Annual Planning Workflow

Annual Planning Overview

This workflow is centered on the need for local government to effectively facilitate public engagement in the annual planning process. By soliciting input from residents, governments gain insights into community needs and priorities, ensuring that plans are reflective of the population's concerns and aligned for success. Zencity tools are integrated in each phase of planning for the year ahead and allow for efficient data collection and communication throughout.

Here is a summary of the process steps:

Annual Planning Workflow Steps

There are four stages to collecting and sharing community input for annual planning. By the end of the process, you should be empowered to allocate resources effectively, address pressing issues, and chart a course for community development that resonates with constituents.

If you don't have all of these tools listed in the steps below, focus on those that are most relevant to you.

Phase: Plan Research

Purpose: Collect and analyze existing, wide-scale community input from the last year to set priorities for annual planning.

Zencity Tools: 

• • Community Survey: Access your Community Survey dashboard. Look through previous survey results to identify key areas, paying special attention to feedback on strategic initiatives as well as your highest and lowest ratings. If applicable, reach out to Zencity for additional expert survey analysis. 

  • Experience Survey: Review data in your Customer Experience dashboard, filtering by the last year for the most relevant information. For future goal-setting, get a full picture of performance by identifying service types with the lowest and highest scores.

  • Engage: Use the Results & Analysis page to review Engagement results from key Engage Projects over the last year. Click into relevant Engagements to view participation statistics and question result analysis, with built-in cross tabbing, topic clustering, and chart visualization for deeper understanding. 

  • Organic:  View the Organic dashboard filtered to a 1-year view to summarize the top relevant topics that have emerged in public discourse since your previous annual planning cycle. Drill into categories or projects with the highest volume of interaction to see the sentiment and key words that have dominated community conversation. 

  • Cross-platform: Use the "Create Reports" button within Engage or Organic or navigate to Reports in the main menu to combine the relevant data sets listed above and build out a report to share internally. 

Phase: Plan Development

Purpose: Engage the public in the planning process and gather new input on focus areas and upcoming initiatives.

Zencity Tools:

• • Engage: Create and launch an Engage Project to share key information and collect feedback on your annual planning process. Integrate an Engagement for soliciting community input on topics related to annual planning (like budget).

  • Organic: Set up new Organic projects for the coming year’s strategic initiatives to track discourse and sentiment. Use feedback from social media and news sources to see how the public conversation evolves as plan development progress. Share results from your most recent Community Survey through your social media accounts via Publishing and the Press Release Generator in News Feed to highlight emerging priorities and create trust through transparency. 

Phase: Plan Presentation and Approval

Purpose: Support the approval of the annual plan in council by presenting community input based on gathered evidence.

Zencity Tools:

• • Community Survey: Download the Community Survey summary report to share findings with council/stakeholders. Present this as evidence for identified resident priorities and community input that shaped annual plan development.

  • Engage:Use the Engage Results & Analysis page or navigate Reports to compile Engagement results for key strategic initiatives. Present this as evidence for insights and community input that shaped annual plan development.

  • Organic: Create a report in the relevant Organic project dashboard page or navigate to Reports. From there, compile a report on public discourse (via social media and news) for key strategic initiatives. Present this as evidence for insights and community input that shaped annual plan development.

Phase: Plan Follow-up

Purpose: Communicate the annual plan to the public and monitor continuing sentiment throughout the year.

Zencity Tools:

• • Community Survey: Review the next Community Survey cycle questionnaire draft and make sure to incorporate questions on key annual plan elements. Set goals and improvement areas for next survey cycle to focus on the plan’s actual impact.
    

  • Engage: Update your Engage Project from Step 2 to inform the public on your finalized annual plan. 

  • Organic: In Subscriptions in the main navigation menu, create a custom digest for Organic projects on strategic initiatives (developed in Step 2) to continually monitor discourse after plan launch. Share your annual plan and how community feedback shaped its development through social media accounts via Organic Publishing and the Press Release Generator in Organic News Feed.

Annual Planning Workflow Examples

This workflow focuses on engaging residents in the annual planning and budgeting process, from conception to launch to followthrough. Some practical examples for Annual Planning Workflow include:

• Annual budget
• Council retreat
• Participatory budgeting
• Plan communication
• Strategic planning
• Strategic gap/need analysis

To see a real-world application of a city using Zencity tools for strategic planning and goal-setting, click here to read a case study from the city of Stockton. 

Annual Planning Checklist and Resource Links

A checklist to guide you through the Annual Planning workflow can be found within your Customer Hub. Use this resource within the Zencity platform for working through the steps of this workflow.

To access a checklist offline, click below to download a PDF version that your organization can utilize.

There are many additional articles and videos available to you in this Help Center that are relevant to implementing Annual Planning steps. Listed below are some key resources to support you in using workflow-related Zencity tools:

• Annual Planning Checklist.pdf80 KB