Bradenton, Florida, Goes Live With an Accela-e-PlanREVIEW Integration via Vision33’s Saltbox

In late 2024, the City of Bradenton, Florida, became the first customer to go live with an Accela-e-PlanREVIEW integration using Saltbox Integration Platform, Vision33’s exclusive integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solution.

Bradenton chose Accela, a world-class permitting solution, to complement its existing e-PlanREVIEW, a world-class plan review solution from e-PlanSoft.

About Bradenton

Bradenton, a city of about 57,000 located just south of Tampa Bay, was slammed by devastating back-to-back hurricanes in late 2024.

Despite this setback, the city, with the help of its partners at e-PlanSoft, Accela, RedMark, and Vision33, went live on schedule with its Accela and e-PlanREVIEW integration.

Expecting a flurry of construction activity after the storms—activity that would tax its permitting and plan review capabilities—Bradenton needed to be prepared.

Before and After Integration

Before moving to Accela, Bradenton used e-PlanSoft’s goPost tool to manage permit applications that needed reviewing. While daily users could do their jobs with goPost, it wasn’t integrated with the permitting software, and there was no citizen access.

Staff processed applications in goPost, manually moved plans and documents to e-PlanREVIEW, notified reviewers, and updated goPost with marked-up plans. This was repeated for each review cycle on each application—a time-consuming, error-prone process.

With the Accela-e-PlanREVIEW integration via Vision33’s Saltbox, Bradenton staff has more time for higher-value work: processing applications, assisting applicants, reviewing plans, and communicating with stakeholders.

Vision33’s Saltbox offers multiple troubleshooting features, including message tracing, logging, automatic and manual retries, and a dashboard with processing results.

Plus, Vision33 is always available for support.

The Applicant Experience

Applicants can submit their permit requests, applications, and plans through Accela Citizen Access using any internet-connected device.

Thanks to the Accela-e-PlanREVIEW integration and e-PlanSoft Scout application, applicants get immediate feedback if their submissions can’t be processed (e.g., if files are corrupted, password protected, or have illegal characters in their names) and can fix them without staff involvement.

Citizen and contractor expectations have increased as the private sector has shown how pleasant business transactions can be—and Bradenton’s new software delivers efficient features that reduce frustrating delays and improve the experience for everyone.

The Staff Experience

When applications are submitted and documents accepted, the software ensures a quick, correct plan review process. For example, if a document has been sent to e-PlanREVIEW for review, it cannot be deleted from Accela.

Users can’t add new documents to an application while a review is in progress. (Adding new documents between review cycles is fine.) And before a new review starts, nothing is transferred to e-PlanREVIEW until the applicant has uploaded all their updated documents.

City staff see other benefits, too, particularly ease of use. When it’s time for a new review cycle, a single click creates the project in e-PlanREVIEW and moves documents from Accela. A single click in Accela assigns reviews in both systems, and a single click brings documents back from e-PlanREVIEW to Accela to complete the review cycle.

And with single sign-on, staff members log in only once.

Summary

In the six months Bradenton has been live with Accela and the Vision33 e-PlanREVIEW integration, the city has shortened the plan review process and efficiently handled the sudden influx of work from the hurricanes. Surrounding cities have noticed, and Vision33 is bringing them on board, too.

Watch an On-Demand Webinar to Learn More

Join Earl Woodman, Delivery Manager at Vision33, and Eric Niday, Integration Manager at e-PlanSoft, for a discussion about connecting government applications quickly and easily. 

Tune in for an overview of the companies’ products—including Saltbox—and to learn the value of integrating Accela and e-PlanREVIEW.