Frequently Asked Questions

CivicBot is an AI-powered 311 service request chatbot for cities and municipalities. It lets residents report issues like potholes, broken street lights, and graffiti 24/7 through a conversational chat widget embedded on your city website. Submissions are routed directly to your work order system (Cityworks or Trimble Unity) or delivered to staff via email — with zero manual work required.

Most cities are fully configured in under 30 minutes. The basic steps are: sign up, configure your SR types and branding, copy the embed code to your website, and go live. Cityworks integration takes a bit longer if you need to coordinate API credentials with your IT team.

No. Residents never create accounts or log in. They simply open the chat widget on your city website and start a conversation. Name, phone, and email are optional — residents can submit completely anonymously if they choose (unless your city has configured those fields as required).

CivicBot works on all modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) and all devices — desktop, tablet, and mobile. The widget is fully responsive and requires no plugins or app downloads.

Go to your admin panel → Embed Code. You'll find a single <script> tag to copy and paste into your website's HTML — typically in the footer, just before the closing </body> tag. It works with WordPress, Drupal, Squarespace, and any other CMS. If your IT team manages the website, just send them the embed code — it's a one-minute change.

Yes — every new account gets a 30-day free trial at the Professional plan level. No credit card required. You get full access to all features during the trial. You can also Try the Live Demo right now without signing up.

Yes. Name, phone, and email are all optional by default. Residents can skip those fields and submit without providing any contact information. If your city wants to require contact info, that can be configured in your admin settings.

Yes. Residents can upload a photo at the end of the submission flow. CivicBot's AI will analyze the photo and suggest the most likely service request type — residents can accept the suggestion or choose manually. Photos are attached to the Cityworks SR or included in the email notification to staff.

If your city has geofencing enabled, CivicBot will detect when an address is outside your city's boundaries and show a friendly warning message before submission. The resident can correct their address or is advised to contact another agency. Geofencing uses the U.S. Census Bureau's geographic data for accurate city boundary detection. You can customize the message shown to residents in your admin settings.

When a resident uploads a photo, CivicBot sends it to Anthropic's Claude AI, which analyzes the image and compares it against your configured service request types. It returns the top matches with confidence scores. For example, a photo of a cracked road would match "Pothole Report" with high confidence. The resident can accept the AI's suggestion or choose a different SR type manually. This speeds up the submission process and improves SR categorization accuracy.

For Cityworks/Trimble cities, residents receive the actual Cityworks SR number generated by your work order system. For email delivery cities, CivicBot generates a CB-YYYY-XXXXX formatted confirmation number. If your city has submitter confirmation emails enabled, the resident also receives an email with their confirmation number and submission details.

The widget interface is currently in English. Multi-language support is on our roadmap. Contact us at info@centricitygis.com if this is a priority for your city.

A State Plane Zone (WKID) is a coordinate system code that tells CivicBot how to translate GPS coordinates into the correct map projection for your Cityworks instance. Without the correct WKID, service request locations will appear in the wrong place on the map.

To find your WKID:

• Log into Cityworks and look at an existing SR with a map location
• Check with your GIS department — they will know your city's State Plane zone
• Common California zones: Central Valley = 26942, Northern = 26941
• Contact us at info@centricitygis.com and we can look it up for you

Go to your admin panel → SR Templates → click Sync from Cityworks. CivicBot will pull all templates marked "For Public Site" from your Cityworks instance. You can then select which templates to show in the widget and add plain-language aliases (e.g., "Pothole Report" instead of "STREET-POT-001") so residents can understand the options.

Common causes:

• Base URL format: Should be the root URL of your Cityworks instance, e.g. https://cityworks.yourcity.gov/cityworks — no trailing slash
• API user not set up: Cityworks requires a dedicated API user account with the correct permissions
• Firewall: Your city's firewall may be blocking external API calls — your IT team may need to whitelist CivicBot's Azure IP range
• Sandbox vs Production: Make sure you're using the correct URL for your environment

Contact info@centricitygis.com if you're still stuck — we can help troubleshoot.

Yes. You need a dedicated Cityworks user account for CivicBot with permissions to: create service requests, add comments, and add attachments. We recommend naming the account something like CWAPI or CivicBot. Contact your Cityworks administrator or Trimble support to set this up. We recommend using a service account rather than a personal user account so access isn't tied to an individual employee.

CivicBot supports Trimble Unity Maintain (cloud-hosted) and recent versions of Cityworks AMS (on-premise). If you're unsure whether your version is compatible, contact us and we'll verify before you sign up.

CivicBot creates a full service request in Cityworks including: SR type (mapped to your template), location (geocoded address + X/Y coordinates in your State Plane projection), description, caller name/phone/email (if provided), and photo attachment (if uploaded). The SR appears in Cityworks exactly as if a staff member created it manually.

At the end of your 30-day trial, your account is automatically paused — no charges occur. To continue using CivicBot, add a payment method and select a plan from the Billing page in your admin panel. Your configuration and submission history are preserved during the pause.

Yes. You can upgrade at any time. If you're on an annual plan, you'll be charged the prorated difference for the remainder of your term — so you only pay for the upgrade from today, not from the start of your year. The upgrade takes effect immediately.

Monthly plans can be downgraded at any time — changes take effect at your next billing date.

Annual plans cannot be downgraded until your renewal date. This is because you've pre-paid for the full year at the current tier. You'll receive a reminder before your renewal date with the option to downgrade for the next year.

Yes. All CivicBot accounts are provisioned as tax exempt by default, recognizing that our customers are municipalities and government agencies. No tax is calculated or charged on your subscription. Contact us if you need documentation for your records.

Email plans are for cities without a work order system. Service requests are delivered as formatted HTML emails to your designated staff inbox(es). CivicBot generates a CB-YYYY-XXXXX confirmation number.

Cityworks/Trimble plans include direct API integration with your work order system. SRs are created automatically in Cityworks with full location data, description, and photo attachment. Residents receive the actual Cityworks SR number. Cityworks plans are priced slightly higher to reflect the additional integration complexity.

You'll receive email warnings at 80% of your limit. If you reach 100%, the widget will temporarily stop accepting new submissions until the limit resets on the 1st of the next month. You can upgrade your plan at any time to increase your limit immediately. Submission limits reset monthly — they do not roll over.

Go to Settings → scroll to the Branding section → click Upload Logo. Your logo will appear in the chat widget header, the chat bubble, and the admin panel header. Supported formats: PNG, JPG, SVG. Recommended size: at least 200×200px, square or horizontal logo works best.

Go to Submissions → use the date filters and search to narrow down the records you want → click Export CSV. The export includes confirmation number, SR type, address, submitter info, delivery method, date, completion status, and any internal notes you've added.

Geofencing prevents residents from submitting service requests for addresses outside your city limits. When enabled, CivicBot checks the submitted address against U.S. Census Bureau geographic boundaries and blocks out-of-jurisdiction submissions with a customizable message.

We recommend enabling it if your city frequently receives misdirected requests. To enable: go to Settings → enable Geofencing → click Verify City Location to anchor your city's boundary. The verify step is required for geofencing to work.

Yes. In Settings → Notification Emails, you can enter multiple email addresses separated by commas. All listed addresses will receive the SR notification email for every submission.

Yes. Go to Settings and enable Send Submitter Confirmation Email. When enabled, residents who provide an email address will automatically receive a confirmation email with their SR type, address, confirmation number, and submission details. This is enabled by default for new accounts.

In the Submissions log, each row has a Done checkbox and a Notes field. Click the checkbox to mark it complete (for tracking purposes — this does not update Cityworks). Click in the Notes field to add internal comments visible only to admin staff. Both save automatically.

The Manage Billing & Payment button on the Billing page opens your Stripe customer portal — a secure page where you can add or update your payment method, view invoice history, and download receipts. This portal is hosted by Stripe and your payment information is never stored on CivicBot's servers.