We are excited to be hosting our Inspire user conference at the San Diego Mission Bay Resort this year! Our first conference since our merger, we are looking forward to sharing how we are driving development and innovation forward, as well as hearing your challenges. We want to inspire you, so this year on top of the best practice training, we are also bringing you a keynote speaker who has taken dedication to a whole new level.
Known as the Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence is the Guinness World Record Triathlon Holder and successfully completed his self-created challenge of 50 triathlons, in 50 states, in 50 consecutive days. His determination and quest to redefine the impossible is a story that inspires listeners to dream big and teaches that determination, discipline and teamwork is the way to achieve any goal.
Throughout the conference, presentations and training will be given from Avolve experts, as well as our partners, Vision33, Clariti, OpenGov and TruePoint Solutions. There will be opportunities for networking and speaking one-on-one with our experts, solution providers and partners. We will be giving insights on what we’re planning for our future and how we are addressing technology trends. We are excited to have the opportunity to celebrate our customers at the Avolve Award Dinner, which will be held right next to the gorgeous San Diego Bay.
We can’t wait to welcome all attendees in beautiful San Diego! Our user conference exists to ensure that we are providing the best solutions to help users build further process efficiencies, making your job easier!
Tickets are available until May 12, 2023! View details about the event, including the agenda here: Avolve Inspire 2023 | Avolve Software
Avolve in 2023 – let’s start as we mean to go on…
By Lance Clark, CEO
As we closed out 2022, I have been reflecting on the amazing journey that Avolve Software has been on this past year. We welcomed over 40 new customers in 2022 from North America and Europe and experienced a year-on-year growth of almost 20%.
Having combined two electronic plan review industry leaders back in March, we had a powerful technology combination that has proven to be a successful recipe…
Building our strength
Our customers tell us that they love our vision – we know jurisdictions can be more efficient and it is our job to support them with advanced digital solutions. This is why we invest more in research and development than our competitors.
Yet, we could not do this alone and our community is critical to our success. Our close-knit communication with our customers helps keep us on the right path, and our expanding partner eco-system is fundamental to providing integrated ePlan solutions and expert implementation.
We signed a further three new partners in 2022, as we believe that together we are stronger. A joint approach to solutions and delivery removes the barriers for jurisdictions, enhancing productivity and enables a collaborative success.
The common theme across our communities, both customers and partners, is that they believe that our people drive our differentiation. The determination, commitment, and passion that our employees have for this business has amazed me, and it is clearly evident to our communities.
The dedication to doing the very best job, is at the forefront of Avolve’s everyday – ingrained in the culture. This is going to a huge advantage as we encounter the challenges of 2023.
A year of uncertainty
As we look to the year ahead, many feel nervousness. The previous few years have shown us that not everything can be planned.
Amid continuing medical, environmental, financial, and political turmoil, the world needs to keep turning and, in our universe, plans will be submitted, and permits required. What we can do is ensure that we have processes and systems in place that can weather the storms.
Digitalization has proven to be vital in times of uncertainty. Electronic plan review is one area that has been historically vastly under-resourced – but recent years has demonstrated the enormous headache that this can bring.
Some are now reaping the rewards of increased process efficiency enabling them to cope better with less staff or manage the influxes of permitting applications. Others are finding it easier to recruit and retain employees with higher staff satisfaction. And above all, jurisdictions are benefiting from attracting commercial development and enhancing their citizen’s experience. We know that working in partnership going into 2023 that we can support with effective electronic plan review that aids community development.
I very much wish everyone an awesome year – let’s hope we can ride the waves and achieve some amazing things together!
Being a customer-centric company, we wanted to develop a better user experience by finding new, easier ways to interact within DigEplan. At Avolve, we consider user experience and user interface to be a core component in our electronic plan review solution, and therefore, have added the following enhancements to strengthen DigEplan’s functionality:
- Improved visual grids for quicker loading times and a cleaner look
- Enhanced toolbar icons for easy navigation
- Batch editing which is a new feature that enables users to edit multiple cells simultaneously
- Correspondence side panel where users can display messages more freely throughout the plan review cycle with its collapsing messaging panel
Avolve Software prides itself on working with existing customers to enhance functionality, understand workflows and processes, and simply improve our offering. This ensures jurisdictions are investing in a partner that supports their choices and empowers them to work more productively.
To complement Avolve’s best-in-class in-person training offerings, we are thrilled to announce the launch of the Avolve Learning Center! The Learning Center offers role-based training for ProjectDox that is self-paced. Our inaugural offering is the Foundation Package. This package covers all fundamental aspects of using ProjectDox and includes distinct training modules for three key plan review roles: plan reviewers, coordinators, and system administrators. While each module includes a standard learning plan, learning plans can also be tailored to individual users.
The Avolve Learning Center is intended to complement our personalized in-person training program and helps to ensure that users are maximizing the benefits of ProjectDox. It enables customers to:
- Address the training needs of all ProjectDox users, including new and existing employees, as well as those with different roles in the plan review process
- Learn at their own pace
- Customize learning paths
- Access training material at all times
- Simplify new employee onboarding
- Quickly and efficiently learn about new versions and features of ProjectDox
- Provide certifications to employees who complete assigned modules
- Access reporting and analytics for progress tracking
Beyond the Foundation Package, the Avolve Learning Center will soon offer system upgrades, new features, and more advanced topics. Next to be released is additional certification levels with videos that dive into the tools intended for intermediate users. Subsequent enhancements will include expert-level certifications and training on advanced tools and techniques.
The Avolve Learning Center is offered as an add-on for new and existing ProjectDox customers who may purchase licenses for their employees.
For more information on the Avolve Learning Center and how to make your ProjectDox training efforts more efficient and cost-effective, contact your account manager or get in touch.
We are excited to welcome Jeremy Raulinaitis to the Avolve family as our new Chief Experience Officer. He has over 15 years of experience in the Technology Industry and, after spending five years in corporate interiors and construction, decided to follow his heart back to technology. We wanted to know Jeremy a little better…
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your career.
I received my undergrad degree and MBA from Utah State University (Go Aggies!) and spent 14 years at Spillman Technologies where I met and worked with Lance, Avolve’s CEO, as part of his executive team. I oversaw our customer services division for 11 of those years. After Spillman was purchased by Motorola, I took the opportunity to completely switch industries and, for five years, oversaw operations for a company that specialized in large scale corporate interiors and construction. I am a techie at heart though, so I have been very excited to get back into software.
On a personal note, I am married to Danielle and have a daughter, Ellie, and two sons, Korbin and Karson. We live in Herriman, Utah and enjoy boating, snowboarding, backpacking, and mountain biking.
What are some of the barriers you have seen to good customer experience?
In my opinion, the biggest barrier to customer service is when a company doesn’t understand that great customer service is the goal of all employees and not just one group. Aligning everyone in this goal helps to break down barriers between departments and creates synergies in customer strategy.
What is your vision for the customer experience at Avolve?
I believe that the ideal customer-vendor relationship should be based on a mutually beneficial partnership. Each succeeds when the other is successful. It is important that both the company and the customer understands this. I also believe that we should explore solutions to issues when they arise and that “no” should never be the first answer. A mentor once told me to treat your customers like your friends. I have always taken that to heart, and it has served me well.
How do you measure success?
There are many measurements of success and I like to be very data driven in looking at those measurements. However, if I had to pick my all-time favorite measurement of success it would be employee satisfaction. I truly believe that taking care of your employees and giving them a great place to work is paramount to anything else and it makes all other successes possible.
What is your biggest accomplishment?
Personally: Maintaining a successful marriage and raising three amazing kids.
Professionally: Finding great success and relevance across multiple industries.
What has been the biggest lesson you have learned in your career?
To always be honest. Trust is something that can take years to build and can shatter in an instant. Once you have lost it you may never get it back. Best to not lose it.
What is the best piece of professional advice you have received?
I don’t know if I have a singular piece of advice, but my favorite business book is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babbin. They are two former Navy SEAL leaders that adapt lessons they learned in the SEALs into the business world. Some of their ideas, including utilizing the indirect approach, and taking ownership of situations have been huge to me.
What is your favorite part of the job so far?
Definitely getting to meet and know new people.
If you could master any sport, which would it be?
Soccer is my favorite sport, so I am tempted to go with that, but I think I would choose golf.
If you could fly anywhere in the world for lunch, where would you go?
My daughter is currently living in the Czech Republic, so I would fly to Prague and take her to lunch.
What animal closely resembles your personality?
This is the hardest question! I actually found and took a quiz for this and it spit out owl, so there you go.
Welcome Jeremy to the Avolve team!
