Executive Summary
The Ohio Department of Commerce’s mission — promoting prosperity by protecting what
matters most — has long guided its responsibility to ensure safe, fair, and efficient liquor
licensing across the state. OPAL (Ohio Permitting and Liquor Licensing) directly advances
that mission by transforming the entire licensing lifecycle into a modern, cloud-based digital
experience.
Before OPAL, Ohio’s liquor licensing processes, which support a multi-billion-dollar market, ran on
paper applications, mailed checks, and a tightly coupled set of legacy systems anchored by a decadesold
mainframe (CICS), supported by more than six older applications, and Content Manager. These
constraints slowed business openings, limited regulatory visibility, complicated compliance
monitoring, and added growing technical and cybersecurity risk.
OPAL replaces those processes with a unified, 24/7 self-service digital platform serving more than
27,000 active licensees and 150,000 active permits. Through Home – Ohio Permit & Liquor Licensing,
businesses apply, renew, transfer locations or ownership, upload documents, make secure electronic
payments, and track application status in real time. Behind the portal, OPAL integrates Microsoft
Dynamics 365 Finance and Sales, the Power Platform, Power Pages, and a modern data architecture
on Azure Synapse and Data Lake. More than seven million historical documents were converted into
accessible digital records, and 24 cross-agency systems are integrated through the new platform.
OPAL also retired Ohio’s liquor-licensing mainframe footprint. Decommissioning CICS — along with
five additional legacy systems — is a milestone for the state: it removes substantial technical debt,
shrinks the cybersecurity attack surface, and frees the agency from a shrinking pool of mainframe
specialists. That technical achievement underwrites the business outcomes Ohioans actually feel:
faster permits, clearer status, and a more responsive regulator. OPAL strengthens regulatory
oversight, accelerates business operations, supports public safety, and positions Ohio as a national
model for digital permitting — a single line-of-business solution whose pattern can be applied to any
state-administered licensing program.
