Look at a month of requests in any city and you'll find the same questions dressed up as reports. "My trash wasn't picked up," on a holiday week when pickup moved a day. "Streetlight out," on a pole the utility company owns. "Abandoned car," for a car parked legally for one day.
These aren't bad reports. Residents don't know the rules, and there's no reason they should. But every one of them takes staff time to read, route, answer and close.
Sentra 311's knowledge base puts short answers in front of residents at the moment they're about to file.
How it works
Admins and department heads write short articles in the portal, under Admin › Knowledge base. Each article has:
- A title residents would recognize, like "Is my streetlight the city's or the utility company's?"
- A one-line summary.
- A short body with steps, links and phone numbers.
- The request types it applies to.
- An English and a Spanish version.
When an article is published, it shows up in three places:
- On the city's report page and in the resident app, after the resident picks a type, under a heading like "Before you report." It also shows when residents search.
- On the phone entry screen in the portal, so a call-taker can read the answer to a caller without filing anything.
- In the city's chat, when a resident asks a question in their own words.
The worker app is next, so crews can answer questions on the street.
"This answered my question"
Under each article, residents can choose "This answered my question" or "I still need to report." Call-takers have a matching button: "Answered the caller, no request needed."
Those clicks are counted. Each article shows its views, how many people found it helpful, how many requests it headed off and how many people filed anyway. The department dashboard shows how many requests the knowledge base answered in the period.
That gives you a simple way to see which articles are working and which need rewriting.
What to write first
Start with your most common requests and ask, "How many of these were really questions?" In most cities, the first eight articles are some version of:
- When is trash day, and what changes on holidays?
- What counts as a bulky item, and how do I schedule a pickup?
- Who owns this streetlight?
- Graffiti on private property: what the city does and doesn't do.
- How to file a claim for pothole damage to a car.
- Questions about a water bill.
- When is a parked car "abandoned"?
- A tree on private property: whose job is it?
Sentra 311's demo city comes with articles on these topics so you can see the format.
Writing articles residents will read
Keep each article short. Two or three short paragraphs, a list of steps, and a phone number or link. A few rules that help:
- Answer in the first sentence. "Trash day is the same as your regular day, except on these holidays."
- Use the resident's words. "Streetlight on a wooden pole," not "non-municipal luminaire."
- Say who to call. If it's another agency's job, give their phone number and website.
- Link, don't copy. If the full policy lives on your website, link to it, so you only update it in one place.
Keeping articles current
Articles have a draft and published state, so you can prepare a holiday trash notice in advance and publish it the week before. Each article records its views and feedback, so you can see which ones residents actually read. A quarterly review, looking at the articles with the most "I still need to report" clicks, is usually enough to keep them useful.
Linking articles to request types
Linking an article to a group of types, such as all of Streets and sidewalks, covers every type in that group. Articles can also be found by search on the report page, even before the resident picks a type.
Why it matters
Every request headed off is a few minutes saved for a call-taker, a dispatcher and sometimes a crew. It's also a better experience for the resident, who gets an answer in seconds instead of a ticket number and a wait.
It also makes your queue more honest. When the questions are answered up front, what's left in the queue is real work.