wEdge for Treasurers (and everyone else, too!)

An introduction to wEdge from DEVNET, a premier property information site, featuring property tax, appraisal, and GIS information from a unified interface.

This presentation is somewhat treasurer/collector centric, but is still a good introduction to wEdge regardless of what tax office a person works in.

Transcript

1. wEdge for Treasurers (and everyone else, too) Jason A. Crome Vice President of Software Development, DEVNET, Inc. 2013 ICTA Summer Conference August 8, 2013
2. • VP of Software Development at DEVNET • Dad • Hockey Player • Nobel Prize Winner • (at least one of those isn’t true) Who am I?
3. Who is DEVNET?
4. Agenda • Product Overview • Features • Support • Implementation • Demo • Future Plans
5. Overview
6. What is wEdge?
7. What is wEdge? • It slices!
8. What is wEdge? • It slices! • It dices!
9. What is wEdge? • It slices! • It dices! • It cooks!
10. What is wEdge? • It slices! • It dices! • It cooks! • It cleans!
11. What is wEdge? • It slices! • It dices! • It cooks! • It cleans! • It makes coffee!
12. What is wEdge? • It slices! • It dices! • It cooks! • It cleans! • It makes coffee! • It... does none of these things.
13. What is wEdge? • For DEVNET, it is a toolkit for building web-based products. • For clients, it’s a web site featuring your property tax and appraisal data. • For title companies, tax payers, and other customers, it’s pretty freaking awesome!
14. What does wEdge mean? • Web Edge • The original command line administration utility for wEdge, before we had named wEdge. • A tribute to the original DEVNET logo, The Flying Wedge:
15. Who’s using wEdge? • 26 counties and 1 city nationwide • 17 Illinois counties • ...and more in the hopper!
16. Features
17. Content • Designed with simplicity in mind (less is more) • Anything in DEVNET Edge applications can be shown online. • There are some things you probably don’t want to show however. • Commonly shown: names, site addresses, legals, taxes due and paid, taxing body breakdowns, exemptions, assessments, and more.
18. Technical Details • HTML5 and CSS3 compliant (standards are good!) • Javascript • Perl • SQL Server • Runs on Windows or Linux servers
19. Performance Matters!
20. Performance Matters!
21. Performance Matters! • Searches and page views are cached by web browser • Subsequent searches and views talk to cache, not server • Cache flushed when web server database is updated
22. Browser Requirements • Modern features require modern browsers • Chrome 5+ • Firefox 3.5+ • Safari 5+ • Internet Explorer 8+
23. Security • Redaction of parcels • No exemption searches • Injection testing • SSL for account access
24. Accessibility • Adheres to US Section 508 accessibility guidelines • Also adheres to WAI-AAA accessibility standards • Ensures that your sites are available to the largest possible group of taxpayers and customers
25. Support
26. What will DEVNET do? • No charge updates • No limit to emails, phone calls, etc. for county staff members • On site training of county staff • Bug fixes • Legislative changes • Etc. etc. Same level of support as our desktop applications.
27. What won’t DEVNET do? • Support your end users • Support data transfers and infrastructure for county-hosted sites • Well, we can do these things, but a block of support hours must be purchased.
28. Implementation
29. How does it go? • You sign a contract • We conduct evaluation of your online goals/needs • County provides contact individual - one person who will represent all county stakeholders in the project • DEVNET provides site to match needs (some back and forth here) • Up to 6 weeks, usually way less
30. Hosting Options • DEVNET Hosts • County Hosts
31. DEVNET Hosting • Preferred option • Costs the same as county hosting • We have more in-house hosting experience than most county IT • Better facilities than most counties • DEVNET manages the whole process (data transfers, applying updates, etc.)
32. County Hosting • Substantial startup cost (SQL Server, Windows Server, plus hardware) • These costs are in addition to what you already have to run DEVNET software (do NOT run wEdge sites on your production servers) • DEVNET does not manage data transfers to the web server (extra cost) • DEVNET only supports the app, not the infrastructure (extra charge)
33. Demo!!!
34. Future Plans
35. Subscriptions • Free (monitoring) or paid (revenue generation) • Free subscriptions nice for controlling access to data • For revenue generation, give some info for free, all data for fee • Collect fees online (certain payment providers only) • API for other online services to use
36. Mobility • Make wEdge sites responsive • Look and behave equally well on desktops, tablets, and phones. • Currently best on desktops, laptops, and iPads. Other devices are usable to varying degrees.
37. CSV result export
38. CSV result export
39. Tax Bill Reprints • Get a reprint of your tax bill online • Currently, for free only • Investigating opportunities to generate revenue for counties with this (i.e., continue to generate duplicate bill fees for this service)
40. Email Notifications • YES THIS INCLUDES TAX BILLS!!! :) • Users can sign up for online assessment notices, notification of tax payments, and much more. • Flexible system for defining, editing, and sending emails.
41. Email Notifications
42. Email Notifications
43. Email Notifications
44. Email Notifications
45. Administrative Dashboard
46. More Timely Data Updates • Transfer database changes, not entire database • Potential to run multiple times per day
47. Security • Image redaction by category • Individual image redaction • Redaction by name • Payment redaction options
48. Questions?
49. Thanks! For more information: http://www.devnetinc.com info@devnetinc.com