronic plan submission, tracking, review and storage on servers.
• Plan review for residential and new commercial currently being done with selected builders – plans to expand to all industry in fall 2007.
• Accepts plans as PDF, DWF files and on CD-ROM. Also will accept hardcopy of plans which are then scanned into system. County is using 34” and 37” monitors for reviews. Plans stored on servers, one onsite, one in secure offsite location.

1. Problems Trying to Address with ProjectDox®

One of Florida ’s fastest growing counties, Osceola County located just south of Orlando , wanted to

speed up the plan review process to address needs of their clients/stakeholders – architects, engineers and contractors. The main objective of their action was to be competitive with other jurisdictions in state and avoid problems associated with slowness and losing track of paper copies of plans. Osceola County also wanted to eliminate the 140 mile roundtrip drive in this large county for some clients to drop off/pick-up plans.

2. How County Involved Stakeholders

Osceola County involved both their internal (staff) and external stakeholders (architects, engineers and contractors) from the beginning. The county invited them in to discuss needs and ways in which e-plan submittal, tracking, review and storage would address their respective needs. Osceola County fully involved external stakeholders in the implementation process, including asking for firms to volunteer to participate in the development of their system and testing its use.

3. Funding Source Being Used

The County used their own enterprise fund for development and purchase of hardware and software associated with e-plan processes. State of Florida statute prohibits those funds being used (raided) by other agencies, government officials for other purposes.

4. How County is Sharing e-Plan Data with Other Agencies

The Osceola County Building Department included other agencies – Planning/Zoning, Engineering/ Traffic and Fire – in their training program for internal stakeholders for e-plan review software. The county is now working with those agencies to discuss their possible subsequent use of the software in their programs.

5. How County is Training Staff and Customers

Working with the software firms involved in this project, the county has developed and is conducting training programs using PowerPoint presentations and training manuals. Osceola County has invited external stakeholders to participate in the same training programs and has also provided onsite training at firms through their customer care manager.

6. Implementation Lessons to Share

Involve internal and external stakeholders from the beginning; use dedicated funds and start slow. Don’t try to do too much at once – build upon successes.