Provision Public Portal

Setting up new features can be complex and time-consuming. Typically these processes require you to know which standard choices or FIDs you need to update, make the changes in the given environment, then clear cache to let your changes take affect.

For the Public Portal, with the click of a button and a few minutes, agencies are provisioned and can start using the product immediately in the environment(s) they choose.

This is an easy, step-by-step solution to set up your agency’s Public Portal in any environment.

How do I prepare for this step?

Decide as an agency which environment you want to use as your Public Portal testing environment.

Important: When you provision Public Portal in an environment you can not go back to using the Accela Citizen Access (ACA) registration/login/forgot password flow. You also cannot go back to your ACA home page. You can enable and disable the dashboard and permit picker. Select an environment you’re comfortable turning on the home page and public user management.
Note: Accela does not plan to release updates in ACA that will affect the ACA home page in the coming months. If you are concerned with provisioning Public Portal in an environment where you are actively testing ACA, you will still be able to make updates to ACA and test even with the Public Portal home page enabled.
Who should complete this task?

Your agency’s Accela administrator.

How long will this task take?

5-10 minutes

Public Portal auto-provisioning

You can easily provision the Public Portal for your agency. This will replace the Accela Citizen Access interface for your public users and replace it with the updated Public Portal features.

Warning: To more strictly control who can provision Public Portal in staging, FID 0387 is required to view the link for and initiate Public Portal auto-provisioning. After provisioning is complete, FID 0142 will continue to be used to access the Public Portal administration page.

To provision Public Portal

  1. Log in to Civic Platform.

  2. Select the User account menu, then select Administration.

  3. In the Administration menu, select Administration > Public Portal administration.

  4. Select Get started now.

  5. Complete the questions.

    1. Enter your agency name and select Next.

    2. Enter you agency's preferred contact phone number and contact email address for someone a public user can reach out to with registration or log in issues.

    3. Select Next.

    4. Enter a mailing address and select Finish setup.

  6. Select Go to Public Portal Admin.

Go live with the Public Portal

Now you have access to explore Public Portal functionality in Public Portal administration before replacing your Accela Citizen Access (ACA) home page and user management (log in, forget password, registration) with Public Portalin this environment. From there, explore Public Portal administration by adding your branding in the Design tab then configuring your home page cards and testing your links to ACA.

When you are ready to "go live" in staging, this means that you want your ACA home page and user management to be replaced by the Public Portal. Locate the Go Live instructions on the left navigation of Public Portal administration.

To go live with Public Portal

  1. When you are ready to go live with the Public Portal, log in to Civic Platform.

  2. Select the User account menu, then select Administration.

  3. In the Administration menu, select Administration > Public Portal administration.

  4. On the left navigation bar, select Public Portal Go Live.

  5. A popup window displays to start the process to push the new Public Portal home page and user management system to be live for this environment.

    Important: When you push this home page live, your current home page in this environment will be removed and no longer accessible. The new Public Portal home page will replace it. Additionally, you will need to create new public user testing accounts for this environment. Your test users in lower environments will not be migrated. We will migrate your public users in production.

  6. Select the I agree to this change checkbox, then select Go Live.