Volusia, FL- CSDC is pleased to announce that the Growth and Resource Management (GRM) Department in Volusia County, FL (Population: 496,575) has completed another phase of its upgrade to AMANDA 5. With this most recent step, Volusia has extended AMANDA 5 to its Land Development and Environmental Management divisions. This brings the county to an approximate total of 250 users running AMANDA 5 throughout both GRM and other external County departments.

GRM is responsible for the County’s Long Range Planning, Land Development, Environmental Management, Building and Permitting, Current Planning (Zoning), Contractor Licensing and Code Compliance – including all inspection processes.

The AMANDA 5 upgrade began with Volusia County transitioning to AMANDA 5 for mobile inspections. The County’s inspectors have been equipped with Toughbook Laptops running AMANDA 5, compact printers and air cards, transforming GRM’s fleet of 30 vehicles into virtual offices. Inspectors are able to access the full database remotely, capture data in the field and even issue documentation on the spot, all without setting foot in the office.

Volusia has also extended AMANDA 5 access to local governments and utility operators within the County with the AMANDA Review Module. This allows the County to grant limited AMANDA access to external staff so they can provide comments, conduct reviews and sign-off on processes.

CSDC was first engaged by Volusia County in 2007 to replace a 20 year old in-house mainframe system which handled the Department’s Permitting, Contractor Licensing and Code Violations. The challenge also included integrating all of the other GRM Divisions that were using manual processes into one cohesive database. With AMANDA, GRM is able to efficiently share information throughout all of its Divisions as well as with other County Departments and multiple external agencies; this eliminates time delays while increasing response time to their customers.

Moving forward, Volusia County expects to implement AMANDA Public Portal to improve accessibility by empowering citizens to conduct business transactions online 24/7 from the comfort and convenience of their own home or office.