Permit and licence applications

What a permit or licence application involves

Requirements differ by authority and by permit, so there is no single list. Most applications ask for some mix of these:

• Business and identity details, such as ABN or company registration, addresses and nominated responsible people.
• Qualifications, licences and competency records for the people doing the work.
• Insurance certificates of currency.
• Plans, procedures or management plans for the activity.
• Site details, maps or drawings.
• Previous approvals, permit numbers and correspondence.
• Declarations signed by the applicant, and the fee.

Most of this already exists in OneDrive, SharePoint and email. The problem is finding the current version, and noticing that the insurance certificate expired last month.

Preparing the application with an AI worker

A practical way to work, with The Everything in Microsoft Teams:

1. Give it the checklist. Save the authority's published checklist or form guide to SharePoint and ask the AI to use it as the reference.
2. Let it gather. It searches SharePoint, OneDrive and your mailbox for each item, copies the current version into an application folder and lists where each came from.
3. Read the gap list. It reports what is missing, what has expired, and details that disagree between documents, such as two different site addresses.
4. Chase the gaps. It can draft the email asking a staff member or consultant for a missing item. It asks before anything important goes out.
5. Draft the covering material. It writes a cover letter and a document schedule in Word for you to edit and approve.
6. You lodge. The applicant checks the pack, signs the declarations, pays the fee and submits.

For applications that involve land use or building work, see development approvals. Where an activity needs an environmental permit, see environmental approvals.

Renewals and expiry dates

Many licences and permits expire, and a lapsed one can stop work. Renewal tracking is one of the simplest jobs to hand over:

• Keep a list of every licence and permit in a SharePoint List or Excel, with its number, holder, issuing authority and expiry date.
• Ask the AI to remind the responsible person in Teams well before each expiry, at the lead time the authority needs.
• When renewal is due, it gathers the current supporting documents and checks them against the renewal checklist, as for a new application.
• It flags supporting documents that expire before the licence does, such as an insurance certificate or a staff member's ticket.

The register itself is part of your approval evidence: keep the issued permit, the application that led to it and any conditions together.

What stays with a person

• Truth of the application. The applicant signs declarations and is responsible for what they say. Read the pack before you sign it.
• Submitting and paying. The applicant lodges through the authority's portal or by the method it specifies. The AI does not lodge.
• Interpreting requirements. If the checklist is unclear, ask the authority or an adviser. The AI does not give legal advice.
• Competency judgements. Whether a person's qualifications meet a licence class is for the business and the authority to decide.

Before you start

Approval files hold drawings, site details, personal information about neighbours and staff, and sometimes commercially sensitive designs. Before you point any AI tool at them, check your own obligations:

• Privacy and data location. The Everything runs against your own Microsoft 365 tenant, but its AI processing uses Microsoft Azure OpenAI and OpenAI, and its privacy policy says those providers may process information outside your country. If a contract, a client or a regulator restricts where your data goes, settle that first.
• Record keeping. Some approvals, conditions and industries carry their own rules on what you must keep and for how long. The AI helps you keep the record; it does not decide what the law requires you to keep.
• Certifications. The Everything does not claim SOC 2, ISO 27001 or any other certification. If your procurement or quality system requires one, it is not a fit for that requirement.

Your data is not used to train AI models, and if you cancel, your files stay where they always were, in your Microsoft account.

Questions people ask