# Community Development
What to Automate in Permitting, and What to Leave to Staff
Learn which permitting tasks are suited for automation and AI, which decisions should remain with staff, and how to choose a practical first workflow.
Get the Guide
Permitting can slow down even when a project is straightforward, especially when staff have to piece together information from disconnected systems and keep applications moving by hand. This guide explores how automation and AI can ease that administrative work while leaving decisions that require professional judgment to qualified staff.
What you’ll find inside:
- Why manual handoffs, incomplete submissions, and disconnected records create avoidable permitting delays
- Which intake, routing, reminder, scheduling, and notification tasks are suited for workflow automation
- How AI can help applicants identify potential omissions and help reviewers locate possible plan issues or changes
- Which permitting responsibilities should remain with staff and how to keep people responsible for final decisions
- How connected project records can improve coordination across departments and provide clearer status information to residents
- Five steps for selecting, mapping, measuring, and evaluating a first automation project
Download the guide to identify practical ways to reduce repetitive administrative work, protect staff time for reviews and inspections, and help projects move through the required process with fewer preventable delays.