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OpenForms Use Case: Application Forms

Apply for a job. Ask for an extension on a payment. Secure a planning application.

For a resident to initiate most city-related business, it means submitting an application. Taking the application process online removes the inefficiency and complexity from paper forms and manual tasks.

Smart form features

OpenForms uses smart features to let you condense long forms into more manageable ones, use autofill or conditional logic to minimise the opportunity for errors, and keep inaccurate or incomplete applications from making it into your staff’s workflow.

Streamline workflows

OpenForms lets you move and track an application through the review and approval process, capture digital signatures, provide status notifications to submitters and more.

OpenForms Use Case: Application Forms

Application form success story

The Building and Planning team, at the City of Tea Tree Gully (CTTG), leveraged OpenForms to digitise one of the most complex processes in any council – development applications. Like many local governments, DA’s were a very manual process, with many steps and touchpoints for both City staff and residents. CTTG’s planning team received a large number of documents for every planning application, which needed to be manually checked and stitched together before being registered in the DMS system and assigned a case number. With OpenForms, CTTG digitised the entire process, automatically assembling and registering applications within DMS without human effort.


Things that would have traditionally taken us a long time, like calculating costs, processing payments and lodging requests into our records management system, is now all automated with OpenForms.”

Chris Campbell, City of Tea Tree Gully


Every autumn, NGSC gets an influx of applications for burn-off permits. Applicants who lived an hour or more from a customer service centre had to travel there to apply for the permit and then wait for it to be posted. Often, this required another trip if the application wasn’t approved or the form wasn’t filled out correctly. After converting this service to OpenForms, 90% of applicants chose to apply online and receive permits electronically. This has been a huge time saver, slashing the time staff spent at the customer service counter, helping residents and deciphering application information. OpenForms made the entire application process more efficient. And the best part is that by making the service digital, NGSC can offer electronic permit delivery.”

Matthew Tulloch, Northern Grampians Shire Council


Explore more ways to use OpenForms: