InPrint Spring 2012

InPrint

Empowering GIS™ for Asset Management, Permitting, Licensing, and more!

The Cloud Computing Omaha and Douglas County, Nebraska, Put Cityworks in the Cloud Cityworks Takes off at Milwaukee County’s General Mitchell International Airport

Spring 2012

Cityworks

InPrint

Emp o weri ng GIS T M f o r As s et M anag ement , P ermi tting, Lice nsing, and mo re!

Executive Board: Brian Haslam, President & CEO George Mastakas, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions Wayne Hill, Vice President of Client Relations Tom Palizzi, Vice President of Marketing and Sales Carl Horton, Chief Technology Officer Brent Wilson, Executive Director of Sales Steve Thomas, Executive Manager, Customer Support

InPrint Staff: Editor-in-Chief: Tom Palizzi Managing Editor: Kaye Ryser Associate Editor: Lindsay Ferguson Copy Editor: Reece Hanzon Graphic Design: Kent Hepworth Advertising: Cindy Curletti Staff Writer: Emily Palizzi Production Design: Kaye Ryser Editorial Inquiries: Kaye Ryser, kryser@cityworks.com Subscription Inquiries: To change your address or cancel your subscription, please contact: inprint@cityworks.com Contact Us: http://www.cityworks.com/us-and-our-partners/ cityworks-publications/ Tel: 801-523-2751 Email: info@cityworks.com

Editor’s Page

Technology Forecast: Mostly Cloudy T

imes are changing. If you haven't noticed, take another look. In fact, flip the page and you'll see what I mean. Every so often, a series of events culminate like a wave building, cresting, and eventually crashing down. In hindsight, we refer to these moments as paradigm shifts.

In March, I was at the Esri Partner Conference in Palm Springs, California. I ran into some old friends and, following the pleasantries, the topic of conversation turned to work. I expressed my excitement about all the emphasis on the Cloud and they seemed perplexed. I explained my opinion about how the Cloud will have a broad and historical impact. Still puzzled, I asked them if they recalled what happened in 1995. I offered a hint that it came from Microsoft. Ironically, it was called Windows.

In 1995, Microsoft Windows 95 was launched and it changed the world. Windows 95 created an environment within which desktop computers could be linked on the network easier than ever before, spawning the age of distributed computing. Microsoft had opened a window that allowed software applications to share data much easier, more efficiently, and at a much lower price. The result was at least an order of magnitude difference in productivity.

That monumental event gave life to hundreds if not thousands of software companies within a few short years. One of those was Azteca Systems Inc. Many of you will recall the impact Windows 95 had on ArcInfo and a slick new offering from Esri, ArcView.

This issue of InPrint is focused on this concept we commonly refer to as the Cloud. As I pointed out above, times are indeed changing. Technology will no doubt continue to evolve and Azteca Systems Inc. remains wholly committed to helping our customers realize the benefits of such advancements. I invite you to flip the page and explore what I believe will be the next technological milestone.

Thanks for reading this issue of Cityworks InPrint!

Tom Palizzi InPrint Editor-in-Chief

Azteca Systems Inc. — Cityworks 11075 South State Street, Suite 24 Sandy, UT 84070 801-523-2751 www.cityworks.com Copyright © Azteca Systems Inc. 2012 All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

The information contained in this document is the exclusive property of Azteca Systems Inc. The work is protected under United States copyright law and other international copyright treaties and conventions. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as expressly permitted in writing by Azteca Systems Inc. All requests should be sent to Attention: Cityworks InPrint, Azteca Systems Inc., 11075 South State Street, #24, Sandy, UT 84070. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice.

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Azteca Systems, Cityworks, and Powered by Esri are registered trademarks; Cityworks Desktop, Cityworks Anywhere, Cityworks Server, GIS Empowered by Cityworks, and Empowering GIS are trademarks of Azteca Systems Inc.; and www.mycityworks.com, www.gocityworks.com, www.cityworks.com, and @cityworks.com are service marks of Azteca Systems Inc. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.

InPrint

Spr ing 2012

Contents Focus

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4

The Cloud Computing “Technological Inflection Point”

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Public Works and the Cloud; Fact or Fiction?

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Small Community Thinks Big With Cityworks Server

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Omaha and Douglas County, Nebraska, Put Cityworks in the Cloud

Features 10 Cityworks Takes off at Milwaukee County’s General Mitchell

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International Airport

14 Unique Use of Cityworks Benefits White House Utility District 18 Meeting NPDES Permit Requirements in Burien, Washington 19 Cityworks Helps Deliver More Accurate Budgets at D’Iberville, Mississippi

20 Cityworks Server PLL and the Easy Standard

Cityworks Spotlight

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22 Q&A with Town of Flower Mound, Texas 23 Cityworks Spotlight on Noblesville, Indiana

International 24 Cityworks in Sweden

User Information 25 Tips & Tricks: Cityworks Server AMS—Creating Work Orders on Related Assets

26 Customer Support—Growing, Adapting, Committed 28 Cityworks Campus: Training Among the Cloud

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29 MyCityworks.com: 5 Key Changes

Cityworks News 30 Continued Growth Drives Office Expansion Spring 2012

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Focus Part 1 - Cityworks and ArcGIS 10.1

The Cloud Computing “Technological Inflection Point”

By Brian L. Haslam, President & CEO, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

T

oday’s forecast is 100% chance of clouds—Cloud computing.

Technological advances and market forces have aligned to create a computing “technological inflection point,” says Tom Conrad, Executive Vice President, Pandor Media Inc. (Feb 2012, Bloomberg).

The Gartner Group pronounced, “The reign of the personal computer as the sole corporate access device is coming to a close, and by 2014, the personal Cloud will replace the personal computer at the center of users' digital lives.” It can be difficult to determine marketing hyperbole from a true “game-changer”—remember the network computer? Looking back to another computing “technological inflection point” can help provide clarity.

In August 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95 setting the stage for the rapid rise of "For several years, the market Windows and the personal has been shifting to webcomputer. Neil McDonald, based solutions connected to a Gartner Analyst, said, wireless networks." “it was a quantum leap in … technological capability and stability." Windows 95 supported 32-bit architecture, came pre-loaded on personal computers, supported development environments like Visual Basic, and was easy to network. By 2001, Windows was installed on most of the personal computers around the world, establishing a broad market in which companies could create and market viable software solutions, like Cityworks.

The combination of a broadly-adopted operating system, rapidly falling prices for increasingly more powerful computing hardware pre-shipped with a suite of desirable applications, and support for development environments like Visual Basic, formed a “technological inflection point” that changed the computing landscape.

With Cloud computing, we see market-altering technology. New types of software companies have emerged—Salesforce and Netsuite are the most prominent examples. For Cityworks users, we see Esri’s major ArcGIS Online initiative and the Web Map. Software Innovation Associated with Cloud Computing For several years, the market has been shifting to web-based solutions connected to wireless networks. This is already evident in how we access email from a smartphone, tablet, or personal computer. Desktop applications still have a place, but users are increasingly supplementing the desktop with the flexibility of browser- and web-based applications.

What other market and technology innovations are associated with Cloud computing?

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Tech-Savvy Users

Perhaps the biggest driver is that users throughout an organization are increasingly comfortable with technology. Nearly everyone owns a smartphone, which is a mobile computing platform. They perform computational tasks daily such as finding directions to their favorite restaurant or ordering movie tickets. Familiarity with technology has empowered users and raised expectations. It has been called the “democratization of technology” (Carl Bass, CEO, Autodesk) because everyone can access the same technology easily.

Device Flexibility

Users desire device independence and flexibility for all their software solutions. Computing anywhere, at any time, using the device at hand is the expectation dominating the market. “Wireless penetration in the US is 105 percent when including mobile devices like tablet computers, said Bob Roche, a statistician with CTIA, a wireless-industry trade group” (April 2012, Bloomberg).

Lower Cost and More Power

Not surprisingly, lower cost and greater power are key factors that propelled Windows and the personal computer in the late 1990s. Today, Cloud computing is particularly well-suited to deliver sophisticated and powerful applications at a lower cost.

HTML 5 and other Web Development Frameworks

There is a rapid increase in applications designed and created using HTML 5 and other web development frameworks. Some have voiced concerns that HTML 5 is a lowest-common denominator approach for development, but it is this very characteristic that is a virtue for supporting a broad range of devices. Comparing Silverlight and HTML 5, even Microsoft has acknowledged “our strategy has shifted,” (Mary-Jo Foley, ZDNET). Microsoft has positioned Silverlight as a development framework “enabling scenarios that HTML doesn't cover” (Daniel Jebaraj, InfoQ). The buzz surrounding HTML 5 and other web development frameworks is a barometer forecasting change.

Virtualization

Virtualization in computing means creating a virtual or simulated version of a computing environment. Software installed on a virtual server with Windows Server 2008 behaves the same as if it were actually installed on a physical server. Microsoft Server 8 (currently in beta) can be installed on the same server hardware. This is called “parallelism.” Multiple virtual environments running in parallel on the same hardware reduces overall costs. Also, virtualization frees an application from specific hardware, providing a path forward for current computing environments and maintaining a computing environment for legacy applications.

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“If a common system is created in which information can be shared among different relevant organizations, the investment will come back four times."

Using a URL, the Cityworks Web App makes a request to the feature service. Rather than sending the entire geodatabase or accessing the geodatabase directly, ArcGIS creates a representation state (or snapshot) of the GIS data and transfers it to Web Map using JSON, HTML, or XML, including geometry, attributes, symbology, and other information. With the request made and the data provided, the Web Map references the URL. With the GIS data in the Web Map container, a user can further interrogate the data by individual layer, control visibility, alter symbology, and limit access and edit privileges to the item level. If permissions allow, GIS data can be updated and sent back to the feature service to update the geodatabase. Users can even overlay other location data residing in non-GIS file formats such as Excel.

And all of this without the need to ask GIS/IT for help. In essence, the Web Map makes a user’s experience with the feature service much more flexible, maximizing an organization’s investment in their GIS to help reach their asset management goals.

The forecast is right: there are and will continue to be a lot of Clouds. cw

Mobility

Computer access was once confined to the office. Wireless networks and mobile devices are providing the benefits of computing power on demand. Anywhere, anytime computing is transforming how we work. Organizations desire the benefits of wherever and whenever collaboration with their staff to increase productivity, reduce travel costs, and improve customer service.

Cityworks-specific Cloud Technological Inflection Point Drivers For Cityworks, there are additional factors driving the Cloud technological inflection point.

Desire to Leverage Investment in Esri GIS

For local governments, Esri technology is the choice to inventory and catalog infrastructure and other assets. They desire to leverage and maximize their investment by using GIS for mission critical functions such as asset management, and for good reason. “If a common system is created in which information can be shared among different relevant organizations, the investment will come back four times,” (Elaine Sylvia, “Cost Benefit Analysis for GIS”).

Next InPrint Issue: GIS-centric CloudTM and Why It Matters for Your Organization

ArcGIS 10.1

Esri ArcGIS 10.1 is a major release in support of Cloud architecture. It introduces the Web Map as a standard way to manage and interact with resources (e.g. GIS data) from ArcGIS Online or from ArcGIS Server via an on-premise server. GIS data is published as a “REST”service (Representational State Transfer service). ArcGIS 10.1-supported REST services include feature, map, image, geocode, geometry, and geoprocessing.

GIS-centric Cloud

TM

(The “Forecast”)

Cityworks Web App and Resources

Cityworks Classic

(Browser, Desktop, & Anywhere)

Esri

WEB MAP

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Work Management

(Cityworks Server)

RE ST Publish

GIS Asset

(ArcGIS Server or Desktop)

On-premise

ST RE

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O

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Cityworks Asset Management and the Feature Service

For the Cityworks Asset Management and the Cloud architecture, the feature service is the glue that holds everything together. For most local governments, the Esri geodatabase is the most upto-date source of an organization’s infrastructure assets. These are “published” as a feature service that adheres to the parameters and format specifications of the Web Map. Conceptually, the feature service can be viewed as containing the different infrastructure layers, such as water mains, sewer mains, streets, sidewalks, trees, etc.

Cityworks Web App

ON JS

The Cityworks Web App is made up of two primary components, the Cityworks web forms and the Web Map. The Cityworks Web App is a “client” and can initiate a data request from available resources residing on servers such as ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Online. The request is made (or called) to an ArcGIS-supported REST service using a URL referenced to a resource. ArcGIS Online or Server processes the request and returns a “representational state” or snapshot of the appropriate data to the Web Map used by the Cityworks Web App.

Work Management

(Cityworks Server)

GIS Asset

(ArcGIS Online)

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Focus

Public Works and the Cloud; Fact or Fiction?

By David Totman, Esri Public Works Industry Manager

T

he words, “Read my lips…” have been immortalized to stress a sense of conviction, urgency, and passion. So it is with these words that I proclaim in 2012; “Read my lips—Cloud GIS is here now, and is our future.” I’m not just talking about Cloud mapping, as you may encounter amidst the myriad consumer web mapping applications. I’m talking about ArcGIS Online, Esri’s Cloud-based, full featured-GIS. Before I can address how ArcGIS Online fits into Public Works, I’ll ask a few more questions. How many of you have too much data to make analytical decisions? How many of you need to effortlessly share information across departments, amongst your peers, and with your citizens? The intelligent Web Map built into ArcGIS Online facilitates solutions to these challenges much more efficiently than ever before, and that is how ArcGIS Online fits in Public Works. Yet be assured, ArcGIS Desktop and Server remain more important than ever.

ArcGIS Online enables Public Works in three ways: 1) giving smaller departments an easy“Read my lips.” to-use and affordable GIS for their basic needs; 2) providing an unprecedented level of access to data for departments of all sizes and GIS maturity; 3) providing an IT architecture and communication vehicle to share information on any device, at any time, and in any location.

Until now, many considered GIS difficult and expensive. ArcGIS Online makes GIS as easy as ordering a book on Amazon. You can make a map with your own data and view your infrastructure, work orders, citizen feedback, or whatever intrigues you. Subscription pricing allows access to GIS for less than the cost of some basic office supply budgets. And, if your organization is already an ELA customer, you can simply leverage your existing subscription licensing to unlock GIS both internally and externally.

Prior to joining Esri, I was constantly faced with the task of defending my budget each year in front of management, or trying to make sense out of some of the asset failure data. I wished I had more readily available

ArcGIS Online enhances your GIS

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www.arcgis.com

information to help. For these needs, the power of GIS is in its ability to visually organize multiple datasets until a clear pattern of cause-andeffect becomes clear. ArcGIS Online bridges that gap as the de-facto GIS wiki. When you need imagery or terrain models, ArcGIS Online provides 12 built-in basemaps, which include 4 imagery options and basic hill shading to highlight topographic challenges.

Some basic search examples in ArcGIS Online yield the following results; “weather” – 1,105 hits, “soils” – 805 hits, “100 yr flood” – 34 hits. These may be suitable for your particular organization to augment your decision-making process. The Esri Maps and Data group in ArcGIS Online hosts 130 feature classes available for use in ArcGIS Desktop, Server, Mobile, and Online mashups. And for demographic data, the USA Tapestry Segmentation dataset augments US Census data with some Esri-provided business data. Esri has defined 12 Life Modes and 11 Urbanization Groups, creating 65 unique Segments for you to use with your analytical needs. For example, suppose a Public Works Director needs to “go green” and figure out where to pilot a new recycling program. A good idea would be to figure out where local community members would most likely take advantage of recycling.

By looking at the Tapestry Segments, Group 22: Metropolitans seems to stand out, being tech savvy, eating organic foods, being environmentally conscious, donating time to volunteer efforts, etc. Perhaps a smartphone application using GIS to locate recycling centers and solid waste collection USA Tapestry Segmentation schedules would help this demographic contribute the city’s efforts to “go green.”

This is one among hundreds of examples of how ArcGIS Online can facilitate innovative solutions.

While this article is not a white paper on Cloud technology, it is an affirmation that Esri has embraced the Cloud in a big way, and that Partners like Azteca Systems Inc. are in direct alignment with our future. Cityworks Server AMS and PLL are a natural fit into the ArcGIS Online (Web Map) architecture.

As excited as I am about ArcGIS Online, I once again reassure you that ArcGIS Desktop remains alive and well. And stay tuned for some exciting news about the integration of Microsoft Office with ArcGIS Online subscription services. Until then, stop by www.arcgis.com and see what it’s all about. cw InPrint

Focus

Small Community Thinks Big With Cityworks Server

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Herriman, Utah On-premise Cloud Approach

By Lindsay Ferguson, PR & Marketing, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

W

ho says small cities can't have sophisticated, state-of-the-art technology solutions? At the City of Herriman, Utah, that is precisely what they do. Taking advantage of emerging technology, the city is among the first organizations to roll-out Cityworks Server AMS using an on-premise Cloud hosting approach.

Only a short time ago, hosting was considered a thing of the future. For Cityworks, today is the future. Many organizations are considering and choosing on-premise hosting to supplement their in-house IT. This compelling approach empowers staff in the office and the field with sophisticated and powerful GIS-centric Asset Management capabilities.

For organizations who want help maintaining their Cityworks system, supported on-premise Cloud hosting offers a cost-effective approach to deploying and maintaining Cityworks Server. In the case of Herriman, the city was having difficulty finding the time to effectively propagate Cityworks Desktop to additional departments.

They needed additional IT resources. The best option for the city was to host Cityworks Server using an on-premise Cloud approach, supported by Azteca Systems.

“We have found that in moving to Cityworks Server AMS, we were able to deploy to a much broader user base,” said Destiny Skinner, ITS Coordinator at the City of Herriman. “The customization process of Server has simplified the user training and has eliminated a lot of user concerns. The Cloud technology allows us to dynamically view and change data within Cityworks. It has made it to where Cityworks and our finance software integrate together through a Cityworks supported API. The ease-of-use has made it possible to push out to additional departments and staff in a much shorter time period.”

Azteca Systems uses remote access and virtualization to maintain the server running Cityworks residing on-premise at the city. Using this approach, nearly everyone in the organization can quickly be given access to Cityworks’ leading GIS-centric asset management solution. This on-premise Cloud approach enables greater productivity across the workforce because staff resources are focused on the city’s core mission: providing services to their constituents.

“Having the support of Azteca Systems using an on-premise Cloud approach has eliminated much of the trial and error that most implementations experience,” said Steve Brown, ITS Manager at the City of Herriman. Quick success with Cityworks brings immediate benefits throughout the organization. “With Cityworks Server AMS, management is able to view the work progress in all departments merely by looking at their customized Inbox,” says Brown. Cityworks Server Inbox has outof-the-box views for managers, supervisors, field workers, call takers, and can be customized to each Department’s specific needs.

Spring 2012

Previously, Herriman deployed Cityworks Desktop. Benefiting from the “Cross-Compatibility” of Cityworks Server with Desktop, the starting point for implementation was the previous foundation created for Street Lighting and Storm Drainage departments. The Cityworks Server roll-out went smooth and fast. Staff quickly mastered the browser-based user interface. Deployment to field users was simplified; all they need is a tablet with a wireless connection and a browser. With Cityworks in the field, staff productivity improves with accurate and real-time information at their fingertips.

Next up, Cityworks will be configured and deployed to the Water, Parks and Recreation, Signs, and Roads departments.

Other departments can access the software simply by using a browser. Cityworks Server software does not need to be installed locally on the device.

Furthermore, Herriman plans to deploy Cityworks for emergency management, providing a much more efficient and timely means to manage crisis situations. The city may also consider off-site hosting. For Herriman, the GIS and Cityworks are mission-critical applications. For Emergency Preparedness, the redundancy provided by off-premise hosting is attractive. A leader in emergency planning, Herriman is interested in any approach that can raise their level of preparedness and improve their response to an emergency.

“We have a number of organizations that have chosen to deploy Cityworks using an on-premise Cloud approach,” said Brian L. Haslam, President and CEO, Azteca Systems. “Without question, Cloud computing is much more than a passing fad. In these days of limited resources, it offers an attractive alternative to traditional software deployments because it provides an avenue for Cityworks to organizations who previously, for various reasons, were not able to deploy GIS-centric Asset Management. Our goal is to help make Cityworks available to any organization, any size, and any budget. We see our relationship with local governments as a partnership where we both have a common goal to improve constituent satisfaction with local government services. ” “Cloud computing clearly makes it possible to deliver sophisticated and powerful applications like Cityworks to cities of all sizes and capabilities,” said Wayne Hill, Vice President of Client Relations, Azteca Systems. “The on-premise Cloud approach is one way to supplement IT resources. Cityworks Server can be deployed in any sized organization. Our experience at Herriman proves the benefits and productivity gains realized from Cityworks Asset Management are now available to all organizations.” cw

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Focus

Omaha and Douglas County Put Cityworks in the Cloud

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By Emily Palizzi, Staff Writer, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

I

n 2005, the Douglas County, Nebraska, Engineers’ Office turned on Cityworks for the first time. A year later, the City of Omaha did the same thing for the Streets and Sewer divisions of their Public Works department. Through a unique joint venture, the city and county share IT/GIS resources that helped them extend Cityworks into other departments. Between the two agencies, Cityworks is also helping the county Environmental department control weeds and litter, while the city uses Cityworks to manage signs and signals in the Traffic department. Though both agencies continue to bring on others in areas such as Code Enforcement, Parks Maintenance, and Pavement Management, they quickly realized desktop-focused deployment had its limitations.

Cloud Implementation “We were at a point where we were looking for new hardware and we thought we might try the Cloud environment out,” said Mike Schonlau, GIS Coordinator for Douglas County. In late 2010, the city and county attended a presentation promoting Esri’s ArcGIS Server in the Amazon Cloud. Their glance quickly became a serious look at the feasibility of administering resources within a Cloud environment and potential impacts on functionality and cost. As they began looking at replacing physical hardware in the offices, everything fell into place.

“We started getting familiar with the environment and how it worked and we really liked the flexibility,” explained Schonlau.

“And since that time, we’ve moved almost all of our production web applications up there, as well as our enterprise geodatabase. Today, we’re probably 90-95% fully implemented in the Cloud environment.”

Migrating to a Cloud Environment Flexibility and cost were the driving forces behind their move to the Cloud. The Cloud presented a very cost-competitive, longterm alternative, while the inherent flexibility offered a compelling means to deploy throughout the enterprises. County and city staff are spread out across several office locations, creating network and server access issues. With an array of servers scattered among their respective offices, they looked for a way to simplify their IT infrastructure.

“It’s not unusual for us (IT/GIS) to work nights and weekends from home and the Cloud makes that easy. It doesn’t matter where we are, we’re able to fully access our resources.” Cityworks users are now able to access information from anywhere.

How the Cloud Works “The cloud works not much different than the way a typical IT data center works,” explains Schonlau. “Anyone can sign up to use the Amazon Cloud. You simply create an Amazon Web Services account and, from there, you choose from one of several preconfigured servers—including some Esri has published that already have ArcGIS installed.” Omaha and Douglas County had a choice of servers they could spin up in the virtual environment. They simply loaded whatever software they wanted to use and configured it to their needs.

Because the back-office IT is provided by Amazon, concerns like backup power, data redundancy, fail over, and Internet connectivity no longer needed the city/county’s attention. This alone allowed them to focus more on applications and supporting data with far less time supporting the computing infrastructure.

“We’re in a situation now where we use remote desktop tools to connect to our servers from wherever we are—the office, home, mobile devices. And we can administer those machines from wherever.”

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InPrint

“Another huge benefit of the Cloud is in fail over redundancy,” Schonlau continued. “We’re able to easily establish a full-scale test environment for installing Cityworks. For example, when Azteca Systems released Cityworks 2012, we installed it on a test server in the Amazon Cloud that same day. We’ve become an early adopter of some of the new Cityworks versions, which is another great benefit to us.”

In the event that something were to happen to a production server, the city maintains images of all their machines, keeping those in the Cloud. They have also replicated their server settings, allowing them to spin up a new version of the server in less than half an hour.

Data Storage, Access, and Editing Most of the city and county’s GIS data is created, edited, and stored locally on their primary database. That data is then replicated to their Cloud environment on a regular basis. However, the Cityworks database is stored in the Cloud, which gives the city and county the ability to make connections directly from their network to the Cloud server. They also make use of Amazon’s S3 (data storage) service where they can upload imagery or large chunks of data and then transfer it to the Cloud server.

ahead and did a full-scale deployment of Cityworks Server. We were able to work in an actual production mode—meaning a full-scale install of Cityworks Server—finding out how it performed in terms of accessing data from the web application itself and the performance over the web. That goes right back to the flexibility of the Cloud environment—a big benefit. It kind of negates the need for working in a sandbox—another big benefit.”

Results The Cloud environment has delivered a notable increase in overall performance for both agencies. When breaking down the cost per hour of the Cloud environment versus owning and operating physical servers, the city discovered that it’s significantly less expensive in the Cloud.

The Cloud has helped the city and county accelerate deployment for Park Maintenance, who will soon be managing their work more effectively and tracking costs more accurately. Cityworks in the Cloud has facilitated more effective communication between agencies and departments, bringing about an increase in production and performance. In 2012, the city and county plan to deploy Cityworks from the Cloud on mobile devices.

“In the end, what it does for us is make us more nimble, more flexible, and more reliable,” Schonlau concluded. “And we can better support our customers that way.” cw

Testing and Evaluating Performance In the fall of 2010, the city launched its first Amazon EC2 server instance. Though the specifications were close to what they had on their internal web server, the Cloud did not have as much ram or storage.

“In our early tests, we put some web applications up there (on the Cloud instance) along with some data, and we published that out to the web. We ran those applications side-by-side with the internal platform, and we found that the Amazon environment was actually faster and definitely more reliable.”

It didn’t take them long to recognize that Amazon’s servers are better optimized for performance than the city’s internal servers.

The agencies are now pushing towards a more robust enterprise environment.

Sandbox Evaluation “We didn’t necessarily work within the sandbox,” Schonlau explained. “Because we had these flexible test environments, we went Spring 2012

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Feature

Cityworks Takes off at Milwaukee County’s General Mitchell International Airport

By Lindsay Ferguson, PR & Marketing, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

L

ike a small city unto itself, an airport manages much of the same infrastructure. Milwaukee County’s General Mitchell International Airport (GMIA, airport code MKE) maintains utilities, pavement, lights, signs, leased properties, and so on. GMIA also manages a host of airport-specific features, such as navigational aids, security systems, alerts, weather feeds, airline information, and others.

In December of 2011, after an 18-month implementation assisted by AECOM (aecom.com), a global provider of technical and management support services, GMIA went live with Cityworks.

Cityworks is used for common assets and work management, as well as many airport-specific workflows, including Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-mandated inspections and the Airport LOGBOOK—the daily “life” of the airport. GMIA employs Cityworks to fulfill these, as well as a variety of other requirements in its GIS Master Plan.

Cityworks Usage Airfield, Terminals, Buildings, Maintenance, and More

Cityworks is used to manage hundreds of assets and an array of maintenance procedures throughout the airport. The airport has compiled a comprehensive GIS database that includes general and

airfield-specific lights, signs, pavement, buildings, fences, gates, navigational features, security items, and other assets—all managed with Cityworks.

Airport Operations care for both airfield and public spaces, including the actual terminal buildings. A significant part of the GIS models the insides of buildings with extensive floor plans and room-related assets. These features are all accessible with Cityworks, including many data layers that are linked to the airport’s property management software. Though the attributes associated with these features are very detailed, the airport continues to add more refined details within interior spaces, such as lights, electrical outlets, carpet, wall coverings, and others.

Cityworks is used inside the buildings by shop supervisors (maintenance, electrical, HVAC-plumbing, custodians) to manage equipment, materials, and labor statistics. Security and safety personnel use the system to manage specific work orders while the Information Technology (IT) team tracks IT-related service requests and work orders. Cityworks is also used to track airport-rented space so a user can quickly determine who is renting a space, how to contact them, and how to access the space in an emergency. The parking management contractor and fire department use Cityworks and the properties department will be implementing soon.

Open work order – Airfield Basemap

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Cityworks has streamlined work. In the past, work orders would go to the wrong location and there was no way to adjust the recipient. Work orders then had to be cancelled and re-created; paper copies were routed around the airport, and oftentimes a work order would be closed prior to final inspection. With Cityworks, the time it takes to complete work orders has been shortened, and routing of work has improved dramatically, with virtually no errors. The staff is happy to find the right work order at the appropriate maintenance shop.

FAA-Mandated Inspections Each and every day of the year, airports perform a variety of FAA-mandated inspections. With the ability to customize Cityworks, GMIA has developed very specific work order templates. Their Master Inspection Plan guides staff through the FAA-required airfield inspections three times a day, as well as whenever an issue may require a runway inspection. This specific inspection (FAA 14 CFR Part 139) involves the examination of airfield assets, including lights, signs, pavement, navigational aids, security items, and more. To accommodate multiple assets in an inspection, GMIA customized a work order template with multiple tasks to act as an inspection form.

Work orders resulting from this inspection are linked to the inspection as child work orders. This allows users to track work tied to a specific inspection while managing open work orders produced from subsequent inspections. Cityworks’ flexible search capabilities and unique map interface only makes the process easier.

“Using Cityworks for FAA-mandated inspections allows us to track daily inspections, see what work orders arise with each inspection, and in the end, the status of the airport at any particular moment in time,” said Timothy Pearson, GIS Specialist.

“Cityworks makes the management of these inspections much more transparent and effective, enabling us to meet our compliance goals and ensure public safety.”

Spring 2012

LOGBOOK: The Life of the Airport

At GMIA, two offices oversee daily operations: Airside Operations and Landside Operations. Each of these uses logbooks to capture a veritable diary or “life” summary.

Everything that occurs on the airfield is entered into the logbook—terminal incidents, weather, staffing, airline issues, and so on. GMIA customized Cityworks service requests to facilitate the capture of events that occur at the airport. Staff enters these events into custom fields, customized templates, contact information, etc.

“Work orders and LOGBOOK items are now trackable and searchable with Cityworks,” said Pearson. “Using Cityworks for the LOGBOOK process has eliminated a great deal of paperwork. Entries contain all the information that would otherwise be recorded on multiple forms and by different offices. But with Cityworks, all the information is in one place—something I’m sure would make life easier at any airport!”

Specific LOGBOOK Example

An example of how Cityworks manages a LOGBOOK incident might be when a person falls in the airport terminal and sustains an injury. Before Cityworks, an airline employee would call the Operations Control Center (OCC), who would then contact police, EMTs, and Landside Operations. The Landside Coordinator would respond to the scene, complete a lengthy form detailing the incident, replicate the information in the paper logbook, and make copies of the form to provide the OCC. The OCC Operator would enter the same information into their logbook and make copies for the Security, Safety, and Properties offices. The Property Manager would then enter the information into a database, make copies and forward those copies to Risk Management and the airport insurance provider.

“Two logbooks, multiple copies, an Access database, and so many different people would often distort the quality of

the information,” said Pearson. “As you might imagine, questions would arise and miscommunications would occur time and time again. You see our dilemma.”

With Cityworks, the OCC Coordinator enters incidents directly into the airport’s Cityworks LOGBOOK, which automatically dispatches a Landside Coordinator and alerts police and rescue. Using a Tablet PC, the Landside Coordinator adds detailed incident information to the same record in the LOGBOOK, including a pinpoint map of where the incident occurred, photos, and witness statements. With all the information in the LOGBOOK, the Landside Coordinator closes the record, which is then immediately available to Security, Safety, Properties, Risk Management, and insurance providers.

“Cityworks meets the Airport’s needs, providing more than what we ever thought was possible.”

“Cityworks revolutionized our LOGBOOK process,” added Pearson. “Everyone is immediately aware of what occurred and has access to the same information—and more information than we ever had before. By eliminating paper from the process, no trees are harmed in the handling of our incidents!”

Benefits of Cityworks “Cityworks has provided us with cleaner, streamlined workflows with regard to work orders,” stated Pearson. “Through entering our older, open work orders into Cityworks, we had a chance to cleanup our database and gain a better understanding of what is actually open. Cityworks has provided a much better solution to collection information that wasn’t even

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template, print documents, and email templates.

Jennifer Tremmel, Airport Control Center Operator, using Cityworks

considered before, such as labor statistics, materials used, who performed work, who is inspecting, who requested the work, etc.”

GMIA now has a way to track events, categorize issues, and easily view the current status of the airport. Through a series of reports, information is automatically disseminated to departments, airlines, and others. Cityworks has helped the airport virtually eliminate the trails of paper that once piled up—a considerable savings in resources and time.

“With Cityworks’ report engine, we can now distribute information quickly, concisely, and to the people that really need it,” said Pearson. “All in all, we have developed a much better way of communicating everything from outages to day-to-day issues. We have streamlined our work processes, simplified user tasks, and created a better working environment. From a data management perspective, we can now make changes to one map service that is immediately available to all of our users in both Cityworks and our eGIS systems. This eliminates the necessity to constantly update maps for multiple departments every time there is a even the slightest change—a huge savings!”

“Cityworks has also helped the airport better justify staffing needs,” said Mark Loach, Project Manager AECOM. “With a firm handle on labor and work statistics, the airport has a much more accurate picture of the time, effort, and efficiency of their maintenance efforts.”

Airport-Specific Customizations Cityworks’ flexibility has proven invaluable to GMIA. Airport specific requirements demanded unique customizations to Cityworks’ service request and work order forms. The out-of-the-box user interface was customized using XML to add an airport specific panel to the service request form while non-applicable fields were removed.

GMIA tapped into Cityworks’ universal custom fields and the custom field templates to ensure the collection of key information.

The airport also leveraged the custom map

Before to Now Before Cityworks, GMIA struggled with a series of systems ranging from computer applications to an established set of forms.

Their work order system was an admittedly underutilized legacy program that could not be deployed to its full potential. After many years of struggling with this program, the airport’s Maintenance department embarked on a plan to replace the system.

Recognizing the benefits of GIS, the airport wasted no time in building a solid enterprise system. A key part of their GIS implementation involved a series of educational interviews to determine where and how GIS would improve their work processes. All roads led to asset management.

“At a Cityworks presentation, we discovered there were many opportunities to leverage Cityworks for our needs,” said Pearson. “Most other maintenance systems couldn’t provide us the seamless integration with our well-established GIS. We wanted an application that would tap into our existing spatial data, would customize to our very specific needs, and maintain significant growth potential. We found all of this in Cityworks.”

Aerial view of General Mitchell International Airport

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“The inability for management to see a snapshot of the airport status was a real challenge,” said Loach. “Cityworks changed all that and more—quick, easy, and accurate information is available for the first time to airport officials, airlines, maintenance, and operations. With public safety high on the minds of management here, Cityworks certainly creates a whole new perspective.”

Future In the future, GMIA plans to introduce more work order processes, such as labor entry, statistics, and inventory, and add the ability to track work orders in their eGIS web application. With AECOM, they aim to develop a variety of Crystal-based reports to further assist airport management with the data analysis. GMIA is presently gearing up to introduce Cityworks Server PLL (Permitting, Licensing, Land) to their enterprise system.

“Adding Cityworks PLL, we foresee the replacement and elimination of aging and inefficient applications along with improvements to project management, data sharing, and planning capabilities,” added Pearson. “In a sentence, Cityworks meets the airport’s needs, providing more than what we ever thought was possible.” cw

About GMIA (MKE)

Airports Using Cityworks to Manage Assets Chicago Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD) is one of the world’s busiest airports, handling over 200,000 passengers and 2,400 flights a day.

A small army of tradespeople, including electricians, plumbers, and general maintenance staff, work around the clock to keep the airport in working order.

Aircraft gates, escalators, signs, lights, inter-terminal trains, bathrooms, and a host of infrastructure add up to thousands of work orders every week.

Cityworks, coupled with Motorola’s mobile technology, has allowed O’Hare’s Maintenance and Operations crews to focus on the work at hand.

General Mitchell International Airport is a countyowned, joint civil/military, public airport located five miles south of the central business district of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is named after United States Army Air Service General Billy Mitchell, who

“Using Cityworks Storeroom in a wireless environment makes inventory almost automatic,” says Kevin Faul, Warehouse Operations Manager. “Knowing that we won’t run short lets us keep smaller quantities on hand, freeing up cash.

Budgets have been cut back, which has been very helpful.”

was raised in Milwaukee and is often regarded as the father of the United States Air Force. The primary airport for the greater Milwaukee area, General Mitchell International is sometimes described as

Oklahoma City

Chicago’s third airport, as many travelers in northern

Meanwhile, at Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport (OKC), maintenance staff has been using Cityworks to manage preventative maintenance and enact FAA performance accountability measures for several years. With specific inspection forms designed for unique assets such as runway lights and building facilities, the airport also uses Cityworks Storeroom to manage their materials warehouse.

Illinois regard it as an alternative to Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports.

About AECOM AECOM has developed multiple enterprise GIS solutions for airports throughout the United States.

Combined with their familiarity with the business of airports, the company was selected to assist

To view the full articles on O’Hare and Will Rogers World Airports, see the Fall 2010 and Winter 2005 InPrint.

GMIA with their Cityworks implementation. For more information, visit AECOM at www.aecom.com.

Spring 2012

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Feature

Unique Use of Cityworks Benefits White House Utility District

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By Dawn Fletcher, Project Manager, White House Utility District, and Emily Palizzi, Staff Writer, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

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ne of the largest water and sewer utilities in Tennessee, White House Utility District (WHUD) serves a population of 90,000 with 30,000 water and sewer connections in a 600-square-mile area. WHUD turned to Cityworks in 2004 for help in streamlining their workflow. Since then, Cityworks has proven an efficient and organized way to track a variety of processes including materials, customer calls, cross connection inspections, new development and capital improvement projects, employee new hires, vehicle maintenance, leak detections, and various state-mandated reports.

Materials Like many Cityworks clients, WHUD uses Storeroom to track materials in the field. Unlike other clients, they are putting Cityworks Storeroom to use in a very unique way. The District requires its field users to be responsible for their own materials, turning their vehicle into its own storeroom where the user can add and subtract materials as they see fit. Because each vehicle that carries material is considered a storeroom, WHUD runs around 25 separate and individual storerooms.

When it comes to material tracking and accounting, WHUD uses different formulas built within Crystal Reports to extract the amount of material used each month, and to differentiate between costs. For example, when a service request or work order comes through to repair a service line, the District can account for the cost as a service line cost versus a main line cost by using Crystal to differentiate between the different accounts. By utilizing the custom fields within the service request, the user can record the material used in order to eliminate the extra step of creating a work order. At the end of the month the material costs are entered into their financial system with an accurate accounting of expenses.

Customer Calls Every phone call into or out of WHUD offices is automatically recorded, allowing every department to have access to calls they make

or receive. When Customer Service receives a call to either start or stop service, for example, staff is able to retrieve the recorded phone call and tag it to the billing system database (InCode). From there, an automated process using the SR API creates a Cityworks service request to either turn on or off service on the date the customer requested. Meanwhile, the system searches for all calls that match the service request, attaching those phone calls to the current service request.

“Occasionally, we might hear, ‘I didn’t request service’ or ‘I didn’t request to have service disconnected,’” said Dawn Fletcher, Project Manager, WHUD. “We have documentation that is easily accessible to research the situation. In the past, everything was recorded on paper.

Customer Service would create a paper service order in the billing system and attach the customer’s request which was also in paper form. Thanks to Cityworks, we no longer have to maintain a room filled with documentation showing these requests.”

In lieu of an answering service, WHUD implemented an Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) system where callers can access their account balance and pay their bill after hours. In emergency situations, calls are routed to the water plant where staff is available 24/7. Upon receiving the call, staff creates a service request, which is routed to the appropriate personnel for review and follow up with the customer, if need be.

When a leak is discovered after hours, such as on a weekend, a “leak recording” will appear on the IVR system. And because it happens during non-business hours, Customer Service is likely unaware of the leak. A service request is created in Cityworks to alert the main office of the situation should any customers call during normal business hours. Cityworks is a central point where multiple people and departments can access the service request simultaneously.

Cross-Connection Inspections Cross-connection inspections in the District are handled internally and are tracked via an automatically generated service request.

Tennessee requires an inspection of each device every calendar year.

With Cityworks, WHUD is able to track up to six inspection trips on a service request instead of creating a separate request up to six times.

This saves valuable time and resources.

New Development and Capital Improvement Projects The District’s engineering department is responsible for all new development and capital improvement projects. They track all key elements of the project in a single Cityworks work order. That work order typically includes every task required for a new development or capital improvement project. A single work order may have up to 60 tasks, all related to one project. Often, the order involves several different departments, with Cityworks effectively managing each party’s concern.

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New Hires and Separations WHUD has discovered unique and interesting ways to utilize the Cityworks work order. For example, Human Resources uses Cityworks to manage the information and tasks associated with new employees. Tasks include setting up the new employee in Cityworks, issuing a cell phone, setting up their computer desktop, and insurance. From a standard work order template, each employee is modified to fit their unique situation.

Vehicle Maintenance Vehicle maintenance is also tracked using Cityworks service requests. Maintenance managers use the system to verify work completed against invoices. The service request tracks things such as oil changes and battery replacements. The vehicle number fills the address line, with the custom fields housing the rest of the information. The employee selects the vendor that did the work, enters the vehicle odometer reading, and selects from a picklist for the maintenance performed. Upon receipt of the invoice, the maintenance supervisor is able to easily query Cityworks to find the open service requests associated with the vehicle, comparing the work requested to that invoiced. Upon approval, the invoiced amount is recorded in a custom field and the request is closed.

POWER

THE OF CONNECTION. Leak Detections The District proactively searches for leaks in each of its metering zones. Work orders guide field workers as they use listening devices to monitor taps, fire hydrants, and water lines in search of leaks, recording their progress along the way. After an asset is inspected, it is highlighted on the map, showing which assets have been inspected and which inspections remain. Field staff list the number of leaks found in the custom fields section of the work order. When a leak is found, a service request is created and dispatched for further assessment.

The White House Utility District services the area north of Nashville, Tennessee. With a pioneering attitude, the District is recognized as a leader in deploying the optimal technologies to better serve their constituents. Cityworks is among many of the solutions implemented to keep costs low and service exceptional. For more information about White House Utility District, visit them on the web at www.whud.org. cw Spring 2012

Envision a unified system with Cityworks® AMS, PLL, and more—by leveraging the ingenuity of an experienced Platinum Business Partner—POWER Engineers.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: » Visit www.powereng.com/gis » Contact: Bart Koenig – bart.koenig@powereng.com Jana Constant – jana.constant@powereng.com

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Spring 2012

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Feature

Meeting NPDES Permit Requirements in Burien, Washington

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By Lindsay Ferguson, PR & Marketing, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

F

aced with the challenge of implementing state-mandated stormwater permit regulations, the City of Burien, Washington, sought help in an automated solution to meet the looming National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) requirements.

Implemented in 2008, Cityworks was deployed in the Public Works department to manage stormwater assets and maintenance, and was initially targeted at meeting the permit requirements. Drawing on their GIS asset inventory, specific inspections, and work order templates, Cityworks quickly helped Burien attain more accurate and efficient stormwater management practices, well within the mandated time constraints. In early 2011, the city upgraded to the browser-based Cityworks Server AMS solution, enabling more staff in the office and in the field.

“Centralizing work activities and integrating them with GIS, Burien has been able to produce more accurate, timely, and up-to-date information on stormwater assets,” said Fernando Llamas Jr., GIS Analyst, City of Burien. “Duplication of effort has been reduced and we’re able to better utilize our maintenance crews, getting work done much more efficiently. We can also now perform data analysis that delivers standardized and reliable results.”

The Details With Cityworks, Burien’s stormwater maintenance crews interact in real time with work orders in both the field and the office. As infrastructure assets are replaced or installed, they are flagged for edit in the GIS. While field maintenance crews view the asset data over reference maps on handheld devices, inspections and work performed is updated, and staff throughout the city has access to the most current information. More accurate data produces more reliable reports, allowing the city to easily justify the new system. Improved activity-based management helped mitigate liability as work can be easily tracked and substantiated.

“Increased access to real-time work information enables us to follow up with citizens faster and with proof that work was completed on a particular asset or at a specific location in the city,” said Llamas.

The Road to Cityworks In 2007, the Washington State Department of Ecology published the NPDES Permit Requirements for municipalities. The purpose of the EPA permit is to mitigate the impact of water pollution by regulating and managing point sources that discharge pollutants into public waters. Like many cities, Burien quickly discovered its existing management system lacked the capabilities to meet the new standards.

Previous to Cityworks, Burien managed their infrastructure with a homegrown work management system. Asset data was collected on paper and then entered into an Access database. Meanwhile, staff was busy mapping the same asset features in the GIS. “As the city grew and more assets were being mapped, the ability to create work orders, run inspections, and update the GIS data became far too cumbersome. The GIS software continued to get better through upgrades, creating the challenge of keeping our custom work management system up to speed.

“With a strong GIS background, naturally I was, and still am, a big proponent of GIS-centric solutions,” continued Llamas. “I had seen Cityworks, which is seamlessly interwoven with Esri’s ArcGIS, and was compelled to further investigate the solution. Initially, our biggest draw to the product was its interaction with the GIS database, resulting in no middle tier. We looked into other options, but in the end we felt confident Cityworks would meet our needs, approaching management with a sole source recommendation.” cw

About the City of Burien Located eleven miles south of Seattle, the City of Burien, Washington, is home to 45,000 residents. The Public Works department is responsible for the maintenance and operation of the stormwater facilities. Working to keep waterways clean and safe for the community and habitat, the department ensures safe functioning of drainage facilities, reduced amount of contaminants from stormwater runoff, and overall high water quality standards.

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Feature

Cityworks Helps Deliver More Accurate Budgets at D’Iberville

By Emily Palizzi, Staff Writer, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

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t the City of D’Iberville, Mississippi, the Public Works and Facilities department have seen some exciting changes. With Cityworks, their ability to manage the city’s infrastructure and maintenance workflow has improved significantly, with measurable results: work gets done more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

“Cityworks is a great tool and we use it daily,” said Michael Mullins, Director of Public Works and Facilities, City of D’Iberville. “It’s easy to use, very functional, and easy to understand. It allows us to keep track of work that is and is not being completed throughout the city and enables our supervisors to easily track and view progress.”

The Public Works and Facilities department is made up of three divisions: Parks and Recreation, Public Works, and Water and Sewer.

Each of these divisions utilizes Cityworks with measurable results, entering and updating work management records for both reactive and preventative maintenance. Maintenance staff enters valuable information, such as labor hours and materials and equipment used, along with notes and other related details. In return, Cityworks keeps a detailed history of work performed on each and every asset, helping management understand and develop more accurate budgets and workflow activities.

“Cityworks helps us keep a detailed ‘paper trail’ of both open (ongoing) and completed projects, keeping our supervisors up to date,” continued Mullins. “And when we need to print a work order for another purpose, such as billing, we can easily provide all the necessary information in one print out.”

The Parks and Recreation department is responsible for maintaining parks, ball fields and lawns, city street and median

Spring 2012

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features, and easements. When a citizen calls about long grass in an easement or along a street, a work order is created and submitted to the department supervisor, who dispatches the necessary staff to take care of the problem. Cityworks helps the supervisor to stay up to date on the issue, while creating an accurate work history of the situation. Once complete, Cityworks triggers an email response to the citizen, improving customer service.

Similarly, when Public Works receives citizen calls “Cityworks is a great tool concerning potholes, street and we use it daily. It’s easy flooding, debris pick-up, etc., they can quickly react to use, very functional, and with the necessary work easy to understand.” orders for pothole repair, flood mitigation, or debris removal. And should the city experience a water- or sewer-related issue, they can capture the necessary information, assess the situation, and create a work order to ensure that the repairs are handled in a timely manner. In all cases, supervisors stay informed while maintaining complete, timely, and accurate information.

D’Iberville lies along the Gulf Coast near the cities of Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi. Severely impacted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the city received design assistance as a part of the federally supported rebuilding process. With nine full-time staff, the city’s Public Works and Facilities department deals with roughly 1,000 work orders per year. cw

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Feature

Cityworks Server PLL and the Easy Standard

By Matt Harman, Project Manager, Azteca Systems Inc.—Cityworks

R

eviewing the requirements outlined in an RFP for a permitting and community development system, one of the requirements indicated the proposed solution must be easy to use. I had to ask myself, does Cityworks Server PLL meet that and who ultimately decides what is easy to use or not?

Believing so, I put a “yes” next to the item and moved on with my review, though the “ease of use” thought lingered in my mind.

Easiness is contingent upon a person’s knowledge of and experience with a topic.

It stands to reason then that as we learn something new, it should then become easier.

Cityworks Server PLL, or any application for that matter, is no different. Most all things new and unfamiliar are a bit challenging.

However, as we spend time learning the basics, it becomes easier and easier to use.

The “easy” standard for Cityworks Server PLL is not defined by me or Azteca Systems.

It is defined by our user community. Because we continually strive to incorporate the features our users request, Cityworks Server PLL continues to meet that easy standard.

In making Cityworks Server PLL easier, we have added links from cases to work orders and services requests, along with automatic email notification to People Roles and Contractor Types based on case and workflow events. The result of a task can automatically create a work order (See Figure 1) in Cityworks Server AMS—unique to Cityworks.

The Task Manager is now available via the remote access application. This tool allows staff to complete assigned tasks via the web and without a VPN connection to the network. It works great on the iPad, for example. A new calendar-based task scheduler will be added enabling users to view, schedule, and reschedule inspections, hearings, and review tasks within a calendar view (See Figure 2).

New tools have been added to streamline task corrections—checklists of items on an inspection or plan review task—reducing the

Figure 1 – PLL with Work Order

Figure 4 – New PLL Admin Page

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Figure 2 – Inspection Calendar

steps required to add a correction. Users can now prevent a task from being completed if there are open corrections associated with it. The ReCheck flag can now be set on a correction and carried through the workflow until the recheck is removed. Failed plan review checklists or corrective actions added to inspections are readily available when the follow-up plan review or inspection is scheduled (See Figure 3).

Cityworks Server PLL 2012 includes an updated user interface, simplifying navigation through the application.

Improvements to the UI will continue and will include a new Admin page (See Figure 4). The new page is designed to improve the user experience with managing and configuring permits and case templates, and XML customization options will allow administrators more control. This capability will be expanded to end user pages in future releases.

The Admin page will also include a drag and drop workflow builder where users can easily create workflows by simply dragging and dropping tasks into milestones and arranging them accordingly.

Easy and intuitive, the workflow builder will streamline even the most complex workflows.

While our users continue to define the easy standard for Cityworks Server PLL, we will continue to work to that standard.

Ease of use is no doubt a focal point we strive to incorporate into Cityworks.

Increasing efficiencies across daily workflows enables organizations to attain greater productivity—achieving more with fewer resources and at a lower cost. cw

Figure 3 – ReCheck Flag Corrections

Spring 2012

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User Spotlight

Q&A with Nicole Dogan



GIS Manager, Flower Mound, Texas

A

zteca Systems Marketing and Communications Specialist Lindsay Ferguson recently chatted with Nicole Dogan, GIS Manager, Town of Flower Mound, Texas.

Cityworks: Describe the challenges Flower Mound faced with managing assets.

Nicole Dogan: Before Cityworks, the Town of Flower Mound did not utilize any commercially available asset management systems.

Each department had set up separate systems to manage work.

None of them were specifically designed for utilities, nor did they communicate with each other. Some departments used paper while others used software not intended for utility asset management. Departments exchanged work information via telephone and email, duplicating data and making it difficult to process work orders or identify status.

We wanted to implement an organization-wide asset management system, used by multiple departments, that would track work and take advantage of our existing GIS. Following an in-depth evaluation, we determined Cityworks met the town’s requirements in the most cost-effective way.

CW: In what departments is Cityworks used?

ND: Flower Mound uses Cityworks in several departments. The Customer Relations Section receives citizen calls/requests and enters them into Cityworks as service requests. Specific departments are automatically notified of new service requests and work orders that pertain to them based on previously established schema.

Customer Relations also utilizes Cityworks to track external utility issues, such as damaged streetlights. External vendors are set up as employees but without access permissions. This way, vendors can receive an email about an issue while Customer Relations maintains the requests, allowing staff to track incidents by utility provider and asset feature.

The Public Works divisions (Water, Sanitary and Storm Sewers, Streets, Signals, and Signs), Parks department, and Meter Services all use Cityworks to distribute and track requests for service and work orders. The system keeps track of labor, equipment, and materials applied per job and by utility feature.

The Utility Billing and Fire departments also use Cityworks as a notification system. Staff enters service requests primarily for water services that are routed to the Water Section, who then complete the documentation and issue work orders if necessary.

Though Animal Services, Code Enforcement, and Police Departments do not access Cityworks directly,

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they are set up to receive citizen complaint emails. Customer Relations closes requests for these departments.

The GIS section manages the Cityworks database and set-up, coordinating with departments to ensure a sound business process is implemented and information flows freely between departments. The GIS section also coordinates service request and work order templates, questions, employee records, access, and material and vehicle costs.

CW: Describe the benefits the town has experienced with Cityworks.

ND: The ability for the departments to utilize a single asset management system is likely the biggest benefit. Each department is able to easily manage the assets for which it is responsible. That alone has improved our ability to effectively maintain utilities.

Organization-wide access to Cityworks has improved workflow and increased the amount of work being completed.

The single system reduces the duplication of work and, once a service request or work order is initiated, it is automatically routed to the correct recipient. Work status can easily be checked at anytime without disturbing anyone. The emails and phone calls previously required to assign work or inquire about status are no longer necessary and, though work-related interruptions might not be quantifiable, we definitely see a difference.

Improved communication between departments and utility providers creates a quicker turn-around time for problems, and thus, a faster resolution of citizen complaints.

CW: How has Cityworks enhanced the town’s budgeting efforts?

ND: Quantification of work performed allows purchasing patterns to be identified and creates the data to support better, more informed budgeting. Departments can now easily quantify the need for staff or materials. Previously, we did not track material or labor costs and, though a narrative of work performed was available, it was cumbersome to extract information. Resources were not tracked or monitored, which weakened the validity of budgets. Now, with a better knowledge base, predicting required funds for the coming year is much improved.

With Cityworks, the ability to accurately measure resources— labor, materials, and equipment—generates a clear indication of resources needed for the next year. Cityworks has improved the effectiveness of budgeting and justifies funding for specific projects and utility maintenance.

CW: How has Cityworks’ GIS-centric capabilities benefited the organization?

ND: The GIS-centric nature of Cityworks has improved asset (feature) maintenance. Cityworks inherently connects work performed on a particular asset directly to that asset. In doing so, departments are able to easily identify lingering or recurring issues through the GIS. If an asset feature shows it has been repaired multiple times, it may be aging faster than anticipated and can be scheduled for replacement before it fails and has a more significant impact on the system. Minor repairs and scheduled maintenance are much less costly to rectify than an emergency situation. cw

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User Spotlight

Cityworks Spotlight on Noblesville, Indiana



By Lindsay Ferguson, PR & Marketing, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

L

ike many agencies, Noblesville, Indiana, lacked an effective way of tracking the work done to maintain the array of assets in their Wastewater department. With a welldeveloped GIS, they wanted a program that would create work orders and relate them to the asset features in the GIS database.

“We had sewer lines, manholes, lift stations, plant maintenance, and vehicle maintenance, but no way of tracking a work history,” said Michael Morris, GISP, GIS Coordinator, City of Noblesville. “We wanted to leverage the value we built into all that GIS data. Cityworks met that objective, hands down.”

Initially deployed in Utilities, Cityworks quickly found its way into the Streets and Park departments. Utilities uses Cityworks to manage the storm, sanitary, and combined collections systems, plant maintenance, lift stations, GIS and GPS, grease trap, and BMP inspections. Similarly, the Street department is using Cityworks to manage work activities for streets, signs, signals, and cemeteries.

This includes street sweeping, snow plowing, mowing, striping, and a host of other tasks.

While all departments are tracking vehicle maintenance, the Parks department manages specific assets and maintenance such as playground inspections and maintenance, mowing, and building maintenance.

“The city has been using Cityworks for two years now,” continued Morris. “We’ve been pleased with the time reduction we’ve experienced creating and tracking work orders. Another benefit we found was the use of the Project function.”

A severe ice storm hit the area in February 2011. With Cityworks, Noblesville was able to quickly and accurately determine the total cost of the storm damage using the Project function. As more and more data populates the Cityworks database, the city will use the information to identify underperforming assets and problem areas. Supervisors make use of Event Layers in Cityworks to plot and understand crew locations, work order locations, and other useful information.

City administration identified the need to better track vehicle maintenance, such as oil changes and refueling. With each vehicle uniquely identified, staff simply

enters the vehicle’s mileage when refueling.

Woolpert, a Cityworks partner, built the link between Noblesville’s fueling database and the Cityworks database using the Cityworks Metrics API. Now, city mechanics receive vehicle maintenance work orders automatically.

“Using Cityworks to track grease trap inspections, we know how much debris/ grease is removed,” said Morris. “We also use Cityworks to manage our Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP). We’ve set up work orders for six (6) Minimum Control Measures (MCMs).”

The stormwater work orders contain custom fields to collect specific information relevant to the MCM. At the end of the year, staff can easily provide the required summary reports to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Noblesville is currently upgrading to Cityworks Server AMS with the help of Woolpert. Having recently expanded their Cityworks deployment to include the Streets and Park departments, Cityworks Server AMS enables far more users both in the office and in the field. cw

Utilities view using Cityworks

Spring 2012

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Inter national

Cityworks in Sweden

I

n February 2012, George Mastakas, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions, visited the offices of Esri Sweden in Kista, a suburb of Stockholm. There are currently three Cityworks clients in Sweden: Stockholm Water, the City of Gävle, and MittSverige Water.

While there, Mastakas attended the Esri Sweden User Conference and met with Sales Manager, Peter Schöldsten, Marketing Manager, Håkan Nordlund, and Björn Holm from Professional Services. Having made some significant adjustments in their corporate structure, Nordlund and Schöldsten outlined the changes to distribute and support third party products and services, such as Cityworks.

Like several other Esri International Distributors, Esri Sweden sees benefits in partnering with third-party Esri developers whose products extend ArcGIS. This model has proven effective, allowing them to focus on their core ArcGIS business while meeting specific market needs with products such as Cityworks.

Like their counterparts in Canada, Esri Sweden sees Cityworks as a key ingredient to help them meet future growth goals. While Esri Sweden is currently working with the City of Gävle to leverage their citywide Wi-Fi network to put Cityworks in the hands of field workers, they are also in the discovery phase with several exciting opportunities. cw

Cityworks Partners Implementation Partners DIAMOND • Woolpert

PLATINUM • POWER Engineers

GOLD • Rolta International, Inc. • SEH Technology Solutions • Timmons Group

SILVER • Jones Edmunds & Associates • Motorola

BRONZE • Burns & McDonnell • CH2M Hill, Inc. • Civic Engineering and Information Technologies • North Arrow Technologies • NTB Associates • Strand Associates, Inc. • VESTRA Resources, Inc. • Westin Engineering, Inc. Peter Schöldsten, Sales Manager, & Björn Holm from

• Weston Solutions, Inc.

Professional Services, Esri Sweden

For a complete list of Implementation Member Partners, see www.cityworks.com.

International Distribution Partners • Esri Canada • Esri India (NIIT GIS Limited) • Esri S-GROUP Sverige AB, Sweden Esri Sweden User Conference

24

• InfoGraph, Jordan

InPrint

Tips & Tricks

Cityworks Server AMS—Creating Work Orders on Related Assets

By Steve Thomas, Executive Manager, Customer Support, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

C

ityworks was designed to create work orders on asset features and related objects in the GIS. Originally introduced to support multiple meters within a single meter box or associated to a single property, this capability extends across a wide array of asset types.

Modeling assets as related objects in the GIS database allows crews and administrators to manage the maintenance history and location data of more specific equipment associated with larger or more complex features. This is especially important for facilities management.

For example, assets such as office spaces or HVAC units in a building, control valves in a pump station or treatment plant, and many other assets are often modeled as objects.

Create a Work Order

1.

2.

3.

4.

On the map, select a feature that contains a related asset.

Click the Show related assets icon on the map toolbar located along the left side of the map (See Figure 1).

The Feature / Object Selection form displays on the work management side of the screen (See Figure 2).

Select the asset of interest by checking the box. One or more assets can be selected from the list, in addition to the feature selected from the map. In Figure 2, the the HLP-13-10 and HLP-14-11 objects have been selected.

Click the Create Work Order button to initiate a work order. A new page loads which includes Select Template, General, and Selected Assets panels (See Figure 3). cw

Spring 2012

25

Customer Support

Customer Support—Growing, Adapting, Committed

By Steve Thomas, Executive Manager, Customer Support, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

T

he Customer Support group continues to grow, adapting to the company’s steady expansion and implementing new tools.

Cityworks Online chat, powered by Citrix GoToAssist, rolled out in late 2011, allowing support cases to be handled completely through chat sessions. Though telephone support continues to be the most common method of communication, online chat is a fast and efficient way to resolve some technical issues.

The Customer Support group recently migrated to Salesforce. A primary goal was to store in one place all client information and interaction. With a common relationship management system,

timely and consistent client information is available to accurately address customer needs.

As client population grows, Azteca Systems continues to look for qualified staff. Opening offices in strategic locations throughout the country will help tap talent pools outside Utah.

Customer satisfaction is among the primary objectives at Azteca Systems, and the Customer Support team remains poised and committed to meet that objective, providing fast and effective responses to your needs. cw

Online chat powered by Citrix GoToAssist

Example of a client and customer support representative using Online chat

26

InPrint

Ideas on MyCityworks.com

By Becky Tamashasky, Industry Practice Manager, Customer Support, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

S

ince the introduction of Ideas, Cityworks clients have provided a very enthusiastic response! We've loved having the input and feedback from so many users. There have been over 400 Ideas submitted to the site and around 25 percent of those submittals are either currently in development, or have already been incorporated and released into Cityworks software. As Ideas are submitted to the site they are reviewed and incorporated into Azteca Systems’ development "blocks" based on functionality. This process insures that our users will see beneficial enhancements designed and created to complement and extend existing functionality.

Be sure to participate in the Ideas Forum at the Cityworks User Conference, where this entire process will be discussed in more detail. cw

Under Review, 29.12%

Vote Now, 47.42%

Released, 9.79% In Design, 10.57% Development Complete, 3.09%

We Want Your Ideas

T

he Cityworks User Conference has always been a forum to exchange ideas. This year’s event will be no exception. As we’ve grown, our traditional Q & A style User Feedback Session literally busted at the seams. To accommodate your interests and facilitate our interaction at the conference and throughout the year, we created Ideas on MyCityworks.com. During the 2012 Conference, you will see the User Feedback Session—now called Ideas Forum—take on a new look and format based exclusively on Ideas. So, we encourage you to visit Ideas at MyCityworks.com and post your suggestions. We look forward to stimulating conversations about the future of Cityworks.

Spring 2012

27

Cityworks Training Among the Cloud

By John Jarnagin, Educational Services Manager, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

A

zteca System staff take great care preparing each class to ensure it is a successful experience. The focus of any Cityworks training is instructing clients in the most efficient workflow when interacting with the software. Hands-on exercises help participants get familiar with Cityworks and understand the core functionality.

In addition to updating training materials with new exercises, Azteca Systems updates and tests the digital training environment against the associated workbooks. While preparations require extra effort, the process has been greatly simplified by the use of Cloud computers.

“A short time ago, training preparation required a lot more time and effort,” said John Jarnagin, Education Services Manager. “The required software would be installed on each computer and each would then be tested against the workbook. If we found issues we would have to reinstall and retest until the machine was working properly. Even though we copied the configuration to the other computers, this process took a great deal of time.”

The next iteration involved the use of Virtual Machines (VM)—a self-contained computer environment that can be installed or attached to any computer. Though the time involved configuring a VM was virtually the same as loading the software on each individual computer, the environment was more uniform and consistent.

The Cloud has changed things dramatically. Similar to a VM’s consistency, the Cloud offers a stable application environment accessible through a common browser , eliminating the need to install and test a room full of training computers. Often, the actual host computer, or server, may not actually be located on premise, but exist elsewhere on a network, or “in the Cloud.”

Educational Services began using Cloud computers in September 2011, replacing VMs for many training courses. Currently, all online training courses, classroom training in the company’s Utah facility, and regional trainings throughout the country are hosted via the Cloud. Preconference training at the 2012 Cityworks User Conference will also be Cloud hosted. cw

Cityworks Server AMS Administration Training – December, 2011

Cityworks Server AMS Administration Training – January, 2012

Environmental Engineering and Contracting Inc., City of Logan, UT; POWER Engineers

GeographIT, Timmons Group, Columbia County, GA, Esri India (New Dehli, India),

Inc., and Yorba Linda Water District (Placentia, CA).

Douglas County, NE, POWER Engineers Inc., Woolpert, Quartic Solutions and City of Raleigh, NC.

Cityworks Server PLL Administration Training – March, 2012 Timmons Group and POWER Engineers Inc.

28 28

IInnPPrriinntt

5 Key Changes to MyCityworks.com

By Greg Walters, Customer Service Representative, Azteca Systems—Cityworks

1.

New Search Engine. The biggest and most exciting change is the new MyCityworks.com search engine.

3.

The old search engine had some major flaws and was extremely inefficient. You can now search every aspect of MyCityworks.com, including Online Help, PDF documents, Forum topics, and Knowledge Base articles.

Status Changes to Ideas. In order to reduce confusion and improve the workflow of Ideas, some of the Idea Status’s have changed.

- No change - No change - Changed from Approved - Changed from Under Development - No change - Changed from Not Approved

2.

New Utilities and Samples. A new Utilities and Samples category has been added to the Resource and Download Center dropdown menu. The Utilities category now houses the Excel Data Template tool along with other tools, such as the EntityUID Migration tool. All future migration and database tools will also be stored here.

In the near future, the Samples category will provide documentation and code for Server AMS administrators to extend their current AMS setup.

We hope to have clients, business partners, and even Azteca Systems Inc., staff share their JavaScript, XML, source code, Silverlight tools, etc.

Spring 2012

4.

All Cityworks Help, including Online Help, is available to all licensed users.

5.

Availability of older versions of the Cityworks software. Cityworks 4.x software is no longer available for download on MyCityworks.com.

Please contact your Customer Support Representative for more information. cw

29

Cityworks News

Continued Growth Drives Office Expansion

A

zteca Systems recently completed office expansion at the corporate headquarters in Sandy, Utah, and the opening of a new office space in West Bend, Wisconsin (Milwaukee area). The company acquired an additional 5,200 square-foot building at its corporate headquarters in Utah, intended to house the Software Development teams and free up space in the original building for new marketing, sales, administration, and management offices.

Located in proximity to a high concentration of clients, the West Bend office opened in January 2012, providing a common location for customer support, sales, services, and training purposes. The office brings strategic services closer to clients located in the midwest and Great Lakes areas. The company anticipates rising operational efficiency as a result of the expansion that will lead to more regional offices in other areas of the US. “With a significant number of clients and a concentration of staff nearby, the idea of a regional office in West Bend was an easy first step and a smart move for us,” said Peter Hristou, CFO of Azteca Systems. “The office will lend itself to things other than just staff offices, such as regional training, marketing events, and related

activities. We fully expect this location to grow and become a strong, regional location for our customers and us and this will be the first of many similar facilities in other parts of the US.” “Over the years, we’ve enjoyed tremendous success with Cityworks—the benefit of a lot of hard work and forward thinking from our dedicated staff and an amazing community of users,” said Brian L. Haslam, President and CEO of Azteca Systems. “Key to any company’s growth is in its willingness and ability to evolve and adapt. We experience this in the input our customers provide and the trends in technology. Locating staff closer to our Citwyorks users, as well as expanding our company headquarters, will no doubt generate the synergy to help us reach higher levels of customer service and productivity—a benefit to our customers, our team, and our company.”

The new West Bend office is located in the Capitol Building at 1755 West Paradise Drive, Suite 101, West Bend, Wisconsin, 53095.

Azteca Systems Inc. headquarters campus is located at 11075 South State Street, Suite 24, Sandy, Utah, 84070. cw

 

Azteca Systems—Cityworks

Regional Office, West Bend, Wisconsin



Azteca Systems —Cityworks  Corporate Offices, Sandy, Utah Cityworks North, South, and West

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InPrint

Upcoming Events Conference

|

City

|

State

| Country |

Date

IMAGIN – Improving Michigan’s Access to Geographic Information Networks

Bay City

Michigan

USA

May 7-9, 2012

UGIC

Bryce Canyon

Utah

USA

May 9-10, 2012

Nevada GIS Society

Las Vegas

Nevada

USA

May 16-19, 2012

APWA Chicago

Schaumburg

Illinois

USA

May 23-25, 2012

Ace12 AWWA American Water Works Association

Dallas

Texas

USA

June 10-14, 2012

Cityworks User Conference

Park City

Utah

USA

June 27-29, 2012

Esri User Conference

San Diego

California

USA

July 23-28, 2012

APWA – American Public Works Association

Anaheim

California

USA

Aug. 26-30, 2012

Welcome to our Newest Employees!

Joe Pilimai – Azteca Systems welcomes Joe Pilimai as an Account Manager. Joe will work with clients and potential clients in the Southwest Region. He has nearly 17 years of sales experience, most recently in manufacturing ERP. Joe lives in Sandy, Utah, with his wife Michele and daughters.

Chloe Coles – Chloe joined Azteca Systems as a technical trainer. Previously a research assistant at Brigham Young University, Chloe graduated in December 2011 from BYU with a degree in Geospatial Intelligence. She and her husband, Ryan, reside in Provo, Utah.

Gunnar Lorbiecki is interning at the new West Bend office. While completing his senior year at the University of Wisconsin, Gunnar is learning about asset management and Cityworks. After graduation he will be joining staff in Wisconsin as a full-time customer support representative.

Spring 2012

Cityworks SAM is getting a makeover!

CW

?

Watch for him at our Cityworks 2012 User Conference!

Correction: In the Fall 2011 InPrint, the City of Charleston was mislabeled as being located in North Carolina. It is located in South Carolina. Our apologies to the residents of Charleston.

31

11075 S. State Street, Ste. 24 Sandy, UT 84070

If you have received this newsletter in error, please call 801-523-2751 or email kryser@cityworks.com.

801.523.2751 www.cityworks.com