Government Scheduling Software: What to Look For

Anyone who works in a government administrative role recognizes that scheduling is a frequent task that ends up draining valuable time out of the work day. Manually scheduling recurring tasks is especially time consuming, because it's a tedious, repetitive process that is ultimately inefficient. 

Manual scheduling often leads to Inconvenient roadblocks, especially for large departments, due to inevitable human error. Even the most organized government departments can have tasks slip through the cracks and have absent minded mistakes occur when a person is the one designating tasks to government workers.

Municipal services like government scheduling software automates scheduling processes across all government departments to not only save your office valuable time, but ensure workers are held accountable to get all of their tasks completed. 

Follow along for everything you need to know as a newly elected government official or a veteran, about what government scheduling software is and how it can eliminate time waste and make scheduling for your municipality easier and more efficient. 

What is Government Scheduling Software? 

Government scheduling software is a tool for automating the scheduling processes needed for executing government processes. The government technology assigns tasks to relevant government workers for you, digitally coordinating interdepartmental employees and automatically updating and scheduling recurring tasks.

Timestamps are automatically added to every government project assignment, to ensure that government workers are accountable for completing their assigned tasks.

Why Should Governments Use Scheduling Software Instead of Manual Scheduling?

While it could simply be said that scheduling software takes all the hard work out of scheduling, there are various reasons that scheduling software is superior to manually creating schedules.

The Problems with Manual Scheduling

• Manual scheduling is time consuming: 

Why waste hours of your precious work day creating a detailed schedule by hand when it can be made for you and coordinated with other departments, automatically?  

• Manual scheduling leads to mistakes:

Scheduling errors can occur when a human is involved, no matter how organized an employee is. Mistakes in a schedule can completely disrupt an office’s workflow. Not only can the timing of important deadlines be disrupted, but appointments scheduled for citizens and government employees alike can be double booked, or even forgotten about completely when a schedule is made manually.

• Manual scheduling doesn’t provide automated status updates: 

Scheduling software automatically sends digital notifications to employees when changes are made to their schedule. Without scheduling software, everyone in a workplace has to rely on word of mouth to be updated about schedule changes, which is often unreliable and causes mistakes to be made and time to be wasted. 

• Manual scheduling leads to disorganized operations: 

Regardless of department, manual scheduling is often harder to communicate to employees or be effectively carried out. Officials like inspectors and DPW employees deserve to be updated about scheduling changes in real time with a digital access to their schedules. 

The Benefits of Using Scheduling Software

Scheduling software simplifies the process of organizing your workplace tremendously, and has many benefits that will save you time and hassle. Some of the benefits are listed below: 

1. Streamlined Scheduling of Government Employee Work Schedules

No matter how many employees your local government needs to operate, scheduling software can create all of their schedules in minutes, including any modifications that need to be made to account for vacation or sick time. The automated scheduling software can also notify the employees when their schedules are released or updated. 

2. Timestamps for Improved Government Accountability

Each new task is time stamped as soon as it is assigned to a government employee. Tasks won’t slip through the cracks, as government officials and their bosses will see that the task is incomplete if it isn’t finalized.

Holding government employees accountable is extremely important to ensure processes are running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Scheduling software can monitor an employee's progress with a task, so leadership can see if a project has been completed and how long it took to complete. 

3. Simplified Digital Communications 

Your local governments online communication efforts will be greatly improved with the addition of scheduling software, as schedules will be shared and coordinated automatically across all departments. 

• Department-wide communications are easier to facilitate because the entire department is operating with synced schedules that are updated to reflect any real time updates. 

• Government-wide communications are improved because every official, regardless of department, is utilizing a government-wide platform that allows them to reach out to other relevant departments and employees with just a few clicks. 
• Citizen communications are simplified with scheduling software notifying citizens when a task like a government inspection or other government service involving their home or business is scheduled. 

How Does Government Scheduling Software Work Across Departments? 

Government scheduling software works across every municipal and county department. Listed below are the specific improvements each governmental department will benefit from with the use of government scheduling software:

1. Clerk's Office

• Citizens can virtually book appointments directly from your government website to obtain various licenses, permits, and book events
• Automatically scheduled reminders will notify citizens or businesses about paperwork that is due by approaching deadlines. 
• Submission of documents from open records requests can be scheduled and then automatically distributed to citizens who requested them. 
• Schedule RFP notifications that can be sent to all relevant private-sector partners when a relevant government project arises to encourage them to place a bid.  

Learn more about How GovPilot’s Government Permitting Software Works. 

2. IT Department

• IT professionals often spend a large amount of time scheduling IT tasks as issues arise. IT Ticketing software will automate the scheduling process and assign new tasks to officials as they come in.
• IT tickets are time stamped as soon as they’re assigned, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks and that IT officials are motivated to complete all assignments. 

3. Department of Public Works (DPW)

• Schedule recurring maintenance checks of public infrastructure and public assets so that maintaining important public infrastructure doesn’t slip through the cracks. 
• Schedule inspections of assets like vehicles and physical infrastructure; the schedules can be automatically sent to the relevant municipal workers that can carry out the inspections. Learn more about How to Modernize Government Fleet Management. 

4. Administration / City Management / City Council

• Schedule public meetings, government appointments, and inspections with the scheduling software. Notify constituents automatically when public meeting schedules are updated. Government appointment scheduling has never been this easy; take advantage of this better way of scheduling public events.
• City management can see data on which processes are moving efficiently versus slowly to factor into future government strategic planning decisions.
• Consider creating a Capital Improvement Plan, or CIP, for coordinating budgets, schedules, locations, and other logistic aspects for upcoming infrastructure projects in a community.

5. Parks & Rec

• Public events can be scheduled online  without any need for physical paperwork. Both citizens and government employees will be able to check out the details of public events online. 
• Let citizens book public spaces virtually through the online scheduling software to save time and eliminate the possibility of double-booking spaces. 

6. Court House

• Schedule in-person & virtual hearings to ensure the court operates with the most time efficient system. 

• Automate appeal scheduling with online appeal request submissions from citizens.
• Have government technology automatically pass over court documents when requested.

7. Building & Construction 

• Schedule building inspections to ensure no inspection dates are forgotten or overlooked. 
• Automatic assignment of permit/license application reviews to government employees so that they can be processed by the correct department as quickly as possible. 
  

8. Health Department

• Schedule health inspections online and track how long the inspections take.
• Let local businesses request inspections from your government website.

9. Code Enforcement / Law Enforcement

• Schedule tasks delegated to code enforcement officials to be addressed in a time-efficient manner. 
• Report a concern software allows citizens to file reports pertaining to community issues that go directly to their local government offices. This software will schedule a task for something like a parking violation and assign it to the relevant government worker to address with a pin of the exact location on  a GIS map. 
• Inspections can be scheduled and followed up on via a mobile inspection app such as GovInspect.

Modernize Scheduling in Your Locality

When it comes to time management, it has never been more vital to take advantage of technology in every aspect of your local government. GovPilot makes modernizing scheduling processes simple with software for government workers and citizens alike. 

Use modern local government scheduling software in your locality to improve the workflows of every department, save time, and ensure meetings and appointments are organized with ease. 

Book a consultation with professionals at GovPilot to learn about all of the ways your municipality can be improved through the use of government scheduling software. 

Government Scheduling Software FAQS

What is Government Scheduling Software? 

Government scheduling software is technology for managing all aspects of scheduling within a local government. The government technology will automate scheduling processes across departments along with timestamps to hold government workers accountable. Citizens can book public spaces, request inspections, and schedule other common public services directly from a government website. 

What Types of Tasks Can Government Scheduling Software Help With? 

Government scheduling software can improve your locality by creating employee work schedules, pre-scheduling recurring tasks/inspections, automatically managing appointments, recording timestamps for in-progress tasks, and coordinating interdepartmental communication.

Why are Good Scheduling Processes Key to Local Government Success? 

Efficient scheduling processes are key to the success of a local government because time is extremely valuable to public officials; inefficient scheduling practices, such as manual scheduling, are a major waste of time. It is also vital that local government schedules are synced interdepartmentally to eliminate any possible confusion between departments. Government management software automates scheduling processes and automatically syncs calendars across departments for streamlined communications.