Signal for construction
Construction Permit Tracking Software
Building permits expire, inspections have windows, and every lapse stops work. Signal keeps every permit date in one place and emails your project managers before deadlines bite.
A lapsed permit shuts a site down
Most building permits expire if work doesn't start within a set period — often 180 days — and many lapse again if the job stalls between inspections. When that happens, the site goes quiet: crews stand down, subs reschedule, and someone spends a week at the counter re-applying for a permit the company already paid for. On a multi-project book, these dates multiply fast — one GC can easily be carrying forty live permits across a dozen jurisdictions, each with its own clock.
The dates usually live in the project folder, on a whiteboard, or in the superintendent's memory. None of those send emails. By the time someone thinks to check, the renewal window has closed and the schedule slip is measured in weeks, not days.
What construction teams track with Signal
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Building permit expirations
Track the expiry or must-commence date per permit, per job, with the permit number in the identifier field.
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Inspection deadlines
Rough-in, framing, final — set the date each inspection must happen by and remind the super and the PM ahead of it.
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Temporary permits and easements
Street-use permits, crane permits, temporary power — short-lived permits with hard end dates that are easy to lose in the noise.
How Signal handles it
- Folders and companies. Organize permits by project folder and link each to the issuing authority or client company, so one glance shows what belongs to which job.
- Reminder schedules. Set 60/30/7-day offsets per permit, or daily reminders in the final week before a must-commence deadline. Each permit gets its own schedule.
- Multiple recipients. The PM, the site super, and the office admin can all be recipients on one permit — whoever can act fastest gets the same email.
- CSV import. Moving off the permit spreadsheet takes one upload — title, expiry, project, contact emails, and offsets per row.
Frequently asked questions
Can I organize permits by job site?
Yes. Use folders for projects (one per site) and companies for issuing authorities or clients. Filters on the items list let you see one project's permits at a glance.
What happens when we renew or extend a permit?
Renew the item with the new date — Signal records the renewal history, marks the item active again, and regenerates all future reminders against the new expiry.
Our permits are in an Excel tracker. Can we import them?
Yes. Export the tracker to CSV with title, category, expiry date, and contact emails, and Signal creates every permit in one import — duplicates are skipped automatically.