An API integration with applicant-facing intake. The applicant lives in the city’s permit software for most of their journey, and is briefly lifted into Archistar’s UI to complete the PreCheck step. Results land back in the city’s system via webhook and API pull, and the report can be embedded in the application view via a signed viewer link, so reviewers don’t leave the permit software.
This is the strongest pattern for tight integration combined with the quality lift from self-assess — the applicant is already in Archistar’s UI for intake, so adding a review-and-iterate loop is a small extension.
What the flow looks like. The applicant logs into the city’s permit portal, creates an application, and clicks Run AI PreCheck at the configured step. The permit software creates a draft submission in Archistar via API, hands the applicant off to Archistar for the question set and uploads, then receives the completion webhook and pulls the report back. The applicant returns to the city portal; the report is visible inside the existing application record.
When this fits
Section titled “When this fits”- Your permit software is API-capable and your vendor has appetite for the integration build.
- You want PreCheck visible in the applicant flow rather than running invisibly.
- You want to gate progression on PreCheck results — e.g. block submission to formal review until PreCheck completes successfully.
- Improving submission quality before formal review is a priority. Embedded is the strongest fit for self-assess.
The vendor must be able to call the Archistar API, store the submission ID against their application record, handle the completion webhook, embed the viewer link, and hand the applicant off and back at the right point in the flow. Once that integration exists for a vendor, per-city configuration is light — mostly tenant setup, not custom code.
Trade-offs
Section titled “Trade-offs”| Pros | Cons | |
|---|---|---|
| For the applicant | Stays in the familiar city portal for everything except the PreCheck intake step | Brief context-switch into the Archistar UI may feel like two systems |
| For the city | Tight integration; ability to gate progression on results; embedded results view inside the existing application record | Requires a real integration build with the permit-software vendor |
| For PreCheck quality | Self-assess slots in naturally — the strongest pattern for iteration-before-submit | Quality benefit only materialises if self-assess is actually enabled |
| Effort to stand up | Once the vendor integration exists, per-city configuration is light | Initial vendor integration is the heaviest lift of the three patterns |