311 (Citizen Hotline) as an Organic Data Source

Make the most of your organization's 311 (citizen hotline) and collect a more holistic view of resident feedback. Integrating this data adds another dimension of value and brings you a fuller picture of what's happening in your community, right in your Zencity organic dashboard!  

Basic 311 Integration Technical Requirements

One of the most popular integration methods is through an API. APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) enable data to be sent and received between the Zencity platform and your CRM software so data can flow seamlessly into your dashboard. 

We can work with virtually any API. At a minimum, for the most value in your organic integration, the data available through the API must include:

• The ID number for each request
• The date each request was opened
• The category or topic of each request
• An email address and/or phone number for each requester - required only for Post Interaction Survey integrations
• The location (street address or latitude/longitude) of each request - required only for location analysis (see additional requirements for location analysis below)

Additional fields are optional and may include request status, description/content, and image.

Commonly Integrated Vendors

SeeClickFix by CivicPlus

You must be licensed through SeeClickFix for the private organizational API (SeeClickFix API v2 for Organizations). If you are licensed for this API, simply create an internal user account for us in your SeeClickFix organization and provide us with the user email and password.

• If you need to use a Zencity email address for this, please use the email address of your  Zencity Customer Success Manager and inform them so that they can set a password.

CivicPlus

1. Create an admin user for us in your internal CivicPlus  account and provide us with the user email and password.

•  If you need to use a Zencity email address for this, please use the email address of your  Zencity Customer Success Manager and inform them so that they can set a password.

2. Provide us with the API Key and Partition. If you don’t have this information, we can request it from CivicPlus support after you add us to your account. 
    

3. Let us know whether residents submit service requests through the Citizen Request Tracker module or the Form Center module.  

   a. If requests go through the Citizen Request Tracker module, we have all we need and we’ll take the rest from there!

   b. If requests go through the Form Center module, please provide us with a list of the Form IDs that you would like us to integrate (these will be integers).

PublicStuff by Accela

Send an email to support@accela.com to request an API key (token) with permissions for private/internal data. Provide the key (token) to us when you receive it and we'll take it from there. 

Qscend by Catalis

Email the vendor at either support@qscend.com or munisupport@catalisgov.com. Inform them that Zencity is going to submit a request for an API key and that you approve this request. We'll handle the rest!

Granicus (fka CitySourced)

1. We will provide you a signed partner agreement.
2. Email the signed partner agreement to support@citysourced.com and CC us (support@zencity.io). We'll take it from there. 

Other Integrations

If the vendor you use is not listed above, we might still have experience working with them. We'll let you know what we need from you. In general, to begin the API integration process, we will ask for the following information. 

1. The name of the system or vendor you use for citizen service requests
2. The documentation for the API, if available (specifically, we need an endpoint URL that will return a list of service requests/cases, and we need to know how to structure our API calls)
3. Authentication information, if required (many APIs require specific keys/tokens, or a username and password of an internal user to authenticate)

Additional Requirements for Location Analysis

Our Analysts can provide you with regular reports of the trends in your citizen request data, including analyses broken up by location. If you are interested in these reports, we need to receive shapefiles for the map you would like to use, broken into the divisions that are meaningful to you (e.g. Council Districts, Police Beats, etc). You may send this to us as follows:

1. Provide a zip folder that contains these 4 file types: prj, dbf, shp, shx.

a. The zip folder cannot contain two files of the same type (e.g. two .shp files).

b. All of the files within the zip folder should share the same name.

2. The zip folder should include only one map layer.
   
   
3.  The map should not include any overlapping areas or boundaries.

Note: Location analysis reports are available only for integrations that include locations for each citizen request (street address or latitude/longitude coordinates).

Maximizing 311 Integrations

Zencity Co-founder & CTO Ido Ivry covers: 

• What are 311 / citizen requests / public-facing email inboxes? 
• 311 or citizen request forms: How is resident information siloed among departments? 
• Little known facts about 311 and service requests
• How to maximize these data sources with Zencity