The Washington, D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) has selected Accela Automation from Accela, Inc. to enhance and improve its IT infrastructure and the information available to the public via the ABRA Web site.

The agency is replacing a legacy system and joins the Department of Health and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs as the third agency in the District to select Accela Automation to provide staff, businesses, residents, and visitors a more user-friendly, easily accessible system to conduct business via the Internet.

ABRA has responsibility for issuing alcoholic beverage licenses and permits and conducting inspections and investigations involved with determining violations and enforcing regulation compliance. Its primary goals are to improve one-stop business service to customers seeking licenses, improve processes for issuing licenses, and provide better public access to licensing, enforcement, and adjudications records information.

The suite of Accela applications that will be deployed include:

Accela Licensing & Case Management(TM) automates and fully integrates a wide range of licensing and case management processes for regulatory agencies, including occupational and professional licensing, contractor registrations, health professional licensing, alcoholic beverage permits, and much more. It supports document management, automated license renewal, and flexibility in creating unlimited types of licenses based on an agency's unique regulations, requirements, and internal procedures.

Accela GIS(TM) seamlessly integrates with Accela Automation to aid enforcement activities by providing powerful real-time visual analysis of all land-use, zoning, and enforcement information associated with a property or license. It allows creation of multiple map layers, automated map analysis, and selection of radius buffers for license area limits to e-mail or print notifications. It is built on the ArcIMS(TM) platform by ESRI.

Accela Wireless(TM) is a mobile government software application that integrates field investigation capabilities. It ensures field staff has access to license and enforcement information and is able to collect and upload critical data, photos, and documents and pass them on to other agents. Optimized for Intel Centrino Mobile Technology, Accela Wireless is compatible with PDAs, laptops, and Tablet PCs running on the Microsoft Pocket PC 2003, Windows Mobile 5, Windows 2000, or Windows XP operating systems.

Accela Citizen Access(TM) provides real-time, direct access via the Internet to government services and information. Citizens and licensees have access to apply, renew, and pay for licenses and permits, check their status, and look up regulatory information directly from the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"Accela welcomes ABRA as a new client and we look forward to providing the agency with the best technology available to meet its objectives," said Maury Blackman, Accela president and CEO. "It is very gratifying to see the District of Columbia utilize Accela Automation across agencies and users as it was designed to do. It will provide a blueprint for other jurisdictions looking to coordinate information and services to better serve the public."

About ABRA

ABRA is an independent District of Columbia government regulatory agency that was established in 2001. Prior to that, ABRA was a division of the District's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. For more information about ABRA, please visit http://abra.dc.gov/abra/site/default.asp.

About Accela

Accela provides innovative, Web-based enterprise software solutions that automate land, permit, and asset management processes for local, state, and federal government agencies of all sizes. Backed by nearly 30 years of development and implementation in more than 500 agencies in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico, Accela products and services empower agencies to increase efficiencies, reduce workload, and provide citizens and businesses with more convenient access to government services. Accela is located in San Ramon, Calif. Accela products can be purchased directly from the GSA Schedule Contract #GS-35F-0249R. For more information, please visit www.accela.com.