New app for Town of BWG could be available as early as next spring

In the Committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday night, Community Relations Officer, Caleigh Clubine made a presentation on behalf of BWG Staff to council members about a new customer relationship management system and app that, if approved, could be launched this spring.

Clubine made a visual presentation showcasing the current app used by the Town of Ajax. The app would feature all the same data as the Town of BWG’s main website, allowing clients to interact with town staff more easily.

She noted the Town of BWG would be able to customize the design of the app, creating a user-friendly interface for residents, with a new reporting tool to send issues and concerns to the town.

Clients would be able to download the app to find information about town events, by-laws, taxes and parking– the same information that can be found on the town’s website as well as direct any concerns they have with the town directly, with the option of creating a profile in order to receive updates on their issue.

“As you know we get a lot of messages back from people inquiring about their issue,” she explained to council.

Staff will be able to assign issues from residents to certain staff members and have them expedited easily tracked.

If residents do not want to download the app, they will still be able to use the new reporting feature on the town’s website, or address their concerns via phone or in-person.

“And that’s absolutely fine, we will continue to support that,” Clubine explained.

The request for the project would be funded either through provincial funding that the town has already received, or it would be considered during budget deliberations. The cost for the program to run would be $50,000 over a five year period. At this time, no money has been allocated towards the project.

Clubine noted that this project is still in the early stages of development and would require much work before going live.

“There is the process of purchasing it, setting it up with all of the functions we want it to have and the workflows needed for assigning tasks, then a beta test with employees followed by a progressive rollout to the public,” she explained.

Council members were enthused with the idea.

“It’s fantastic, I love it and I can't wait,” said Coun. Mark Contois.

Coun. Sandhu inquired about the possibility of adding advertising to the app for local businesses.

“I like the idea and it’s going to be good. Is there an option if someone wants to put their ad on it and get some revenue?”

Clubine said that it would be “technologically possible” to add advertisements to the app.

Deputy Mayor James Leduc had concerns about the security surrounding the new app.

“This is a third party provider, they are going to have a lot of access to our computer system. What’s our security safety here?”

Clubine confirmed that the third parties had “no access whatsoever” and the data is housed in Canada.

Contois was concerned about privacy issues for residents using the app.

“Are there any legalities, especially putting someone's address or name for public viewing for something like this?” he asked.

Clubine confirmed none of that data would be viewable to the public.

Council received the information and have two weeks to reconsider their decision.