Pothole repair requests appearing at residential addresses.

Mapping software preventing reports within the city.

Anonymous reports limiting city follow-up to resolve reported issues.

These issues led the City of Champaign to replace its public reporting service after more than a decade of use.

The Champaign Public Works Department used SeeClickFix — software designed to enable residents to collaborate with their local government by reporting non-emergency issues to the city — for more than 12 years. Using the platform, residents reported issues like pothole repairs, streetlight repair and other city maintenance issues. 

But department officials said a variety of issues with the service meant it became the one thing that required the most fixing.

The department switched from SeeClickFix to Brightly Citizen Portal on July 1, 2025. The change results from the application programming interface, or API, consistently failing, according to Jeremy Schultz, the administrative services supervisor for the Champaign Public Works Department.

“Some people would put something in, in SeeClickFix, and then we’d never see anything, and no work would happen,” Schultz said in an interview. “It was time to make a change, and we needed to move on from Cityworks to something different.”

Cityworks is an asset management system integrated with SeeClickFix. The transition to Brightly removes Cityworks as a third-party tool and allows residents’ requests to go directly to the Public Works Department.

“The focus was just getting work requests into our system directly, with no middle software, no middle anything,” Schultz said. “And then, it was determined after that, that with having this platform, we could save citizens, save the city, quite a bit of money by switching over to that platform as well.”

Schultz said SeeClickFix had several disadvantages, including its geolocation process, service and anonymous requests. For example, if someone was driving and noticed a mattress on the interstate but waited until they were home to submit the request, the request’s location could show up in their living room, he said.

Regarding its service, SeeClickFix uses Google addresses, while the city has its own authoritative addressing system. Due to the conflicting applications, the software wouldn’t permit some submissions, stating, “I’m sorry, that’s not within the jurisdiction of the city.” SeeClickFix wasn’t interested in cooperating with the city to change its process, according to Schultz.

Anonymous requests also became challenging because the department couldn’t follow up with the requester for additional details and the feature was difficult to turn off.

The department formed a beta group and tested the service request process with Brightly, according to Public Works Operations Manager Cory Conrad. The department had both platforms working simultaneously to smooth the transition as well.

“We made a concerted effort to not just switch, but we had our administrative services supervisor go through historical data and find some frequent users,” Conrad said in an interview. “We did our homework to allow them the ability to get in there and use it first to give us feedback. And we got very positive feedback.”

How to report an issue to the city

Residents can report an issue on the Public Works Department website, scan a QR code or visit Brightly’s site directly to submit a request.

After using an email to create an account or logging in to Brightly, users can click on the provided map, search the desired location and select “Create Work Request.”

From there, one can select from 15 work categories the issue falls under and can supply information and a photo. Upon finalizing the request, Brightly will provide a pop-up box with a work order number so residents can monitor its progress.

Compared to SeeClickFix, the main difference with Brightly is that it doesn’t operate through a mobile interface. Schultz said Brightly also relies on simplicity; it doesn’t have a ranking system and doesn’t track “civic points” for user activity.

Several residents on Nextdoor commented they were unaware of the switch between platforms and some also mentioned they’d never heard of either service.

To alleviate communication issues, Schultz said the department uploaded a QR code to its website and plans to put it in other locations around the city so anyone can see, scan and report.

“(The department is) trying to make the system more user-friendly, provide more information, and again, just get the word out to folks that it’s available if you need it,” Schultz said. “If people can’t figure it out, our number is right there … they call directly and get in … and we’re responsive through email, too. I think we have a lot of different options for folks to report issues to us.”

Some residents said on Nextdoor that when they’ve had issues with SeeClickFix in the past, calling the city or visiting the office to submit the request resolved the issue. 

“I believe 90% of all issues boil down to communication,” Conrad said. “We can’t fix it if we don’t know that it’s (broken), so this is just another avenue for that communication with our residents and visitors, for that matter.”

Changes for Brightly aren’t currently in the works, but Schultz has already received feedback from residents about being able to see the reported issues in their area. In the future, he said he’d like to see additional information about closed issues added to the portal itself, rather than just emailed to the individual who submitted the request.