Mecklenburg County Streamlines the Addressing Creation Process Using GIS

As the second largest county in North Carolina and with nearly 700,000 addresses to maintain, Mecklenburg County is serving as a model for others to follow by using geographic information system (GIS) technology. The Address Data Management Division of Geospatial Information Services is responsible for maintaining situs address locations and road centerlines for all of Mecklenburg County. A single address record holds information including the house number, street name, zip code, postal city, jurisdiction, volunteer fire districts, and special tax districts. All this data is vital to the permitting process for code enforcement, supports 911 dispatch for emergency management, and is shared with other county agencies as well as the public at large. GIS is the critical system for the addressing department in Mecklenburg County to create and maintain their addresses in the most efficient way.

The county’s GIS professionals have developed a state-of-the art, geographically based system to streamline the process of creating and maintaining addresses from beginning to end. Addressing managers are using GIS solutions to more easily delegate work and track staff performance, as well as to eliminate the duplication of work and addresses. Most importantly, the public is also much better supported, as requests are received and resolved more quickly. 

Before implementing GIS, the county managed address creation manually in Excel spreadsheets, which only tracked major and minor developments involving new parcel creation. This did not include other requests, such as facility assets like meters, retaining walls, or accessory dueling units’ cell towers. And it could take up to a week or longer for an individual address to be created upon its request.

The limited ability to track staff performance was also an issue. For years, customer service management, as well as ad hoc phone calls and email requests, had also been handled by internal Excel spreadsheets. This made it hard to delegate work and avoid the duplication of addresses, causing customer service to suffer overall as customers had no way of knowing what the timeline for the creation of their address would be. If addresses were not created in a timely manner, then problems in other departments would also occur. For example, 911 services would not have a location with a new address on file, making it difficult to respond to an emergency there.

With public engagement being a top priority to resolve in Mecklenburg’s addressing system, the team got together to develop a new customer request system using ArcGIS Enterprise. The new addressing assignment request system comprises a series of configurable GIS tools woven together to make a more cohesive and understandable system—not only for GIS staff to work within each day, but also for the public to interact with.

Starting with ArcGIS Survey123, the team designed a customer-based interactive web form that was made accessible through the county’s GIS addressing web page. The form was designed to accept digital file attachments and to capture customer contact information. It provides a standardized way for customers to submit requests, which can all be managed by staff in the same system. 
 

The next product in play was ArcGIS Web AppBuilder, another configurable GIS software product. County staff used Web AppBuilder to display where new addressing service requests are located geographically. Any requests sent through Survey123 are automatically reflected on the web app. This visual component is a huge plus for staff, allowing them to see where address requests are coming from, and which ones need to be worked on.

Now that they had an easier process for receiving addressing requests, the team needed an internal system to manage and work on the requests. ArcGIS Workflow Manager functions as the main workhorse of the overall system. Used for the step-by-step management of working address service requests, the system also contains an email customer notification component for when certain addressing work “actions” take place. This allows addressing staff to better support the customer as they are notified in real time of a project’s status.

Lastly, ArcGIS Dashboards was configured to help manage service request volume, status, and assignments to staff. This dashboard allows staff to check the status of overdue requests, view all their addressing data in a more organized way, and download comprehensive monthly reports of their work to present to other managers for long-term progress tracking.
 

Having spent nine months building their new GIS platform, the county’s significant efforts did not go unrewarded. The entire addressing department is in favor of the new system. They like the fact that it does a lot more of the work for them, particularly with the customer/requester engagement portion. The typical address requester is primarily either a land developer or construction company. They have also adapted quickly and appreciate the new system, especially its new email notification capabilities that provide updates on the progress of their individual request.

Overall, the new system is a significant time-saver and allows county staff to be better supported in their addressing work. Address creation, which used to take over a week, now only takes one to three business days. When an assignment is overdue, managers know exactly where to turn their attention. This provides significant and much-needed improvement to the customer service aspect.

The county also won an award from the National Association of Counties (NACo) for their outstanding work in the addressing department, which serves as a model for other addressing and land records departments to follow.
 

Mecklenburg County’s GIS manager, Jia Wei, is very satisfied with the addressing department’s new address assignment and request system. Wei and other GIS professionals at the county have hopeful plans to further implement GIS in other areas, including in urban planning and tracking construction projects. Mecklenburg County’s ambition and success serves as an example for other addressing departments to follow.