In the coming months, town public works crews will be going paperless — at least as far as their work orders and job tracking is concerned.

At the same time, if all goes as planned, residents who discover issues like potholes, low hanging branches, or other town concerns will be able to click a button on the municipal website and instantly notify public works supervisors who can then dispatch the closest crew to respond.

These and other money- and time-saving efficiencies will be on tap as a result of an electronic work order system and hardware acquired by the town from a South Windsor-based vendor, according to Newtown’s Director of Technology Al Miles.

When he spoke to The Bee on November 12, he said his department was about halfway done integrating the work order system that will be available to the public as a “click and fix”-type enhancement, and more than halfway to rolling out all the back office integration of the high tech system.

Upon Mr Miles arrival on the job over the summer, integration of a long-planned electronic work order system was on hold for evaluation.

“We owned it — it was from a South Windsor outfit — but it wasn’t being integrated utilizing all the features we wanted,” Mr Miles explained. “We wanted an interactive public reporting feature so residents who saw a pothole, an unplowed road, or a tree down, for example, and use their computer or mobile technology to report it.”

While the system is poised to launch, Mr Miles said he will wait until the town completes the hiring of a geographic information system (GIS) specialist, who will develop web content to support the public portion of the technology.

“It’s ready to be deployed, but we have no current ability to support it,” Mr Miles said. “We also have eight tablet workstations — and they’re all set to connect as soon as we get the personnel in place to provide the support.”

As soon as his department is appropriately staffed, a worker will complete the web content and design that residents will see when they go to newtown-ct.gov.

“They will essentially click a button on the home page and report whatever they see needs attention,” he said. “They will immediately be geo-referenced into our GIS system and they can even upload photos of the problem from their cellphones, so workers have an exact assessment of what needs to be done.”

The ultimate benefit from a taxpayer’s perspective will come as the assignment of resources and equipment to work orders at the closest proximity results in time, travel, and vehicle wear and tear saved.

“It will immediately permit public works supervisors to match workers’ skill sets with the identified work, while prioritizing jobs to get all the work done faster and more efficiently,” Mr Miles projected. “It will also help to know where all workers are at any given time, to facilitate more efficient workforce management.”

Ultimately, he said, it is about getting any fixes done as fast as possible, so the issues at hand do not grow to be more costly, require more equipment or materials to repair, and become a growing annoyance or hazard to the public.

The system will also keep any citizen who requested services in the loop by immediately acknowledging their request, fixing a map position on the problem for crews to respond, and sending the requestor follow-up e-mails to let them know when the fix is being scheduled, in process, and completed.

“The public will see the response and reaction to their report, and they’ll get a virtual ‘thank you’ note when the work is completed,” Mr Miles said.

Looking further out in the integration plan, the technology chief said he plans to tie the system to the town’s permitting agencies so those projects can also be staffed and tracked.

“If there is one system that can tie it all together,” Mr Miles said, “we want to be able to do that.”