CivicPlus Portal FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the CivicPlus Portal?

The CivicPlus Portal is the online starting point for residents to complete vital interactions with their local government. From paying utilities to registering a pet, from signing up for a recreation league to watching a recording of a recent public meeting, Portal streamlines the online civic experience and eliminates barriers to revenue-generating resident services.

Learn more about the current CivicPlus Portal functionality. 

How do I enable the CivicPlus Portal for my organization?

Fill out the CivicPlus Portal enablement form to get started. 

How can I drive traffic to my Portal?

You can update links on your website to drive traffic to Portal and increase resident user adoption. Below are some example use cases:

• Payments (Quick Links): You can create links to important pages on your website or other external sites and organize them using pre-configured categories. For example, you may want to centralize Online Payment links from various pages on your website in the Portal’s “Payments” quick links category. You could then update your main “Payments” link to direct public users to the “Payments” section of the Portal.
• Forms: The consolidated Forms listing in Portal automatically lists all published forms in your Web Central Form Center module and CivicOptimize site. Portal admins can complement this listing with links to external forms, then update main “Forms” links to direct public users to the “Forms” section of Portal. Forms that are configured to take payments also show in the “Payments” category.
• Subscription Lists: Resident users can subscribe and unsubscribe to notifications from within the Portal. You can update your main “Notifications” link to direct public users to the “Subscriptions” section of the Portal.
• Agendas & Meetings: You could update your “Agendas & Minutes” link to direct users to the Agendas & Minutes tab of the CivicPlus Portal, loading the new CivicClerk public portal and remaining embedded in your website for an improved user experience.
• Submit a 311 Request: You could update your "SeeClickFix” or “Submit a Request” link to direct users to the Submit a Request tab of the CivicPlus portal, loading the SeeClickFix request page and remaining embedded in your website for an improved user experience.
• Sign up for Alerts: You could update your "Sign up for Alerts” link to direct users to sign up for Notifications using the Alerts tab of the CivicPlus portal, loading the CivicReady sign-up page and remaining embedded in your website for an improved user experience.

Learn more on the Directing Website Traffic to the CivicPlus Portal article. 

Our organization only has a website from CivicPlus, how can we benefit from Portal?

The CivicPlus Portal offers the following benefits for website-only customers:

• Quick Links: Provides an updated visual appearance for important links (Payments, etc.) that can be lost or distributed across many pages on content-heavy websites.
• Centralized Forms (Web Central): The Forms listing allows Portal admins to create links to external forms that show in the same listing as Web Central Form Center forms, also giving resident users the ability to bookmark frequently used forms.
• Subscription Lists: Portal improves the resident user experience around website subscription lists (powered by CivicPlus Notifications for Web Evolve and Web Open customers, and Notify Me for Web Central customers). Customers that leverage Portal improve that user experience by allowing resident users to control subscription list preferences while remaining on their website.

Portal also provides the potential for expanded functionality should you purchase an additional CivicPlus solution in the future, with no additional effort on your part.

Our organization doesn't have a CivicPlus website, how can we benefit from Portal?

The Portal can still be used as a standalone application if don’t have a CivicPlus website solution. It can be linked to from your third-party website.

What is the current Portal functionality?

We are continuing to enhance and update the CivicPlus Portal. For a list of current features, view the CivicPlus Portal Overview article.