PlanSA's ePlanning platform is routinely updated to introduce new functionality, enhance the customer experience and address technical issues.
After each update, changes are documented as release notes and published on PlanSA.
PlanSA components
PlanSA's ePlanning platform is made up of different online components:
November 2020
A record of releases in November 2020 are listed below.
DAP
| Fixes | |
|---|---|
| Certificate of Occupancy | The questions relating to Maximum Occupants, Fire Report, and Essessential Safety Provisions (ESPs) are not available when a Certificate of Occupancy (CoO) application has only a class 1A building / building work. |
| Take Control of an Application | In the 'Access an application submitted by someone else' screen when the applicant takes control of the application by click the Home button it now returns to the Your Application dashboard. |
| Batch Payment | When Creating a Batch Payment if an invalid Fee is selected (e.g. Variation Fee advice) the system identifies this as an invalid selection, and the Create Batch Payment button is disabled. |
| Staged Building Consents | Ability to edit the Stage 'description' within the Building Consent Summary tab during building rules assessment. |
| Staged Building Consents | The Nature of Development page in Building Consent Verification will now show the current stage 'number' and 'description' with the ability to edit the description. |
| Staged Building Consents | When granting a building consent that has stages, the applicable stage descriptions will be displayed in the Decision Notification Form (DNF) under the IN REGARD TO: section. |
| Development Approval | When granting Development Approval that has staged consents, all consent stages will be displayed in the IN REGARD TO: section of the Decision Notification Form (DNF). |
| RAP Correspondence Contact Details | The system generated emails and letters for a Consent where the Relevant Authority is a Regional Assessment Panel (RAP) and an Assessing Officer has been 'allocated', will include the Assessing Officer’s contact details in the Email/Letter Signature. The system generated emails and letters for a Consent where the Relevant Authority is a Regional Assessment Panel (RAP) and an Assessing Officer has' not been allocated', will include the contact details of the Council of the Development Location in the Email/Letter Signature. |
| RAP Correspondence Contact Details | The system generated emails and letters for an application where the Relevant Authority is a Regional Assessment Panel (RAP), will include the contact details of the Council of the Development Location in the Email/Letter Signature. |
| RAP Correspondence Contact Details | In the table 'Contact Details of Consent Authorities' section of the Decision Notification Form (DNF) when the Relevant Authority is a Regional Assessment Panel, will include the contact details of the Council of the Development Location. |
| Submission - Elements | During the application submission when element 'Change of Building Classification' is selected, Class 7 expanded plus 10C included as an option in the drop-down menu for "What is the existing building classification question?” and “what is the proposed building classification question”. |
Power BPI Report
| Fixes | |
|---|---|
| Receipts Report | In the Receipts Report a Payment Reference column has been added and the Invoice Reference column name has been updated to read 'Payment Reference'. |
DAP system
| Features | |
|---|---|
| Batch payment | Ability to view all development application fees that are currently outstanding with the option to make payment in one batch by credit card. |
| Fees | When a relevant authority is determining the consent or development approval fees they now have the capability to view previously paid fees to ensure all relevant fees have been invoiced. |
| Fixes | |
| Submission | The 'Take Control' email will only be sent when the "I am submitting this application on behalf of the applicant(s)" is checked by the relevant authority. |
| Submission | When the relevant authority is completing the Applicants page during submission, the 'I am submitting this application on behalf of the applicant(s)' is set as default. |
| Fee payment email notification | Improved the wording in the 'Payment Successful' email notification to the relevant authority to include; development application ID number, and the name of the consent under assessment. |
PlanSA portal
| Fixes | |
|---|---|
DAP Log-in | When you login to the PlanSA portal you will now see four login options that are applicable to what you want to do in the portal. They are:
|
October 2020
A record of releases in October 2020 are listed below.
DAP system
| Features | |
|---|---|
| Code to DAP | When verifying Planning and/or Land Division Consent the applicable Policy Part/s of the Planning and Design Code (for all assessment pathways) for each element is available as a PDF document link within the Category of Development page and accessible within the Document store. When a development application is lodged a second snapshot of the applicable P&D Code Rules is taken for the assessment pathway determined for each element (e.g. deemed-to-satisfy, performance assessed) and is available as a PDF document link within the Documents store. |
| Advance Search | Date of referral distribution' field provides the ability to search by Referral Body and determine the number of referrals in the DAP system for a selected date range. |
| Fixes | |
| Building Consent | For development cost less than $12,000 the question 'Has the applicant entered into a building works contract?' will not display within the Building or Building Work screen. |
| Referral | When Council is the referral body the Response Type has been corrected to show Regulation 23(2)(b). |
DAP system
| Features | |
|---|---|
| Document Store | An indicator to identify a document has been superseded is now available within the Documents store for the applicant. |
| Development Approval | Ability to capture building supplementary information in relation to whether the building is detached (free standing) or attached to another building or structure. |
| Fixes | |
| Development Approval | Ability to process an invoice refund for fees incorrectly invoiced and paid during Development Approval. |
PlanSA portal
| Features | |
|---|---|
| Development Approval Wizard | Ability to search an address with the SAPPA tool from the What is the property? question. |
| Fixes | |
| Development Approval Wizard | Updated the rules for 'Deck' - Bushfire Outback (Regional) to advise the applicant 'You may not need approval' instead of ‘You will need to apply for approval'. |
DAP system
| Fixes | |
|---|---|
| Request for Information (RFIs) |
In the RFIs page and the Further Information Requests table the wording for the action "Make decision" has been updated to read "Evaluate RFI response". Updated the naming of the "Generate request for additional documentation document" link to read "Generate request for additional information document" and the associated word template 'request for information' is now linked. |
| Document store |
A filter will not appear if there are no related documents. For example, if there is no email document, then the System-Generated Emails filter button is hidden. |
| Building Notification | Council who issued the development approval will now receive the mandatory building notification email. |
| Fee Refund | When determining a fee refund the amount to refund (GST inclusive) will now automatically default to the Total Paid amount. |
| Development Approval | When placing a development approval on hold, the Reason for placing on hold field character limit has been increased from 250 characters to 4000 characters. |
PlanSA portal
| Fixes | |
|---|---|
| Resources | When you select 'Design' as the filter by topic within the Resources page, the search will return documents specific to 'Design'. |
| Feature | |
| Release Notes | A link to the Release Notes is available from the PlanSA footer by clicking on the word 'Release' located to the right of the 'News' link. |
DAP system
| New features | |
|---|---|
| Building Notifications | The full description of the building work activity is now displayed in the Notification column within Building Notifications tab. |
| Certificate of Occupancy | New feature to request and issue a Certificate of Occupancy (CoO) for all new buildings Class 1 to 9 (and building work where applicable) to provide the owner assurance the building is suitable for occupancy. |
| Development Approval | Ability to capture supplementary information in relation to Frame Material, Wall Material and Roof Material within the Statistics tab during development approval. |
PowerBI Report
| Fixes | |
|---|---|
| Daily Till Report | Payments received for development approval over the counter and receipted in the DAP system are now accounted for in the Daily Till Report. |
September 2020
A record of releases in September 2020 are listed below.
DAP system
| New features | |
|---|---|
| Fees | To assist with identifying overridden fees for auditing purposes, now have the ability to override a fee amount to $0 and provide a reason. |
| Reporting | Public Notification Days Left Report displays a list of applications with 5 business days or less left on public notification. |
| Reporting | Relevant Authority Referral Response Days Left Report displays a list of applications with 2 business days or less left for a Relevant Authority to respond to referral(s). |
| Reporting | Allocated Applications Report displays applications with allocated assessor(s) against consents and development approvals. |
| Reporting | Referral Agency Response Days Left Report displays a list of referrals with 5 business days or less left for response. |
| Fixes | |
| Contact details | Removed 'other' from appearing as a contact salutation within correspondence. |
PowerBI Report
| New features | |
|---|---|
Workload Analysis Report | Workload Analysis Report for Relevant Authorities containing three reporting tabs: Relevant Authority Reason Report displays a list of consents currently under assessment by Relevant Authority. End of Operative Period Report displays a list of applications with consents that have reached the end of their operative period. Mandatory Building Notifications Report displays a list of building notifications grouped by stage and then building / building work requiring an inspection. |
DAP system
| New features | |
|---|---|
| Reporting | A Reporting button located within the dashboard image on the right hand side is now available to access and generate the Unallocated Applications, Days Left to Decision, and Days left in Verification reports. |
| Reporting | The Unallocated Applications Report displays a list of applications without an allocated assessor. |
| Reporting | The Days Left to Decision Report displays a list of applications with 5 business days or less remaining for a decision to be made. |
| Reporting | The Days Left in Verification Report displays a list of applications with 5 business days or less left in the verification stage. |
| Fee advice, refund advice and tax invoice | The fees are now grouped under the applicable fee category, i.e. Planning, Land Division, Building, Compliance and Referral in the Fee Advice, Refund Advice and Tax Invoice, to assist the recipient in identifying the breakdown of the fees in assessing their development application. |
| Fixes | |
| Allocated user display | When you hold the mouse over the ‘Who’ icon in the For Your Action, Assessment in Progress and Waiting tabs, it will display the name of the person currently undertaking the next task in the active consent. |
DAP system
| New features | |
|---|---|
| Development approval | An on screen message will instruct that Stamped Plans must be uploaded in the ‘Documents’ store before development approval can be granted. |
| Decision and development approval | The authority can preview a 'draft' version of the Decision Notification Form (DNF) in a PDF format before a decision is made for the Consent or Development Approval. |
| Development approval | The contact details for the Relevant Authority and primary contact can be viewed from the Development Approval 'Summary' screen. |
| Fixes | |
| Submission | An on screen warning message displays when the Element Other - Residential, Commercial, Community, Infrastructure and Rural description exceeds the maximum number of characters (500). |
| Consents | When granted consents are inconsistent the Relevant Authority who granted the last consent now has the ability to edit reserved matters, conditions |
| Document upload | An on screen warning message displays when uploading a document that exceeds the maximum file size limit of 70MB. |
August 2020
A record of releases in August 2020 are listed below.
DAP system
| New features | |
|---|---|
| For your action | New action ‘Awaiting Refund Endorsement’ is visible in the financial approvers For Your Action tab, when an assessing officer has requested the endorsement of fee refund. |
| For your action | New action ‘Refund Endorsement Refused’ is visible in the assessing officer’s For Your Action tab, when the financial approver does not endorse the fee refund. |
| For your action | New action ‘Respond to Internal Referral Request’ is visible in the nominated recipients For Your Action tab, when an assessing officer has requested internal advice. |
| For your action | New action ‘Internal Referral Response Received’ is visible in the initiator’s For Your Action tab, when the recipient responds to the request. |
| For your action | New action ‘Respond to Decision Endorsement Request’ is visible in the nominated recipients For Your Action tab, when an assessing officer is requesting endorsement of an assessed consent decision. |
| For your action | New action ‘Decision Endorsement Refused’ is visible in the assessing officer’s For Your Action tab, when the nominated financial approver does not endorse the decision. |
| For your action | When a development application has multiple actions to be completed, then the most urgent action will be displayed in the For Your Action tab. |
| For your action | Ability to view multiple actions for completion from the development application Status Detail from the For Your Action tab and the Summary page, including the timeframe for completion clock with the number of business days (as applicable). |
| Referrals | New capability to reassign an internal referral request from one team member to another. |
| Refunds | New capability to reassign the endorsement of a refund request from one team member to another. |
| Decision | New capability to reassign the endorsement of decision from one team member to another. |
| Fixes | |
| Dashboard display | Increased the number of development applications displayed from 5 to 10 for each dashboard tab; For Your Action, Assessments in Progress, Waiting, Upcoming and Building Notifications. |
DAP system
A new process is available to manage transitional applications seeking Building Consent where Planning Consent and/or Land Division Consent has previously been granted under the Development Act 1993.
| New features | |
|---|---|
| Submission | New question added to capture whether a Planning Consent and/or Land Division Consent has already been granted prior to 31 July 2020 under the Development Act 1993 for transitional applications. |
| If a transitional application has had a consent granted under the Development Act 1993, there is the ability to input the Application Number and Date Granted for that consent. | |
| New document categories added to cater for transitional applications, including Decision Notification Forms and Stamped Plans which are flagged as mandatory. The applicant cannot submit their application until they have uploaded both of these documents for the previous consent(s) granted under the Development Act 1993. | |
| Organisation conditions and notes | Added standard condition and note "Please see DNF for existing Application Number" for both Planning Consent and Land Division Consent. |
| Section 7 report | Format changed from PDF to Word enabling the ability to add comments as required. |
| Fixes | |
| Email notifications | Email notifications sent to the relevant authority are now sent to the assigned assessor's individual email, rather than their organisation's group mailbox. If no individual assessor has been assigned, the email notification is sent to the organisation's group mailbox as per previously. |
DAP system
| New features | |
|---|---|
| Mandatory building notifications | The Statement of Compliance is available as a Word document template when submitting the final mandatory building notification. |
| Essential safety provisions (ESPs) | New question "Is a Form 1 - Schedule of ESPs installed or to be installed required?" has been added. |
| Assessment information | The Number of Occupants field is now visible for building classes 1b and 2-9 and hidden for building classes 1a, 10a, 10b and 10c. |
| New response option Not applicable for this stage added to the question "Is Certificate of Occupany Required?". | |
Building Class 7 now split into two class categories:
| |
| Decision | Option added to indicate if a performance solution forms part of the building assessment and if so provides advice that upload of performance solution documentation is required. |
| Submission | Ability to add multiple builders or contractors contact details. |
| Fixes | |
| Assessment information | Correction of the Building Class 2 description to "Building containing two or more sole occupancy units". |
| Correction of the Building Class 6 description to "Shop or other building used for the sale of goods by retail or the supply of services direct to the public". | |
| Correction of the Building Class 9c description to "Residential care buildilng". | |
| Submission | Change of wording to read "Is the development being constructed by an Owner Builder?" |