Learn About Inspections, Assessments, and Public Complaints

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Explain the data model for visits, regulatory code violations, and enforcement actions.
  
• Describe the data model for assessments.
  
• Describe the data model for public complaints.
  

Explore Visits, Regulatory Code Violations, and Enforcement Actions

When constituents apply for licenses and permits, government agencies often need to inspect a business or residence to check for code compliance. Agencies also inspect businesses or residences when a member of the public files a complaint, and to check for routine compliance. In Public Sector Solutions, several objects comprise the inspection process.

The Visit object represents a site visit made by the inspector, who inspects and assesses code compliance to determine whether an applicant qualifies for a license or permit. Visit records capture such details as the date and time of the visit, the related account, the purpose, the place, and the inspector. 

During the visit, inspectors have access to the applicable regulatory code. They answer a series of questions that represent the assessment indicators they need to evaluate. If an establishment fails an assessment indicator, then the inspector records that as a regulatory code violation. Regulatory code violation records contain a description of the violation that the inspector identifies. 

Regulatory code violations have a lookup relationship to the visit, the regulatory code, and the business license application or individual application. They also have a lookup relationship to the Violation Type object, which contains information about the type of violation, such as a health and safety violation or a fire safety violation.

Violations aren’t the end of the story, though. They are followed up with enforcement actions. The Violation Enforcement Action object, which has a master-detail relationship to the Regulatory Code Violation object, contains the actions that a regulatory authority takes to address violations.

Two junction objects also come into play with inspections. Junction objects create many-to-many relationships between objects. As you might imagine, a single code regulation can have many indicators and violations. Failure to display a required sign, for example, can be because it’s placed in the wrong location, it’s not large enough, or it’s not displayed at all. 

So the Public Sector Solutions inspections data model includes the Regulatory Code Assessment Indicator junction object. The object creates multiple relationships between assessment indicator definitions and regulatory codes. And the Violation Type Assessment Indicator junction object creates multiple relationships between assessment indicator definitions and violation types.

Here’s a diagram of the regulatory code violation data model.

That’s a whole lotta inspections objects and relationships. To paint a clearer picture, let’s see how they’re configured in Cosville to inspect a hair salon for a business license application. 

Understand Assessments

During a visit, inspectors perform a set of tasks to assess whether the business or residence is compliant. Inspectors can be more productive if such assessment tasks are planned in advance. Public Sector Solutions has a useful object to help with assessments: Action Plan. 

Action plans include action plan items, which are a series of assessment tasks for an inspector to perform on a visit. And since many inspections require the same set of assessment tasks, Public Sector Solutions includes another useful object called Action Plan Template. An action plan template, when published as an Action Plan Template Version, is a series of assessment tasks that can be used to create an individual action plan. The action plan can then be used as is, or customized as needed. Each action plan has one or more action plan items. And each action plan item is directly associated with an assessment task.

In addition to being related to an action plan and a visit, every assessment task is also related to an inspection assessment indicator. Inspection assessment indicators are like regulatory code assessment indicators: They represent what the inspector looks for during the visit. 

Public Sector Solutions includes two different types of assessments: inspections and dynamic assessments. To learn more about each type of assessment, see the links in the Resources.

Action plans use these additional objects.

• Assessment Indicator Definition: Defines the parameters that act as markers of compliance for inspections.
  
• Assessment Indicator Defined Value: Lists the predefined values of what can be captured as an assessment indicator value.
  
• Assessment Indicator Value: Lists the target or captured values that are defined as part of an assessment indicator definition for a single or multiselect question.
  
• Assessment Task Indicator Definition: Associates an assessment indicator definition with an assessment task definition.
  
• Inspection Assessment Indicator: Associates an Assessment Task with an Assessment Indicator Definition.
  
• Assessment Task Definition: Associates an assessment task with an assessment indicator definition.
  
• Signature Task: Stores a signature acknowledging the completion of an assessment task.
  

Here's a diagram that shows the relationships between action plan objects.

Over in Cosville, they're using action plans to inspect salons for business license applications and for routine code compliance inspections. Let's see how the action plan objects are configured for Sunshine Salon's business license application.

Now that you understand the basics of action plans, let’s dig deeper into assessment tasks, assessment indicators, and related objects.

Understand Public Complaints

So far, we’ve talked about inspections as they’re used for license and permit applications or routine code compliance checks. But what happens when a constituent files a complaint with a government agency?

The Public Complaint object stores complaints submitted by constituents against a business or establishment. Public complaints are related to the account for the business in question.

When a constituent files a public complaint, the business's governing regulatory authority uses objects such as regulatory code, visit, and regulatory code violation to conduct an investigation. Here’s a diagram of the public complaint data model.

Uh oh. In Cosville, one of Sunshine Salon's clients is unhappy. At a recent appointment, they couldn't find the restroom, and they filed a complaint against the salon with the city. Let's see what the complaint and its investigation look like in the Public Sector Solutions public complaint data model.

In this unit, you learned all about the Public Sector Solutions data models for inspections, action plans, and complaints. In earlier units, you learned about the data models for licenses and permits, including accounts, applications, and regulatory authorities and codes. 

In the next unit, we see the entire licensing, permitting, and inspections data model in action. We follow a business license application and an individual permit application through the approval process. 

Where possible, Salesforce uses inclusive terms in our products to align with our company value of Equality. This is a work in progress, and you may note some terms, like "master-detail relationship," that are still in place. To suggest a term to evaluate for inclusive language, click Provide Feedback for this badge in the right sidebar.

Resources

• Salesforce Help: Inspections in Public Sector Solutions
• Trailhead: Inspections with Public Sector Solutions
• Salesforce Help: Dynamic Assessments in Public Sector Solutions
• Trailhead: Dynamic Assessments with Public Sector Solutions