Accela Civic Platform

What differentiates Accela Civic Platform from other similar products?

It is the industry leader for large organizations, but that comes at a cost of sometimes blah capabilities. Good breadth of features but sometimes daunting complexity. To Accela's credit, they seem to have renewed energy toward improving in the last few years.

What is your favorite aspect of this product?

Breadth of modules. I've worked with Planning, Building, Code Enforcement, STR's, Stormwater, Police Reporting, and variety of others. Large organizations appreciate being able to use one platform for so many differing departments and services. Also, Accela is working hard to bring in new features to the SaaS version. That is good, but it comes at a cost. Be ready to adapt to significant changes with every new version. They come out every six months, ready or not, and it can seem like a treadmill of implementing and adapting if you don't have a solid upgrade process in place. This applies to IT and customers.

What do you dislike most about this product?

Sadly, first tier support has always been an obstacle rather than a help. I have struggled to get answers to complex questions beyond the first-tier hurdle. That is not the fault of support, but a reflection of the fact that Accela is such a complex product with so many customized installs. Troubleshooting can be very hard! Later tiers of support have been uniformly helpful when we get to them. Accela has had to be backwardly compatible for so many years to so many customized installs, that it has accreted layers of admin that can be very difficult to navigate. Summary: Accela users pay the price for customizabilty and complexity

What recommendations would you give to someone considering this product?

Larger organizations that can bear the cost of the product and its maintenance will like the breadth of options and consistency that Accela offers. You will need well-trained administrators to keep it running, and to add inevitable enhancements and integrations. Resist the urge to over customize!! Whenever possible, adapt your processes to the software. That sounds backwards, but you will be adapting to any package you choose. Every failure I have seen was the result of too much complexity. Accela has come out with more "out-of-the-box" solutions -- consider them. Finally, be ready for the non-optional updates every six months.

What differentiates Accela Civic Platform from other similar products?

The ability to aggregate data from different vendor applications into one platform.

What is your favorite aspect of this product?

The fact that it can help facilitate important government functions into one platform.

What do you dislike most about this product?

I used to the old Admin console before the current one was implemented. So I hope the new version is more user friendly.

What recommendations would you give to someone considering this product?

I would say that if your organization is utilizing vendor application from many companies then definitely use Accela as an aggregator.

What differentiates Accela Civic Platform from other similar products?

Highly dynamic and customisable and easy to configure to client requirements and integrate with external systems

What is your favorite aspect of this product?

Automation

What do you dislike most about this product?

Insufficient documentation for some technical aspects of the system

What recommendations would you give to someone considering this product?

Configuration needs to be carefully thought out and planned at the outset