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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 10-24-2006-3ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: October 24, 2006 Action Agenda Item No. 3 SUBJECT: Information Technology Updates DEPARTMENT: Manager/Information PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No Technology ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: Scanning Investigation Memo Rod Visser, 919-245-2308 Collaborative PC Purchasing Memo Todd Jones, 919-245-2285 Field Computer Assessment Tool Memo PowerPoint Slides/Notes - Website Upgrades PURPOSE: To update the County Commissioners on specific Information Technology initiatives. BACKGROUND: At the Work Session on August 31, 2006, the Board of County Commissioners requested updates on a number of staff initiatives relating to Information Technologies. These initiatives include: • An investigation into potential opportunities to leverage scanning and business process automation. The attached memo includes details on the initial findings of a scanning working group. The key finding is the critical need to ensure that any scanning and automation project be sufficiently resourced, not just financially, but also in staff time from both IT and the department(s) whose processes are to be automated. • An investigation into potential efficiencies from joint personal computer purchasing with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools. The attached memo includes an update on collaborative efforts to date with the school system and how Orange County can pursue purchasing initiatives with government agencies across the state and even across the nation. • An investigation into an assessment tool for determining opportunities for field technologies. The attached memo provides an update on business analysis techniques that are currently being used to assess automation opportunities and an explanation of how those techniques are being used to assess the most effective applications of field technologies. Staff have also prepared an additional presentation on website enhancement initiatives currently underway. A working group, composed of departmental webmasters, has been migrating web pages towards a new centrally managed model. The goals of these initiatives are: to make the web site more citizen focused; to implement a mechanism by which.the look and feel of the website can be centrally managed; to increase accessibility of web based information; and to increase the efficiency of maintaining web information. FINANCIAL IMPACT: There. is no direct financial impact from receiving these reports. However, some of the potential initiatives discussed would have costs that further direction will help refine. RECOMMENDATION(S): The Manager recommends that the Board receive the reports and provide comments, questions, and feedback to staff. To: Rod Visser, Interim County Manager From: Todd Jones, Chief Information OfFicer Date: 10/20/2006 Re: Scanning Investigation Rod, During the August 31, 2006 Work Session at SHSC, you will recall that the Board asked Information Technologies for an update on investigation of scanning potential within Orange County. Before that work session and since, a scanning working group has been convening to discuss scanning .possibilities in greater depth. That group consists of Donna Baker, Clerk to the County Commissioners; Nancy Coston, Director of the Department of Social Services; Janet Sparks, Director of Child Support Enforcement; Rosie Summers, Health Director; and myself. In our meetings to date, we have researched the following factors for each department: • 'potential scanning benefits, including space savings, retrieval efficiencies, information protection, data analysis, intake efficiency, and information sharing • numbers of document types • estimates on page counts per document type and in total • record retention rules for various document types • projected benefits of automating processes "day forward" versus additionally back scanning legacy paper Members of the scanning group have also engaged in extensive dialog with their counterparts both within the state and outside the state, particularly those organizations that have successfully implemented scanning technology. I have also discussed with Joyce Pearson, our Register of Deeds, and Jo Roberson, Director of Revenue, their use of scanning .within their business processes. Joyce and Jo have shared valuable experience with scanning both historical documents and documents 0 upon intake, as well as sharing their thoughts on process automation to eliminate the need for paper. Based on the analysis to date, it is clear that the scale of magnitude of scanning operations varies greatly between departments. Larger departments, such as DSS and Health, have potentially large scale benefits from scanning, with proportional implementation costs. DSS alone has hundreds of different document types, each of which requires its own indexing approach, with potentially tens of millions of sheets of paper to be scanned. Peer agencies across the state and country, some of which have succeeded with scanning projects, and some which have not, have stressed the importance of properly resourcing any such project. Even in projects where the bulk of the physical scanning is handled by vendors, the need for staff support in establishing new business processes and providing input into the scanning process is critical. Scanning project planning should include not just direct costs, but also should determine staff time required for success and ensure appropriate staffing adjustments can be made. It is our recommendation that the County embark on a pilot scanning project. By measuring staff efficiency and storage demands before and after scanning operations are complete, we can determine best practices, project benefits and well as understand and quantify the significant indirect costs associated with scanning on the scale of our larger departments. This in turn, can help direct us more purposefully toward ambitious scanning projects for larger departments. We believe the best opportunity for a scanning pilot would be Child Support Enforcement. Their files are currently paper based, yet modest in overall size at just over 250,000 pages. These files consist of terminated records with demographic information, court orders, event history, and various documents to verify employment and parentage. The rough magnitude of cost to scan these documents and architect an application to automate data handling going forward would be tens of thousands of dollars. This figure does not count staff time to specify indexing rules, for validation, and to re-architect business processes. It should be noted that there is currently no funding in the current CIP budget specifically programmed to cover costs of a scanning project. However, it should also be noted that any expenditures for Child Support Enforcement can potentially be defrayed by 66% reimbursement from the State. The scanning working group proposes the Child Support Enforcement terminated records project be undertaken as a pilot project. The findings from the pilot can then be used to evaluate similar initiatives for the Clerk to the BOCC, DSS, Health and others. Child Support Enforcement and Information Technologies look forward to collaborating to develop a detailed project plan, with quantified costs (including state reimbursements), aresource plan and a project schedule if the Board of County Commissioners is interested in evaluating a pilot program for scanning. 0 l l ~. To: Rod Visser, Interim County Manager From: Todd Jones, Chief Information Officer Date: 10/20/2006 Re: Collaborative PC Purchasing with School Systems Rod, During the August 31, 2006 Work Session at SHSC, you will recall that the Board asked for Information Technologies to investigate opportunities for Orange County to work with the two school systems in making bulk purchases of Personal Computers. As you know, Orange County IT has pursued and continues to pursue collaborative efforts with the school systems. Several of their staff have served on our IT advisory committee, as I have done for special projects within the schools. Ray Reitz, the Chief Technology Officer for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Angie. Veitch, the Director of Technology and Media for the Orange County Schools, and I, often share project information and offer assistance where possible. Most recently, we are reaching out to the various High School photography clubs and art classes to engage students in a digital photography project for improvements to the Orange County website. It is in the spirit of collaboration that I've engaged Ray and Angie in discussions about potential joint PC purchasing initiatives. Ray, Angie, and I are receptive to leverage any bulk purchasing opportunities in which technology needs converge. As you know, North Carolina purchasing laws allow "piggybacking," a practice in which any local government can purchase equipment according to the terms negotiated by any other government agency within a specific time frame. Thus, not only can we leverage any purchasing arrangements made by the two school systems, but also, we can broaden our search to include other governmental agencies within the state. Current pricing from our supplier, ~enovo, is below state contract pricing and can be piggybacked with such large organizations as Mecklenburg and New Hanover Counties, both of whom are Lenovo customers. Many aspects of technology purchasing for schools included specific and substantial discounts for educational purposes only. Any procurement of PCs and attendant software that falls into this category is not subject to the piggybacking approach. The two schools systems and Orange County each have standardized on different 0 platforms (HP/Compaq for CHCCS, Dell for OCS, and Lenovo for OC) and have significant investment in these different platforms, including maintenance technologies, hardware service certification, and spare parts inventories. Additionally, the .software provided by hardware vendors often provides significantly different functionalities that are suited for specific environments. However, opportunities will no doubt continue to occur in respective IT shops in which we can review purchasing . plans for synergies. Orange County IT will ensure that we share our purchasing plans with the school's IT organizations regularly, to identify any possible collaboration opportunities. I!I_C~ To: Rod Visser, Interim County Manager From: Todd Jones, Chief Information Officer Date: 10/20/2006 Re: Field Computer Assessment Tool Rod, During the August 31St Work Session at SHSC, you will recall that the Board asked for Information Technologies (IT) to investigate an assessment tool to identify opportunities for increasing staff efficiency using field computing. Certainly, a mechanism to assess ways in which portable technology can improve customer service, increase staff productivity, and reduce error rates serves as a critical component of making appropriate strategic technology investments. . Research into methodologies for assessing best applications of field technology reveals not so much a tool in the traditional sense as it confirms the usefulness of following a standard business analysis methodology. This methodology, which Orange County IT has been using with success since the hiring of a formal Business Analyst in January of 2004, entails extensive collaborative work with County departments. Specifically, the Business Analyst, works with practitioners within each department to evaluate business processes and, to identify opportunities for improving operations and effectively using appropriate technology solutions. This evaluation includes an analysis of information flow, as information is gathered and transmitted among citizens, Commissioners, staff, management, peer departments, state and Federal agencies. From this data and workflow, the Business Analyst works with departments to put together a model of current operations. This resulting model is examined far automation and business process optimization opportunities, including efficiencies gained from gathering and interpreting data in the field. Once such automation opportunities are identified, IT and departmental staff determine measurements of effciencies to be potentially realized through the implementation of field technology. If the benefits are projected to be significant and can be supported by the prevailing budget funding, the project is pursued. After implementation, customer feedback is collected and efficiency measurements are obtained, to ensure the field technology has fulfilled the goals set forth at the project's inception. 0 The IT organization has already used this methodology in the following applications: • Defined the Land Information System Program (LISP) to manage related projects including the Property Information Management System, Addressing and Enterprise GIS as a coordinated program of work. • Defined Master Orange Address Database (MOAD) application requirements by interviewing all municipal, university, and County users to model their current work processes and to recommend changes for the future processes. • Interviewed Planning, Environmental Health, Tax Assessor, Revenue Collector, Register of Deeds, Land Records/GIS, and IT staff to collect and document current work processes for the Properly Information Management System application; identified and documented requirements for the future application; currently in the process of modeling the data requirements. • Identified the need for automated data transfer from a variety of applications to Munis (the County's business-system software) to replace double-entry of financial entries, thus improving reconciliation processes and reducing the chances of human error. Applications interfaced thus far include Permits Plus for Inspections and Environmental Health receipts, Elite for Housing checks, RecTrac for Recreation & Parks receipts, and Mainframe Health application for clinic receipts. Interviewed County departments to define requirements for significant upgrades to the County's web site. Interviews were documented, and the information gathered has been used to define the requirements for Smart Search, an internally developed, citizen focused navigation tool, and to work with individual departments to redesign their own sites using a products/services focus (rather than adepartment/division focus). • In 2004, documented the then-current elections process and implemented improvements to enhance the efficiency and stability of the process. Worked with the Recreation and Parks Department to determine requirements for an event scheduling and course registration application. Identified similar requirements in the Department on Aging and coordinated the evaluation and acquisition of a commercial "off the shelf' solution (RecTrac) that met the needs of both departments. This was an early example of cross-departmental needs identification resulting in the acquisition of one County-wide solution. Currently, the IT organization is working with the Planning and Inspections Department to establish baseline measures of customer service and efficiency. We will compare this data to the operations with the new equipment implemented, to establish efficiency gains of the field technology implementation, as well as to collect customer feedback on qualitative gains in customer service. Based on the findings of this implementation, we will further refine our methodology for determining best uses of field technology. The IT organization welcomes this focus on objectively assessing the optimal technology investments to ensure greater levels of citizen satisfaction as well as to introduce greater efficiencies into departmental operations. Toward this end, the IT organization will continue to use this business analysis methodology to collaborate with other departments to ensure technology investments demonstrably yield maximum benefits. 0 Orange County Website -_ --~ Upgrades, Enhancements and Plans for Future Evolution Todd E. Jones Chief Information Officer October 24, 2006 l~ Orange County Website ._ __- _ _ _ -- - --~- __ _ ._- -_ a ^ Developed originally in mid 90s ^ Loose confederation of departmental websites ^ Not citizen friendly ^ Valuable content and eGov services difficult to find ^ Does not conform to ADA guidelines, not translation friendly, not accessible on all computers ^ Difficult for departments to update ^ No global controls •Original web site development was ad-hoc. Departments focused on their own departmental site without regard to an overall navigation strategy or an arrangement of information that put citizen needs first. •Historically, the website conveyed the impression that Orange County itself was a loose confederation of departments. This, in turn exacerbated citizen confusion as to what services Orange County provided, as compared to other governmental entities. •The historical website arrangement compelled citizens to navigate to departmental sites for information. This was very confusing for citizens when the service they sought wasn't intuitively in a particular department (e.g., well water testing, assistance for elderly, property valuations) •Over 17,000 pages are on the OC site, many of which offer great interactive functionality, but citizens have been largely unaware of the existence of these services, due to lack of overarching navigation strategy •eGoverment services are interactive Internet services which allow the public to transact with the County from any Internet accessible computer.. These services include Deeds Inquiry, Permits Inquiry, Location Services, Library Searching, Tax Inquiry, on-line Tax Payments, GIS and others •The historical website uses technologies (frames, captionless images) that confound disabled citizens' attempts to access web information. For related reasons the site was not well suited for language translation services, older Internet browsers or slow Internet connections. •Plethora of web site standards encouraged great diversity of web designs which made sites difficult to hand off to new webmasters. Consequently, ~ 2 Orange County Website ^ Council of Webmasters (COW) ^ Grass-roots working group ^ COW addresses web issues of common concern ^ Departments manage content, IT provides .tools and support ^ Promoting evolutionary changes; preparing groundwork for revolutionary. changes •Council of Webmasters voluntarily formed in 2005 with representatives from respective departments •Worlt processes for web updates focuses on having departments maintain their content, which streamlines the updating process as contrasted with a central webmaster. IT provides tools, training and support for the web update process. •The COW focuses on malting incremental improvements, but with an eye toward providing a foundation for large scale improvements to be made throughout the web .site. ii 3 is Orange County Website ,_ ^ Web Accomplishments to Date ^ New eGov services -ongoing ^ Generic Search Engine - 2004 ^ Information Architectural Analysis - 2004 ^ Smart Search - 2005 ^ Version 1.0 of web template released - 2006 ^ 9 Depts currently using template, several others in process •Deeds Inquiry, Permits Inquiry, Location Services in addition to Library Searching, Tax Inquiry, on-line Tax Payments, GIS and others •Search engine is a standard occurrence search, like google, which returns links to all content in which the search terms occurred. •Information .Architectural Analysis was performed in conjuntion with LTNC School of Information Library Sciences as a full credit independent study course. Students worked with IT staff and departments to determine services and public needs. •Smart Search is acitizen-centric search enginern which search terms are matched with frequently asked questions, which in turn are linked to web pages. Currently, over 60% of all user searches on our website are fulfilled with SmartSearch. This allows for a two dick process for finding most information. •Departments currently using template are: •Social Services http://www.co.orange.nc. us/socsvcs/index.asp •Budget http://www.co.orange.nc.us/budget/index.asp •Child Support Enforcement http://www.co.orange.nc.us/cse/index.asp •Land Records/GIS http://www.co.orange.nc.us/qis/index.asp •OC Farms http://www.orangecountyfarms.orcL/ •Health http://www.co.orange.nc.us/health/index.asp 4 Orange County Website ^ Template development goals ^ Central control of look and feel ^ Standardized presentation ^ Service oriented navigation ^ Ease of update ^ ADA compliant, quick dowload, translation . friendly ^ Promote Orange County branding Current Look and Feel is intended as a temporary design. Style sheet technology will allow a professional designer to change look of all template based web pages with minimal effort. Old navigation was dependent on County defined departmental distinctions. New navigation attempts to address citizen needs and is thus, more service based. Supporting toolset is designed to allow departments to quickly update information New template uses web technologies which integrate with visually impaired users, non-English speakers, slow Internet connections and old public computers Template design helps promote a singular Orange County brand, for better citizen identification with County services. i3 5 14 Questions?