Committing fully to digital transformation
Municipality of North Perth, Ontario
November 6, 2025Digital tools have transformed how the Municipality of North Perth, Ont., oversees community development. But the biggest improvements only happened when local departments fully embraced the potential of their software.
Sally McMullen, North Perth’s building and development supervisor and chief building official for the past two years, said the municipality adopted Cloudpermit’s permitting software in 2021.
When she joined the team, department staff were using the software to track applications. Things like addressing, lot grading considerations, and service connections that affect other departments were still handled outside of the program.
This disconnect meant things were sometimes missed until late in the review or construction process. She decided to go all-in with the software, getting staff and the public used to what they could do online.
Fully committing to setting the software up how you want to work is key to making the most of your investment,” she said. “We also held firm on applicants applying online and decided that helping them to do it themselves was better than doing it for them.”
- Sally McMullen, Building and Development Supervisor / CBO for the Municipality of North Perth
Working Together to Make Improvements
McMullen worked with two administrative staff members to make the most out of their software. Lianne Slichter focused on configuring the platform for local needs, while Olivia Haines met with applicants and frequent users to help them learn the program.
McMullen said it paid off with better processes for applicants and a chance for the staff to focus their time on what is important.
They go from this place of passing messages along and putting files in the right place to a greater, deeper understanding of the process and being able to help people more thoroughly,” she said.
Now, the average review time for building permits keeps falling each quarter, on-site inspections are easier, and applicants get automatic updates about their permits.
Prioritizing How Departments Work
In McMullen’s opinion, it’s all about prioritizing what staff should be doing with their time.
Do we want admin folks in our team digging deep and understanding a complete application and reviewing it thoroughly before it gets to the plans examiner, or do we want them continually explaining to people how to upload documents?” she said. “They're going to do both, but let’s reduce the time on the second one and increase the time on the first.”
Upgrading software comes with a cost, but McMullen said the investment has been worth it.
Look at your price per permit, and ask yourself, whatever that dollar amount is, are you spending that on admin moving things around and filing things anyway? If your chief building official spends a half hour less looking for stuff, have you covered that cost? Because it’s pretty hard not to cover that cost just in efficiency,” she said.
To learn more about making the most out of municipal software, visit cloudpermit.ca.
This article was originally published by Municipal World.
