Better Way Found

Cliff was introduced to APX in 2018 and immediately felt that he had found a solution to his most pressing need: preplanning. Furthermore, the solution facilitated getting the best information about buildings to the truck companies in the easiest, fastest, and most efficient way.

“When I was first introduced to APX, I immediately saw how it solved the issues affecting the districts ability to do preplanning. I thought to myself, with an app in the truck and apps in the hands of inspectors, everything being updated in real time, that was perfect,” said Cliff.

To Cliff’s surprise, the CityScape suite also included inspection functionality, and was being employed by other fire departments as part of the preplanning process. “I immediately started thinking about how my guys could do the same, killing two birds with one stone. In doing so, other benefits started to surface. For example, contact information, collected during inspections, allows us to contact a building owner ourselves rather than depending on dispatch to do it for us,” said Cliff.

A full deployment of the APX platform could have solved Florissant Valley’s preplanning and inspections problems right away. However, implementing new solutions and technologies has always been a challenge for the public sector. Human, systematic or budgetary considerations always need to be factored into the process. APX Sales and Customer Success worked alongside Cliff to develop a solution that could help Florissant Valley grow over time into their overall required solution, starting with three SmartCapture licenses. This allowed the department to introduce and benefit from new technology, through digital preplans of their current 1500 buildings, while remaining within the discretionary spending budget.  

The second phase of the plan included the introduction of SmartInspect to the teams creating preplans. The third phase will include a much broader rollout, including a device with SmartCapture in every truck and the introduction of SmartView, an app that provides rapid and easy access to information for every battalion chief. “The firetruck companies can go out and they can perform a preplan on particular buildings for training using SmartCapture, or they can use it to pull the preplan up in the case of an incident. But a Battalion Chief just needs to see the information and share it with others, so SmartView is perfect for them,” noted Cliff.

From Paper to Digital

The APX CityScape suite is a technologically advanced mobile platform created with the user in mind and backed by world-class support. APX customers can go from paper to digital within 24 hours, and are fully operational in 30 days. Such was the case with Florissant Valley, who worked with APX customer success on a quick and easy implementation.

“I’m not the most advanced computer user in the world, but the guys at APX were great in getting us going and helping us as we climbed the learning curve. If there were any questions or issues, I could just pick up a phone and call. I can’t thank them enough for the effort and help,” said Cliff.

In addition to the quick roll out, inspection time was cut by 33% and the goal of preplans for 1500 of the buildings was easily met. For Cliff, the continued goal is to provide the same level of preplans with at least seven inspections per day. “Being able to do both at the same time will allow us to far exceed those goals,” said Cliff.

Getting the Word Out

While the plan for Florissant Valley is a continued expansion on the CityScape platform, Cliff has become a champion of moving other districts into the 21st Century. He has already helped introduce APX to neighbouring departments in Missouri. “Everybody wants dependable technology, and on that note, APX has been good to me. But the way they have stood by me throughout the implementation, the way they have served us up until now, really makes them different. I have nothing but good things to say about the whole experience and results to date,” said Cliff.