Knowledge-base

How-tos and gotchas for legacy Assessing On Line (aka AOL -sic)

Public Disclosure Dates

The dates in search/default.asp(approx lines 43-48):

' public disclosure is in November every five-ish years
PublicDisclosureStartAnnouncing = CDate("2023-11-01 00:01")
PublicDisclosureStartOfficial =  CDate("2023-11-04 00:01")
PublicDisclosureStartOnWeb =  CDate("2023-11-01 00:01")
PublicDisclosureEnd = CDate("2023-11-01 00:01")    

These dates are used to control a text block which invites residents to submit Property Revaluation submission/requests.

The PublicDisclosureStartAnnouncing, PublicDisclosureStartOnWeb and PublicDisclosureEnd` should all be the same date/time, or be in the past to prevent the message from displaying.

Generally, the dates do not need to be updated year-to-year unless advised by Assessing.

When dates are set to show the block, this is what it looks like this (using Nov 2023 based dates):

PDF Token

When following the connection string generation instructions here: Do not leave the new token on prod any longer than needed for testing. Instead, remove the assessing_token entirely around Dec 20, and add in when the switchover occurs. This is to stop people who have figured out how to use the direct boston.gov link (i.e. to the pdf generator API) from generating PDFs prior to 01 Jan.

Changing the owner of a parcel.

If requested by the Assessing Dept, the current owner of a parcel/property will need to be changed on occasion. You need to know the old owner name, the new owner name and the parcel id - this change can be made directly in VSQL01 using this script:

use [assessingupdates202XQX];

DECLARE @parcel char(10);
DECLARE @owner varchar(100);
DECLARE @newowner varchar(100);

SET @parcel = '1234567890';
SET @owner = 'ORIGINAL OWNER NAME';
SET @newowner = 'NEW OWNER NAME';

UPDATE [dbo].[current_owners]
set owner_name = @owner
  where parcel_id = @parcel and owner_name = @newowner;

UPDATE [dbo].[parcel]
set [owner] = @owner
  where parcel_id = @parcel and owner_name = @newowner;

UPDATE [dbo].[parcel_all_owners]
set [owner] = @owner
  where parcel_id = @parcel and owner_name = @newowner;

UPDATE [dbo].[taxbill]
set [owner] = @owner
  where parcel_id = @parcel and owner_name = @newowner;