Civic Review is a great fit for code enforcement, and a lot of our customers are already using it to manage their cases. Whether your team is just getting started or looking to level up how you're tracking violations, this article walks through the key decisions and features to consider.
Internal vs. Public-Facing Form
The first thing to think about is whether you want your code enforcement form to be internal (staff only), public-facing (accessible to residents), or a combination of both. This decision shapes how you'll set up the form, so it's worth taking a minute to think through. Here's a simple code enforcement example:
Public-facing forms are shared on your organization's website so residents can submit complaints directly. This is a great option if you want community members to flag issues they're seeing — things like property concerns, code violations, or nuisances in their neighborhood.
Internal forms are never shared publicly. Your code enforcement officers use them to open and manage cases themselves. This works well if your team is the one identifying violations in the field and you just need a clean way to track and document everything internally.
There are pros and cons to both approaches, and often a code enforcement forms will have a public facing aspect with some internal fields for tracking.
Features to Consider
Regardless of whether your form is internal or public-facing, here are some of the features that our customers are loving for this use case:
Customized Approval Labels "Approved" and "Denied" don't always make sense for code enforcement. The good news is you can fully customize your approval labels to match your actual workflow. For example, some cities use labels like "Pre-Review," "Valid," "Closed," or "Final Warning" — whatever makes sense for your process.
If you have a public-facing form, a pre-review step is especially helpful. It lets your team confirm a complaint is valid before pulling in department resources to go investigate.
Internal Fields for Tracking Internal fields are a great way to capture findings, observations, photos, and notes that only your staff can see. If your officers are going out in the field, they can document what they saw directly in the record — keeping everything in one place.
Actions Taken Collection Field One of our favorite things we've seen customers build is an "Actions Taken" collection field. This lets staff log the date, time, action, and notes each time they do something on a case. It creates a clear, running history of everything that's happened — which is especially valuable if a case ever escalates. You can set up dropdown options for common action types so it's quick to fill in, and attach photos or notes right alongside each entry.
Follow-Up Dates A few customers have added a follow-up date field so they can pull lists or reports of cases that need attention on a given week. Since violations often require giving someone time to comply before following up, this is a smart way to stay organized when you've got a lot of cases moving at once.
Case Status Field Adding a case status field (things like "Active," "Final Warning," "Lien," or "Closed") makes it easy to pull lists by status and see where everything stands at a glance. It's also a lot more transparent than a spreadsheet when multiple staff members are working through cases together.
Letter Templates
This is one of the most powerful parts of using Civic Review for code enforcement. You can build out certificate templates that auto-populate violation letters with case details — the violation address, case number, relevant code sections, dates, and more — so you're not manually recreating letters every time.
Some examples of templates our customers have built:
Stop Work Orders — referencing the specific code section and what needs to stop
Nuisance Letters — describing the violation and what needs to change
Weed Notices — specific to county weed department requirements
Courtesy Notices — for early-stage outreach before formal action
You can create as many templates as you need and have them available at your fingertips to download when needed.
If a Case Escalates
If a code enforcement case ever makes it to a court proceeding, Civic Review makes it easy to pull together documentation. You can print the full record — which includes all internal fields, collection field entries, and comments — into a clean PDF. Combined with the "Download All Attachments" button, you'll have everything you need without scrambling through spreadsheets or emails.
Getting Started
If you're new to using Civic Review for code enforcement, don't worry — we're happy to help you build out your first permit type and get your certificate templates set up. Adding a new use case won't push you into a new tier just by existing, and we encourage you to make as much use of Civic Review as possible within your current contract.
Feel free to reach out to our team and we can walk through your setup together.
Check out this webinar for a more in-depth review of the code enforcement use type.