An introduction to wEdge from DEVNET, a premier property information site, featuring property tax, appraisal, and GIS information from a unified interface. This presentation is somewhat treasurer/collector centric, but is still a good introduction to wEdge regardless of what tax office a person works in.

1. wEdge for Treasurers
(and everyone else, too)
Jason A. Crome
Vice President of Software Development, DEVNET, Inc.
2013 ICTA Summer Conference
August 8, 2013

2. • VP of Software Development at
DEVNET
• Dad
• Hockey Player
• Nobel Prize Winner
• (at least one of those isn’t true)
Who am I?

3. Who is DEVNET?

4. Agenda
• Product Overview
• Features
• Support
• Implementation
• Demo
• Future Plans

5. Overview

6. What is wEdge?

7. What is wEdge?
• It slices!

8. What is wEdge?
• It slices!
• It dices!

9. What is wEdge?
• It slices!
• It dices!
• It cooks!

10. What is wEdge?
• It slices!
• It dices!
• It cooks!
• It cleans!

11. What is wEdge?
• It slices!
• It dices!
• It cooks!
• It cleans!
• It makes coffee!

12. What is wEdge?
• It slices!
• It dices!
• It cooks!
• It cleans!
• It makes coffee!
• It... does none of these things.

13. What is wEdge?
• For DEVNET, it is a toolkit for building web-based
products.
• For clients, it’s a web site featuring your property
tax and appraisal data.
• For title companies, tax payers, and other
customers, it’s pretty freaking awesome!

14. What does wEdge mean?
• Web Edge
• The original command line administration utility
for wEdge, before we had named wEdge.
• A tribute to the original DEVNET logo,The Flying
Wedge:

15. Who’s using wEdge?
• 26 counties and 1 city nationwide
• 17 Illinois counties
• ...and more in the hopper!

16. Features

17. Content
• Designed with simplicity in mind (less is more)
• Anything in DEVNET Edge applications can be
shown online.
• There are some things you probably don’t want to
show however.
• Commonly shown: names, site addresses, legals,
taxes due and paid, taxing body breakdowns,
exemptions, assessments, and more.

18. Technical Details
• HTML5 and CSS3 compliant
(standards are good!)
• Javascript
• Perl
• SQL Server
• Runs on Windows or Linux servers

19. Performance Matters!

20. Performance Matters!

21. Performance Matters!
• Searches and page views are cached
by web browser
• Subsequent searches and views talk to
cache, not server
• Cache flushed when web server
database is updated

22. Browser Requirements
• Modern features require modern
browsers
• Chrome 5+
• Firefox 3.5+
• Safari 5+
• Internet Explorer 8+

23. Security
• Redaction of parcels
• No exemption searches
• Injection testing
• SSL for account access

24. Accessibility
• Adheres to US Section 508 accessibility guidelines
• Also adheres to WAI-AAA accessibility standards
• Ensures that your sites are available to the largest
possible group of taxpayers and customers

25. Support

26. What will DEVNET do?
• No charge updates
• No limit to emails, phone calls, etc. for county staff
members
• On site training of county staff
• Bug fixes
• Legislative changes
• Etc. etc. Same level of support as our desktop
applications.

27. What won’t DEVNET do?
• Support your end users
• Support data transfers and infrastructure for
county-hosted sites
• Well, we can do these things, but a block of
support hours must be purchased.

28. Implementation

29. How does it go?
• You sign a contract
• We conduct evaluation of your online goals/needs
• County provides contact individual - one person
who will represent all county stakeholders in the
project
• DEVNET provides site to match needs (some back
and forth here)
• Up to 6 weeks, usually way less

30. Hosting Options
• DEVNET Hosts
• County Hosts

31. DEVNET Hosting
• Preferred option
• Costs the same as county hosting
• We have more in-house hosting experience than
most county IT
• Better facilities than most counties
• DEVNET manages the whole process (data
transfers, applying updates, etc.)

32. County Hosting
• Substantial startup cost (SQL Server,Windows
Server, plus hardware)
• These costs are in addition to what you already
have to run DEVNET software (do NOT run
wEdge sites on your production servers)
• DEVNET does not manage data transfers to the
web server (extra cost)
• DEVNET only supports the app, not the
infrastructure (extra charge)

33. Demo!!!

34. Future Plans

35. Subscriptions
• Free (monitoring) or paid (revenue generation)
• Free subscriptions nice for controlling access to
data
• For revenue generation, give some info for free, all
data for fee
• Collect fees online (certain payment providers
only)
• API for other online services to use

36. Mobility
• Make wEdge sites responsive
• Look and behave equally well on desktops, tablets,
and phones.
• Currently best on desktops, laptops, and iPads.
Other devices are usable to varying degrees.

37. CSV result export

38. CSV result export

39. Tax Bill Reprints
• Get a reprint of your tax bill online
• Currently, for free only
• Investigating opportunities to generate revenue for
counties with this (i.e., continue to generate
duplicate bill fees for this service)

40. Email Notifications
• YES THIS INCLUDES TAX BILLS!!! :)
• Users can sign up for online assessment notices,
notification of tax payments, and much more.
• Flexible system for defining, editing, and sending
emails.

41. Email Notifications

42. Email Notifications

43. Email Notifications

44. Email Notifications

45. Administrative Dashboard

46. More Timely Data Updates
• Transfer database changes, not entire database
• Potential to run multiple times per day

47. Security
• Image redaction by category
• Individual image redaction
• Redaction by name
• Payment redaction options

48. Questions?

49. Thanks!
For more information:
http://www.devnetinc.com
info@devnetinc.com