Setting up a new town
This page is for the person who sets the town up, often the land use clerk or the town administrator. You do not need to know how the server works. Everything here happens under Settings in the staff menu, which only administrators see.
Follow the steps in order. People have to exist before you can name them as reviewers, inspectors or enforcement officers, and the fees and forms are easier to check once the town's name and letterhead are in place.
1. Get the first administrator account
Whoever installed Chiban on the town's server creates the first administrator account from the server itself, with a name, an email address and a password. After that you invite every other person from Settings, Users. If you cannot sign in at all, ask the person who runs the server. The self-hosting page is theirs.
2. Sign in and protect your own account
Sign in with the email address and password you were given. Then open Account and set up an authenticator app, so that a stolen password alone cannot open the administrator account. Passwords and authenticator codes walks through it.
3. Fill in the town's identity
These three pages control what the town's name looks like on every permit, notice and letter, so do them before you preview anything.
- Town profile: the office name, mailing address, phone, email, website, office hours and logo. See town profile, letterhead and signers.
- Letterhead: where the logo sits, the footer line, and whether pages are numbered.
- Signers: who signs permits, orders and letters, with the title that prints under the signature.
Each page has a Put into use button. Nothing changes for anyone until you press it. How changes are saved and put into use explains drafts.
4. Add the boards
Open Settings, Boards and add each board or commission the town runs. A town can have one Planning Board and one Zoning Board of Adjustment, and as many of the other kinds as it needs. Then open Board settings for the newspaper, the website and the places notices are posted. See boards, notices and review committees.
5. Invite the staff
Invite everyone who will work in Chiban and give each person the roles they need. Do this before the later steps that ask you to pick a person from a list: the reviewers on a review committee route, the inspectors whose calendars receive invites, and the officers who may issue cease and desist orders. See inviting staff.
6. Adopt the starters you need
A starter is a ready-made permit or board application: its form, fees, conditions, checklists, letters and deadlines. Adopt the ones the town offers, then replace the example fees with the town's own. The starter catalog lists what each one contains, and adopting starters and taking updates covers the steps.
7. Read through what you adopted
Open each adopted permit's form, fee schedule and letters, and change what does not match how the office works. Use the previews: Preview as applicant on a form, the worked example on a fee, and the sample on a letter. See application types and workflow and forms, fee schedules and letters. Check the wording of the emails Chiban sends under Notification wording too. See wording of emails.
8. Check the town rules
Chiban starts from the values state law gives. Look at State law to see which values the town is allowed to change, and set the town's own only where it has adopted something different. See state law, town rules and local code.
9. Bring in the parcels and owners
Parcels and owners come from the town's maps and the assessing office's file, not from Settings. See loading owners from the assessing file. If the town keeps a permit ledger in a spreadsheet, see loading an old permit ledger. If the assessing office numbers parcels differently from the map, set up Parcel ID formats first. See parcel ID formats.
10. Set the inspection schedule
Choose the days and hours inspections can be booked, and where each inspector's calendar invites go. See the inspection schedule.
11. Connect card payments, when you are ready
Online and counter card payments need a processor account. Cash and check are separate payment methods at the counter and are not part of this step. See card payments.
12. Designate enforcement officers
Record each person the board has authorized to issue cease and desist orders. See enforcement officers.
13. Look at Health
Open Settings, Health and check that no job is flagged and that the town has an alert channel. See the Health page.
14. Anonymous complaints come last
Anonymous intake stays off until the person who runs the server has run a check and it has passed. Decide whether the town wants it at all. See anonymous complaints.
Before you announce it
Take one application of each type through the counter yourself, from taking the application to issuing the permit, and read the letters it prints. Residents see the adopted application types as soon as they are in use, so do this before the town tells the public Chiban is open.