Check for Compliance and Prepare for Inspections
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Discuss how a compliance and enforcement official uses Public Sector Solutions.
- Describe the key benefits of using the Licensing and Permitting app.
- Explain how to use the Licensing and Permitting app to manage regulatory codes, assessment tasks, and visits.
Compliance Checks
After initial review of an application, the compliance and enforcement officer reviews regulatory guidelines and determines the next steps to ensure the applicant meets all of the standards for compliance. Next steps might include assigning follow-up tasks, such as onsite inspections to gather additional information. Based on all the reviews, violations, complaints, and other information gathered, the compliance and enforcement officer decides whether to issue, cancel, suspend, or revoke the license or permit.
For example, Salima Sheikh is the compliance and enforcement officer for Cosville.
A big part of Salima’s job is enforcing regulatory codes based on violations that the inspectors report, and determining applicable enforcement actions.
Inspection Visit Components
When an application requires an inspection, compliance and enforcement officers create a visit record, action plan, and a set of assessment indicators to guide the inspector during their site visit.
Let’s explore each item.
- A visit contains the scheduling and location information of the visit and an action plan for the inspector to complete during the visit.
- An action plan contains a set of tasks, such as assessment tasks and signature tasks, which the inspector completes to check for compliance during the visit.
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Assessment indicators are checklist items that the inspector completes during the visit.
For example, after Diego completes the initial review of Susan’s business license application, Salima receives an alert that the application is now in her queue. She clicks the application and views the guidelines in the Approval Path. She then creates a visit and connects an action plan to the visit record. This action plan contains assessment tasks with questions that are specific to business inspections, as well as a signature task.
Note: This unit provides a summary of the steps for setting up an inspection. To learn more about setting up inspections and the different components, see the Inspections with Public Sector Solutions Trailhead module or refer to the Help articles listed in the Resources section.
Create an Inspection Visit
First, create the visit. You can do this by clicking New in the Visit related list on the application record. Or create a new visit with a single click on the visit card. Your admin can add this card to the business application record page during initial org setup.
Enter information on the Create New Visit screen.
In this example, Salima provides the following details regarding the salon visit.
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Place: Address of the business location for Sunshine Spa and Salon
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Context: Business License Application record
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Planned Start Time: 10 AM on October 6th
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Priority: High
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Account: Sunshine Spa and Salon
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Visitor: Amelia Zhu
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Visit Type: Salon Establishment Inspection
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Special Instructions: Make sure you use the updated fire safety regulation standards to assess.
To learn more about creating visits, see the Help article linked in the Resources.
Connect an Action Plan to the Visit
Next, connect the action plan to the visit by clicking the Action Plans card. Action plans contain Assessment Tasks and Signature Tasks. Inspectors work through each of these tasks during visits to a spa, salon, barber shop, or other similar establishments.
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Assessment Tasks are groupings of assessment indicator definitions.
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Signature Tasks record signatures of people involved in the inspection, such as the inspector or the owner of the establishment.
To speed up future task assignments, you can use a predefined Action Plan Template. An action plan template is a reusable and configurable list of tasks for visits where the expected set of tasks are the same.
You can configure action plan templates to meet the needs of your agency.
For example, Salima applies the Salon Establishment Inspection action plan template to the visit.
This particular action plan template has the following three predefined assessment tasks and two signature tasks.
- Prohibited Products and Practices
- Posting and Public Information
- Establishment
- Capture Business Owner’s Signature
- Capture Inspector’s Signature
To learn more about relating an action plan template to a visit, see the Help article linked in the Resources.
Regulatory and Assessment Components
Next, let’s explore assessment indicator definitions and regulatory codes.
Note: In a typical workflow, you configure these components before you create the action plan template and assessment tasks.
Configure Assessment Indicator Definitions
Assessment tasks contain Assessment Indicator Definitions. These indicators are the parameters that inspectors use to assess the business for compliance.
For example, here’s a list of assessment indicator definitions that are part of the Establishment assessment task.
When the inspector selects an inspection task in the mobile app during a visit, they can view the assessment indicators and simply follow the checklist to capture real-time data.
To learn more about how to set up assessment task indicators, see the Help article linked in the Resources section.
Set Up Regulatory Codes
Inspectors audit business sites against regulatory standards defined by authorizing bodies such as the Health Department, Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, and so on. To help with this work, you can configure Regulatory Codes and relate them to assessment indicators. This way, the inspector can review the associated codes directly from the checklist while they perform their work.
For example, here’s a regulatory code record that’s standardized by the Board of Barbering & Cosmetology regulatory authority.
Notice this regulatory code is a section of the parent code, which is a chapter in the regulatory framework. The description provides guidance when determining whether the establishment is in good repair.
To learn more about how to set up regulatory frameworks, see the Help article linked in the Resources section.
Assign Visited Parties
As you saw earlier, inspectors can use signature tasks to record signatures and document acknowledgement of the outcome of inspections. To set the signature task for the applicant, click the Visited Parties card on the visit record page and add the business contact.
In this example, Salima adds Susan Adams as the visited party in the salon inspection.
Assign the Visit
After you’ve configured the visit, action plan, and associated tasks, return to the business application record and select the Ready for Inspection approval status in the queue. This notifies the inspector so they can prepare for the visit.
In this unit, you learned how to configure the necessary components for inspectors to conduct an inspection. In the next unit, you see how inspectors use Public Sector Solutions to conduct onsite visits.
