Explore the series:
Part 3: Real-Time Permits and Inspections
Part 4: Building Government Services People Can Actually Use
After improving inspection scheduling with Tertius, the Department of Buildings in Washington D.C. turned to another critical process: Certificate of Occupancy approvals. While inspections required coordination, this process introduced a different kind of challenge: complex, multi-step reviews involving multiple departments and stakeholders.
Before digital transformation, the Certificate of Occupancy process was slow and difficult to manage. Applications moved through several divisions, including zoning, structural review, inspections, and final approval. Each stage required manual coordination, and communication was fragmented across emails and phone calls. As a result, applicants had limited visibility into their application status, and reviewers lacked a centralized system to track progress.
On average, the process took 47 days to complete. This created delays not only for property owners, but also for broader development timelines across the city.
The challenges within the Certificate of Occupancy process reflected many of the same structural issues seen in inspections before Tertius. Workflows were paper-based, performance metrics were not available, and there was no unified system to manage communication or track applications.
Reviewers spent significant time on administrative tasks, including summarizing correction requests, drafting responses, and coordinating with other departments. At the same time, applicants had no reliable way to monitor progress or understand what actions were required.
This lack of visibility and coordination made it difficult to identify bottlenecks, enforce service level expectations, or improve overall efficiency.
To address these challenges, the Department of Buildings partnered with platformOS to develop Certifi, a digital platform designed to centralize and streamline the entire Certificate of Occupancy process.
Certifi provides a unified environment where applications can be submitted, reviewed, and tracked in real time. All communication between staff and applicants is handled within the platform, creating a complete audit trail and eliminating fragmented communication.
The platform also includes integrated features such as online payments, multi-division workflow management, and performance analytics. These capabilities allow the Department of Buildings to monitor application progress, track reviewer performance, and identify areas for improvement. And just as importantly, this visibility is built on full access to underlying data, allowing the agency to generate insights and continuously refine the process without relying on external vendor control.
A further aspect of Certifi is the integration of AI capabilities into the review process. These features are designed to support reviewers by reducing repetitive tasks and improving consistency.
AI can generate summaries of applications by analyzing correction requests across multiple divisions, providing reviewers with a clear overview of the current status. It can also suggest next steps based on application context, including required inspections, missing documents, or compliance issues. In addition, AI can assist in drafting responses, allowing reviewers to communicate more efficiently with applicants.
These features help reduce the time spent on administrative work while maintaining human oversight and decision-making.
The introduction of Certifi resulted in measurable improvements across the process.
Average review times dropped from 47 days to 7 days, representing an 85% improvement. More than 16,700 applications were processed through the platform, with improved efficiency and consistency.
At the same time, applicants gained real-time visibility into their application status, and communication became centralized within a single system. Performance analytics enabled the Department of Buildings to track service levels and identify bottlenecks more effectively.
These changes transformed the Certificate of Occupancy process from a slow, opaque workflow into a structured and transparent system.
Building on the success of Certifi, the Department of Buildings applied the same platform-based approach to foundation wall inspections through the development of Wallcheck.
Before this transformation, wall inspections were also managed through manual, paper-based processes. Scheduling delays could take a week or more, and there was no centralized system to track progress or ensure accountability.
Wallcheck introduced a digital platform that enables real-time scheduling, centralized communication, and complete digital documentation. The platform also incorporates AI capabilities to optimize inspection assignment and predict potential delays based on workload and historical patterns.
The implementation of Wallcheck led to a 53% reduction in scheduling time, allowing inspections to be booked and completed more efficiently. At the same time, the platform introduced full visibility into inspection workflows, enabling better coordination between stakeholders.
More than 5,800 inspections were completed through the platform, with improved transparency and accountability. Performance metrics and analytics provided new insights into operational efficiency, supporting continuous improvement across the process.
Together, Certifi and Wallcheck demonstrate how centralized platforms and AI capabilities can transform complex government workflows.
Processes that were previously slow, fragmented, and difficult to manage have become structured, transparent, and measurable. Real-time tracking enables better decision-making, while predictive analytics supports proactive management of workloads and service levels.
Importantly, these improvements were achieved using a shared platform architecture, allowing capabilities to be reused and extended across multiple workflows.
The transformation of permit reviews and inspections in Washington D.C. highlights how digital platforms and AI can work together to modernize complex government processes.
By embedding AI into well-designed workflows, the Department of Buildings is now able to improve efficiency without compromising oversight or quality. At the same time, a shared platform approach enables faster implementation, scalability, and continuous evolution.
This approach demonstrates how government agencies can move from manual, reactive processes to real-time, data-driven operations.With full access to application logic and data, government teams can adapt, extend, and improve systems independently—without being constrained by vendor roadmaps or predefined product limits.
This is what makes real-time, data-driven government possible.
With workflows digitized and optimized, the next phase of transformation focused on improving how users access and interact with information.
In the next article, we’ll explore how documentation was transformed from static PDFs into accessible, user-centered digital experiences.
👉 How documentation became a core part of digital government—improving accessibility, usability, and efficiency
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