Recommendation to Receive the Information Technology Strategic Plan (ITSP). (Information Technology 2611)  [Not heard on November 7, 2017]
As we look at the planning side of this, it's important to look at all components at the very bottom level, how you manage your technology, the infrastructure, which is all the network, the desktop, everything that delivers that technology you have to look at as well as you have enterprise applications that are really strategic because those are applications that everybody, all the departments should be able to leverage. And then you have, of course, a bunch of department applications. So as we went through this process, we kind of looked for weaknesses throughout this because a weakness in any one component of that can dramatically affect all users. So it was important to have that kind of holistic view when we did the planning exercise. I think it's important to note that the complexity that you have here at the city is pretty consistent. We've we've now done 75 California cities, many of them of similar sized years. You're not unique in that way. In fact, as you advance with more technology, the complexity is likely to even get a little a little more intense. So I think at this point, I think your your environment is pretty consistent. Perfect. One of the keys to doing it, strategic plan is really getting alignment because at any point in time, trying to keep up with technology is very, very difficult. It's expensive. And so what we want to do with the strategic plan is understand where you're at today, have a realistic and objective understanding of that. We also want to understand what the demands are. What do the departments need in order to improve service, streamline their business processes? And then what we want to do is try to figure out the alignment of that. The idea that you'd have the budget and technology resources to achieve perfect alignment over the planning period is probably a little unrealistic, but you have to kind of go through that process to understand what that gap is, and that's what this slide really goes to. The other really important part about this slide is the strategic plan is more than just about hardware and software. It's about people and it's about processes. Sometimes you have technology that's just underutilized. That's not leverage. We wanted to factor that into the plan so you don't just start throwing out technology when it's more of a process. People issue and maybe training and other other strategies might employ that technology more effectively for you. So again, we kind of looked at all those components. Technology guy can't figure out how to work the remote. Look at that. This next slide, we kind of refer to this as our Spider Graham and Carolyn. Talk about this. There's a lot of work that went behind how we plotted. What you see here is the six dimensions that we looked at which really aligned two best practices for I.T. management and service delivery, specifically oriented towards public agencies. We went through all of those dimensions, and then what we did is went through a series of analysis. And then we came to what we thought was kind of an appropriate rating for that. What you see on this diagram is if you're on the outside of this, you're largely a reactive organization. What that means is you're you know, you're pretty much taken issues, fixing issues, taking issues, fixing issues. You probably aren't doing enough planning. You're probably not thinking enough about, you know, disaster recovery, business continuity, because you don't have time to do that. You're just trying to keep the wheels on the car, so to speak. The orange is the proactive. What that means is that you've got some best practices in place. You are starting to plan, you're starting to manage that delivery or you're managing your service levels with the departments. And then what we've got is, as you move in towards the center, is the really high value. What's important about this chart is not all public agencies necessarily want to drive to that green because there's a cost to doing that as you implement technology and the practices around it can get very expensive. So what was important is kind of figuring out where is the right place for the city of Alameda? Where does the value and benefit really make sense? As you can see from this chart, the cities largely kind of in a reactive, proactive, and there's already been some steps to take care of that. There's some governance activities to help with the alignment in the service delivery. You're already taking steps on your helpdesk, so you're already starting to implement some of that. One of the items up on the infrastructure side, which is one of the dimensions that we really heard a lot about and it's mentioned in our plan and we have a lot of discussion about was the fact that you really run all of the city on a single network. You've got an electric utility. The security requirements around the electric utility is significantly more than what a typical admin network would be. And so what happens is that that impacts your your city, the rest of the city department users, because they have a higher security standard than what their peers might at another city. So we've made some recommendations for try to alleviate some of those pain points and improve the ability for staff to be able to access the network remotely wireless. And those type of initiatives that under a single network running all of your utilities is problematic. I won't go through all the SWOT analysis here. A couple of highlights I want to talk about. One is the staff is really committed to figuring out how to use technology. And, you know, that's that's not a given. Everywhere we go, sometimes people are kind of against technology and like the way the old way things are done. We didn't hear that people are really excited about trying to figure out how to leverage technology. It generates a lot of opportunities that we identified in this from a weakness, a standpoint is, you know, you've got an I.T. organization that's really kind of trying to turn and reinvent itself to start following best practice and get the tools in place, get the technology in place that they can actually meet the service requirements that the departments are asking for out of them. And then also on the on the threat side is really one of the things. There's two things we look at. One is just the physical security, and that's something that we've made some recommendations on. The other is security in general. You know, you don't have to pick up a paper or turn on the news to understand the the threat of hackers and vulnerabilities that you have with your network and your network security. It's something you just have to continually evolve on. And so while I think you're in a pretty good security position today, you can't really lie down on that. You've got to keep keep actually being very vigilant about that and continue to evolve your processes to keep up with the threats that are going to come to the city from outside. Quick question, Amber Ashcroft possibilities and threats in the lower quadrant there. What is TCO. O total cost to operate, which is the total cost to run that technology. Thanks. So this next slide, that is a visual of the meeting, the city wide meeting that we had where all city departments participated. It's color coded. So you can see the responsible department there. It's kind of hard to see. So the next slides actually are readable. So the city got together and we really talk about, okay, where do we want to be as a city we're in, as an organization, and what are our options? So the first columns are actually all the in-process projects that are underway right now, and then the rest of it is our 3 to 5 year roadmap. And many of the projects that are up there are multiyear projects. So for instance, the H.R. Payroll financial system replacement is a two to 2 to 3 year implementation timeframe. So I'm not going to go through all of the in-process projects right now. But as you know, fire has implemented voce, which is our EOC system that once we activate the EOC, this is a system that will be using and they continue to tweak it. We've have the city website vendor has been chosen and a new city website is planned on being in production either spring or some summer of 2018 . And this will help the public actually get, you know, better information. And it also let the city push information in more timely. Some of the other in process, Terry, mentioned Wi-Fi and VPN access. That is in process right now. Right now, the only city building that has a Wi-Fi option for public and a secured option for employees is here at City City Hall. So we're planning on implementing Wi-Fi throughout city buildings. And then Rick and Park. I wanted to note that they actually went live this Monday with their new system active net, and that helps them with their, you know, program registrations and everything. So that was a good implementation recently. So as I mentioned on that exercise, where all the city departments got together, we we realized that the biggest benefit that most city departments will realize is replacing the h.r. Payroll financial system. So in 2018, $200,000 has been allocated to actually hire a consultant and we consulted with next level to do an H.R. finance needs assessment and meet with all the city departments and see what we want in an ERP system. And that work is being taken on right now, and they're actually going to help us draft our RFP and do vendor negotiations in 2018. We requested 1.5 million to be allocated to the actual replacement of the H.R. financial system. And that was actually a unanimous vote from all city departments. That was the voice of the user that that was the biggest benefit that we all felt would be realized by the city is replacing that system. And then another 1.5 million has been allocated in 2018 and 2019 for these different projects. In order to be able to create an administrative network. We need to do a fiber infrastructure review and see where the conduit is throughout the city that we might be able to pull new fiber to create that administrative network, which will then allow us to go into a smart city initiatives and possibly offer public Wi-Fi traffic management , those types of smart city initiatives, the electronic content management solution. As I mentioned, each department approached technology independently. So we have multiple implementations of laser fish, which is our document management system, but they were all implemented in different ways. And so that the funding is going to go into a like a comprehensive document imaging type solution. And then out of the citywide department meetings, there were three projects that are they don't have any funding allocated to it yet. And one is establishing the administrative network. Once we have the fiber infrastructure review, will be able determine the cost for that. And then the centralized address repository came up. Right now we have multiple address repositories. The cost to that is either, you know, from nothing to 25,000, so that we can consolidate all the different addresses that we work with throughout the city right now. And then Fire is requesting to replace the records management system because it's not meeting their needs, and that's estimated at 25 to 30000. As Terry mentioned, this is a visual of it specific operational projects that my department is going to be performing over the next 3 to 5 years. And as Terry mentioned, we've already started. We're establishing a service management system. So basically a helpdesk tracking management so we can track trouble calls and do some trending and be more proactive and better serve our customers. And then also on there, along with some other valuable operational type changes, is we're really focusing on our, you know, developing business continuity and disaster recovery of critical systems, identifying what those critical systems are to a city, which ones can never be down. And if they do go down when our, you know, recovery time should be so and that's all internal to it. So as you can see, we have a lot of good opportunities ahead and a lot of good work and that we're looking forward to. And we appreciate your interest in the technology strategic plan. So if you have. Questions on the questions of council members, could you reiterate or explain the public wi fi and then also the 911? But that really means okay. Is I did bring a referral supporting public wi fi wasn't here to actually vote on it's my understanding that council did support it. So maybe you could expand how. But but part of the process it will be. So in order to provide public free public Wi-Fi, it has to run on something. And so that's what we're looking at. You know, what are our options? Can we run it on the city's fiber network? If we establish it, we could, you know, target even key areas like down Clark Street and Webster Street. First, we need to make sure that we have the proper fiber there, that we can offer free public Wi-Fi in those zones that you want to create. The staff will be looking at it to set this next year. What is your timetable? Yeah, well, that's in the wild 2018 19. Okay. I think it's at 70. And then let me just find my notes on. So e911 that's upgrading our existing software and using state of California funds. So that includes enhancing horizon prefix. So no. That I'll have to check with with police. I don't really have any more information on it. 911. Anyone here in the room that has information on E! 911? I happen to see our police chief back there. He might be able to help us out. Thank you, Chief, for Larry. Eric Council members. Paul Larry Chief of Police. So the E911 system essentially is something that allows us to determine the location of a91 caller using their cell phone. That's basically it. Before E911 one, if you called 911 from a landline, which is still the case today, then your address and the name of the person who subscribes to that landline show up on screen so that if you're disconnected and the dispatcher still knows where to send the patrol officer, the 49.1, if you call it from a cell phone, the CHP answered that somewhere in their dispatch center up in Vallejo, and then they would have to determine where you were, what city you were in, and then call that agency, keep you on the line. So there was a very circuitous route for that caller to get through to the agency that she needed, where he needed to talk to that is taken away with the E911 one system. It's not perfect, but it's way better than what we had prior to it. And do we have that currently or we do okay. Because it was listed as an initiative like we would be getting it. Yeah. We certainly do have that. Enhancing the existing 911, but we already have it and have had it for years. Wonderful. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay. So I think that completes that item. Thank you very much. The next item was five. I emotion to receive on all moves that we receive. And that was partly because that was an excellent report. I'm sorry we kept you up there on crutches for so long, but thank you so much. So I will move that council. I received the Information Technology Strategic Plan. Second, I was in favor. I motion carries unanimously. Thank you. All right. And then five I had pulled and we do have some speakers on it, but I had pulled it because I had reviewed with we had quite a few emails received from the public on this.