InPrint Summer 2008

Cityworks

InPrint

Spring/Sum m e r 2 0 0 8

Delivering Innovative GIS-Centric Maintenance Management Tools for Your Organization Ci t i ze n s o f A n n Arbor Go Online for Se rv i c e Re q u e s ts

Timmons Group Citizens Request Por tal

By Bill Hoisington, VELOCITIE Senior Consultant and Christine Seidl, Consultant

By Jennifer Coughlin, Project Manager, Timmons Group

Located in Lower Michigan, approximately 30 miles west of Detroit, the City of Ann Arbor is home to approximately 115,000 citizens and the University of Michigan.

Continuing to reflect its namesake when founded in 1824, 50,000 trees once lined the streets of modernday Ann Arbor, Michigan’s seventh largest city. In 2006-2007, Cityworks maintenance management software was used to manage the massive ash tree removal to prevent the spread of emerald ash borer disease. Cityworks is becoming an entriprise-wide system, used to manage an array of City activities, including sidewalk inspections, code enforcement, and complete asset management in Public Services. cont. on page 19

Timmons Group is an Enterprise Asset Management and GIS consulting firm and Azteca business partner, based in Richmond, Virginia.

Timmons Group has developed a web-based Citizen Request Portal that extends the Cityworks service request functionality to all of the organization’s employees and constituents without increasing Cityworks or ESRI software licensing.

This solution is available to organizations that maintain a Cityworks site license or a new Enterprise License Agreement (ELA).

The web application interacts directly with an Oracle or SQL Server Cityworks database and dynamically accesses the service request types and related fields that are configured and managed in Cityworks Designer. Both Timmons Group and Azteca felt the need to provide a tool that would enable all citizens and employees to submit concerns, report problems, and request services in a simple and controlled manner. The Town of Herndon in Virginia, Montgomery County Sanitary Engineering Department in Dayton, Ohio, and the Department of Transportation in Washington DC, all current Timmons Group clients insisted on a more dynamic and interactive product than was currently available. The response to our application has been so well received that Timmons Group has developed our Citizens Request Portal as its own product complete with installation, configuration, and system administrator tool sets and is selling it to Cityworks clients seeking to expand their service request functionality.

Typically, a citizen or City call center employee does not have the understanding or expertise necessary to accurately cont. on page 18

INSIDE THIS ISSUE F o r m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n o n C i t y w o r k s a n d A z t e c a Sy s t e m s , v i s i t u s o n l i n e a t w w w. c i t y w o r k s . c o m

InPrint Editor in Chief: Tom Palizzi Editor: Kaye Ryser Advertising: Kaye Ryser Azteca Systems, Inc. 11075 South State Street, Suite 24 Sandy, UT 84070 801-523-2751 www.cityworks.com To receive a subscription or to change your address, please send your contact information to: inprint@cityworks.com or call 801-523-2751 Founded in 1986, Azteca Systems, Inc. is the leading provider of GISCentric Enterprise Asset Maintenance Management Systems for Public Works and Utilities. Built exclusively on top of ESRI’s leading GIS technology, Cityworks is powerful, scalable, and affordable.

How to Reach Us: Tel: 801-523-2751 Email: info@cityworks.com InPrint is published by Azteca Systems, Inc. (Azteca), at 11075 South State, #24, Sandy, UT 84070. InPrint contains material of interest to utility and public works organizations.

Copyright © Azteca Systems, Inc. 2008 All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

President ’s Corner

by Brian Haslam, President/CEO

The Cityworks 2008 User Conference is just around the corner. We look forward to seeing many of you at Snowbird. We are pleased that so many of you have made the effort to attend. Once again our attendance has increased and we expect around 350 attendees.

Azteca Systems’ staff is working hard to make your time worthwhile. The conference is an opportunity for Azteca Systems to report to our Cityworks users.

Your perspectives, insights, and opinions enhance our understanding of how well we are doing. The conference provides an opportunity for Azteca Staff to interact directly with you and you with each other.

We hope all of you will plan to attend our 2009 conference that will be held in the fall during the month of October. For many reasons, we are going to move the conference to October. We have received feedback from many of you regarding the conference. Most of you prefer a conference not held in the summer months because the summer is such a busy time. Also, ESRI is moving their conference to early July for at least the next 4 or 5 years. An early July date narrows the time frame in June for our conference.

We considered moving the conference to May but the weather is a concern. May in the mountains is not an option except in dry years which we are not able to forecast. When we scheduled this year’s conference at Snowbird (8,000 feet), we assumed most of the snow would have melted by mid-June. However, we have had a very cool spring in the Rocky Mountains. Just a few days ago on June 4th, it snowed 10 inches at Snowbird. There is still snow near the lodge. Skiers will still be skiing at Snowbird well into July.

Looking at the calendar, we determined that October can be a very good time to hold our conference. We know to avoid Halloween so nobody misses Trick or Treat. For 2009 we chose to hold the conference October 21 – 23. In addition to changing the month, we are changing the location to St. George, Utah. Your first reaction will be ‘Where is St. Geroge, Utah?’ It is located in the Southwestern corner of Utah and relatively close to Las Vegas, Nevada. In fact, the easiest way to get to St. George is to fly to Las Vegas and drive to St. George or take one of the regularly scheduled shuttles between Las Vegas and St. George.

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.

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

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St. George is located in the middle of what is referred to as the ‘Golden Circle’ because of the proximity to National Parks and other outdoor recreation opportunities. Because St. George is a desert climate, October is a great time to visit. The location is great but we have not lost sight of the reason for the conference. The Dixie Center at St. George is a first-class conference facility. It can support our growing conference for many years with space for large group meetings and many break-out sessions. We are excited to take this next step in the evolution of the Cityworks User Conference by scheduling the event at the Dixie Center for 2009.

2008 will be a great conference located at a first-class facility, too. Snowbird is as nice as any facility for our size of group.

Your time spent at our 2008 Cityworks User Conference is time well spent. We promise that the 2009 Cityworks User Conference will be the same. Thank you for supporting our conference. We promise to always strive to make this a worthwhile, learning experience for all of you. J

Bryce Canyon National Park

Zion National Park

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Im p l e m e n t i n g “ Best Business Practices” Along With the Cityworks™ CM M S Ho w t h e M a c o n Georgia Water Authority Made the Connection

By Tony Rojas, Executive Director, Macon Water Authority, Macon, GA and Jim H. Davis, Director of Operations, Performance Consulting Associates, Atlanta, GA

The concept of an Asset Maintenance Management System (AMMS) has been around for a long time. This article focuses on what we, the Macon (Georgia) Water Authority (MWA), did to launch a sound AMMS strategy for our physical “equipment, process, and facility” assets. These improvements will aid us in complying to the GASB Statement No. 34 when applicable.

Part I in this issue of InPrint describes the major components of our AMMS and what each component required. In our search for a new AMMS, we chose the Cityworks™ system to complement our strategy. Watch for Part II in the next issue, which focuses on the details we put in place for the care and maintenance of our physical assets.

Asset Maintenance Management Components The primary purpose of an AMMS strategy and its accompanying components (programs, tasks, activities, etc.) is to: ● Identify exactly what assets you are responsible for operating, monitoring, and/or maintaining. ● Know precisely where each asset is located. ● Assess and access asset condition at any given time. ● Understand the design criteria of your assets and how to properly operate them. ● Develop an asset care (let’s call it maintenance) program

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that assures that each asset performs reliably (aka reliability) when it is needed (aka availability). ● Perform all of the above activities to optimize the costs of operating your assets and extend their useful life to at least, if not beyond, what the initial design and installation recommended.

Identify Assets It may sound simple, but identifying our assets was not as simple as we thought, especially when you consider the large amount of infrastructure MWA maintains and operates. MWA’s infrastructure consists of 2 wastewater treatment plants, 1 water treatment plant, 54 lift stations, 6 pump stations, 17 storage tanks, and some 2,600 miles of sewers and water mains. An asset registry spreadsheet was developed for each facility and completed by the operations staff following the site treatment process. Development of detailed inventory data was not possible for buried assets.

While approximately 75% of the sewer conveyance system had been inventoried and was available on the Authority’s Geographical Information System (GIS), details on the water distribution system existed on paper maps, in the minds of key staff members, or didn’t exist at all.

Figure 1 shows the definition of the parent and child hierarchical approach used in our inventory collection.

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Locate Assets Again, this may sound simple, but how many times did we have to dig out drawing after drawing, go snooping or poking around the area or worse yet, try to track down the last crew who worked on a given asset to actually locate it? Some field assets that used to be easily locatable are now hidden under a street or sidewalk.

A lot of the same conditional elements we mentioned with regards to identifying assets apply here as well. However, with today’s GIS and GPS technology, this is becoming less and less of a problem, especially with more recently-installed assets. We applied the same technology to older, previously installed assets as well. Updating our previous asset information and data became part of our overall AMMS as well as designing future installations of assets with thoughts of how to easily locate them when we need to.

Asset Condition Knowing the current condition of each of our assets has always presented its own set of problems, especially when many of those assets are “hidden” from the normal site (e.g., vaulted, underground, or remotely located). To remedy this situation, we have a system (process or procedure) in place that requires us to do whatever inspections, PM’s, and/or predictive tasks (like CCTV, ultrasonic scans, etc.) needed.

We also completely and accurately capture, document, and store all related and pertinent information for easy access and review in the future.

Typically this information has come from operators, maintenance crews, contractors, engineers or whoever touches that asset for any reason, which is why we stress that a good AMMS is not just a maintenance department initiative. It has to involve the entire organization. The actual condition assessment regimen was designed as a relatively coarse filter for the first inventory and then refined every time the inventory is reassessed. As a guide for the Operations staff, condition assessment ratings were established for asset components.

Table 2 - Dynamic Asset Condition Grade Rank

Grade

Description ofCondition

1

Very Good

Very Good Condition

2

Good

Minor Defects Only

3

Moderate

Maintenance Required to Return to Accepted Level of Service

Only normal maintenance required (brand new assets) Minor maintenance required (5% of the asset would require replacement)

Significant maintenance required (10-20% of the asset would require replacement)

4

Poor

Requires Renewal

5

Very Poor

Asset Unserviceable

Significant renewal/upgrade required (20/40%of the asset would require replacement) Over 50%of asset requires replacement

Operating Assets This element is certainly not unique to utilities, as industrial manufacturing firms deal with this situation too. Increased customer demands, diversity, and modifications to equipment (not to mention the environmental aspects, a whole science unto itself) may cause us to push those assets far beyond their design capacity. If we do that for long, we are possibly setting ourselves up for some major catastrophes. In order to monitor this situation, we need to know what the design “specs” are, document them, insure our equipment is operating within those specifications, and maintain the equipment accordingly. Our DCS systems and even our new Cityworks CMMS will be used to help track this information.

Routine Care Once we knew what assets we had, where they were, and how to properly utilize or operate them, we integrated a basic asset care program (call it maintenance if you must) to ensure our assets are ready to use (availability) and once engaged (turned on) will operate at or near the designed specification parameters until we disengage (turn off) that asset (reliability). To do this, we wanted to run our maintenance program in a more PROACTIVE maintenance environment versus a REACTIVE one. cont. on page 23

Table 1 - Static Asset Condition Grade Rank

Grade

Description ofCondition

1

Very Good

Sound structure

2

Good

Functionally sound structure

3

Moderate

Adequate structure, some evidence of foundation movement, minor cracking

4

Poor

Structure functioning but with problems due to foundation movement. Some significant cracking

5

Very Poor

Structure has serious problems and concern is held for the integrity of the structure

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Software Update Work Order Automation in Server MMS

By Carl Horton, Software Development Director

There are occasions when an organization needs variations of a work order type based on asset values. Sometimes slightly different work is performed, or different resources are utilized for a given activity, based on the attributes of a feature on a work order. These differences can include crews, equipment, material, tasks, and inspections. Rather than having multiple resource lists or overly complex inspections or tasks within a single template, Cityworks MMS now supports the ability to use rules to facilitate work order creation for these types of situations.

Cityworks already supports a form of workflow automation with rules through the question-and-answer process in service requests. For example, answers to service request questions or geographic location can change the assignment of the request. Work order automation is different in that work order template availability and selection can be a function of feature attributes.

Cityworks MMS is performed by grouping similar work order templates whose usage is a function of feature attributes. For example, all pipe inspection work orders are slightly different based on feature subclass. In this scenario, let’s work with three pipe inspection templates (Clay Pipe Inspection, PVC Pipe Inspection, and Concrete Pipe Inspection) in the Pipe Inspection work order class. The work orders are all slightly different from each other with respect to labor, material, equipment, tasks, and data collected in the inspection.

When a user wants to create a pipe inspection work order, they merely identify the pipe(s), and go through the normal work order creation process. Rather than selecting from the three pipe inspection templates, users merely select “Pipe Inspection” from the list of work order types. The software will examine each pipe for the relevant attribute combinations and create the appropriate work orders. If a pipe does not meet the attribute criteria, a default work order type can be assigned. The following table illustrates this simple rule set.

Feature Class: Sgmain; Default work order: Pipe Inspection Template

Attribute: Subclass

Concrete Pipe Inspection

Concrete

Clay Pipe Inspection

Clay

Plastic Pipe Inspection

Plastic

Creating the work order rule sets requires a few simple steps.

For each work order template used in a rule set, it must be assigned to a class. Each class is then assigned a rule set in Designer. The class rule set is then created by selecting attribute values that result in a unique combination for a particular work order template. The second table illustrates a more complex rule set where a tree pruning activity is a function of tree diameter class, whether the tree is in a quarantine zone, and is a host species for beetles.

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Feature Class: Tree; Default work order: Tree Prune Template

Attribute: Attribute: In Quarantine Diameter Zone And Host Class Species

Tree Prine <8 inch DBH

N

1

Tree Prune 8-12 inch DBH

N

2

Tree Prune 12-18 inch DBH

N

3

Tree Prune 18-24 inch DBH

N

4

Tree Prune 24-36 inch DBH

N

5

Tree Prune >36 inch DBH

N

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Tree Prune <8 inch DBH in QZ

Y

1

Tree Prune 8-12 in. DBH in QZ

Y

2

Tree Prune 12-18 in. DBH in QZ

Y

3

Tree Prune 18-24 in. DBH in QZ

Y

4

Tree Prune 24-36 in.

DBH in QZ

Y

5

Tree Prune >36 inch DBH in QZ

Y

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At this point in time, up to three attribute fields with any number of values within any field can be utilized. The limit of three is more of a performance issue rather than technology limitations, and as ArcGIS Server continues to improve, the number of fields available to use in a rule set will likely increase.

Another feature of the rule set automation is the ability to create many different work orders at once, with each work order potentially having a different description. The “One work order for each feature” option must be selected in Designer preferences for rule set validation to occur. The rule set is applied to each feature in the selected set and the appropriate template is selected and generated. The work orders can then be managed individually or by groupinginto a project as standard Cityworks functionality.

In the future, it is expected that as ArcGIS Server performance increases, that a DLL or other script can be used to perform analysis to determine the appropriate work order. These types of analyses could include functions such as point in polygon, buffering and proximity measures, date calculations, and others. J

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Client Services Update My C i t ywo rks. c o m Gets a Makeover!

by Wayne Hill, Client Services Director, Azteca Systems, Inc.

As you know, customer service is one of our main focuses here at Azteca Systems. In support of this effort, we’ve been rather busy giving MyCityworks.com a nice makeover. You may have noticed a new search tool has been added to the upper left section of the website to allow searching on all of the articles within the site, including the knowledgebase, white papers, and forum articles.

Search tool:

Cityworks Campus is a new website that allows for online registration of both remote interactive training (RIT) and corporate training at our Salt Lake City, Utah, location.

Search results:

The search result headings are links to the actual articles.

So by double clicking the headers, a user is taken to the full article. This new search tool will make finding information on MyCityworks.com much easier.

We removed the “Documents” page and added the “Resource Center.” This new site places all of the resources for the different software releases in the same area of the website.

There’s documentation, Cityworks software service packs, white papers, and a new support tool, help videos.

Along with the search tool, we have added a new forum page.

The Cityworks Forum is for you, the clients and partners, to communicate together regarding your Cityworks questions.

We’re always looking for ways to make information easier to access. So try out these new tools and let us know what you think.

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J

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Client Services Update

(cont.)

Cit y works Tra i n ing

by John Jarnagin, Support Training Manager, Azteca Systems, Inc.

Great things are happening in the training department. I am pleased to announce the launch of Cityworks Campus www.mycityworks.com/cityworkscampus. This additional webpage added to mycityworks.com is dedicated specifically to training and allows training attendees to select, register and pay for courses on-line. Additional information on each course is also listed on this site.

The site is currently divided into three main sections.

• Remote Interactive This section contains information on Remote Interactive Training (RIT) which are training courses offered over the web. Click on Course Listings to get more information on each course and to see when each course is offered.

Click on Register to sign up for a class or several classes at a time. Several courses are offered each month to meet the needs of Cityworks end users and Business Partners.

• Salt Lake City Courses listed in this section are held at Azteca Systems’ company headquarters 20 miles south of Salt Lake City in Sandy, Utah. Currently we are offering one course; the Cityworks Administration training course. Additional training courses will be added in the future. Click on “Course Listings” to see the course details and dates when this 5-day course is being held. Click on “Register” to reserve your seat.

• On-Site This section is currently under construction; stay tuned for additional future information.

Payment for a training course can be made online if using a credit card. Purchase Order (PO) numbers and checks are also accepted as payment. To use a PO/check simply fill out the on-line registration form and phone or email your PO/check information to Azteca by calling the main number or sending an email to the Support Training Manager, John Jarnagin at jjarnagin@cityworks.com.

Future scheduled Cityworks Administration training courses held at Azteca’s corporate headquarters in Sandy, UT: • July 7th – 11th • August 25th – 29th • December 8th – 12th I’ll stop now by encouraging you to check out the new Cityworks Campus site. Please feel free to contact me with any questions related to training. I’ll catch you at the campus.

J

Kudos for our Client Services Group!!!

“I truly appreciate Reed’s expertise and demeanor when handling our software issues. He has NEVER let me down when I call with an install or programming question. He is always pleasant and never treats me as “stupid” as some service personnel have a tendency to do. He is a gem and you should commend him for his abilities.”

Joanne M. Baquero, City of Biloxi, MS

“Azteca has provided superior tech support to us since day one, unmatched by any software company I’ve ever dealt with. Azteca tech support staff are also very personable, upbeat, and best of all, NOT condescending.

This makes for a very productive and encouraging experience for us Cityworks administrators, and revives our commitment to providing the best

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Cityworks service we can to our users.

So thank you and please keep the great tech support coming our way!”

Mary Clement, City of Lake Forest, IL

“One more time, thank you very much for your great support!”

Zbigniew Brodzik, City of Richmond, VA

“I would like to thank you for all the excellent service you have provided us over the years.

You’ve answered everything quickly and professionally.”

drop a quick note to say how much I appreciate Bryan Chadwick. I fell into the role of Cityworks Administrator for the City of Woodland in February of this year. My transition was assisted by remote admin training by David Hansen. However, in my opinion, without the front line support from Bryan my ability to administrate Cityworks would not have been so smooth.”

J Kimura, City of Woodland, CA

“Thank you for all your help and fast support solutions.”

Tim Ryan, North Penn Water Utility, PA

Mark Stram, City of Grand Rapids, MI “I wanted to take a few moments to

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

Project Management Update Cit y o f B o ze m a n, Montana, Implements Cityworks and Experiences Gre at Re s u l t s, with More to Come in the Future

by Matt Harman, Project Manager, Azteca Systems, Inc.

Introduction Located 90 miles north of Yellowstone National Park, Bozeman (MT) is in the heart of the Gallatin Valley at the base of the beautiful Bridger Mountains. The city is the fourth largest municipality in the wide-open state of Montana with a population around 33,000 and is home to Montana State University and some of the best skiing, hiking, hunting, and fishing you’ll find anywhere in the world. The alpine city covers an area of approximately 13 square miles at an elevation of 4,810 feet and averages 73 inches of snowfall per year. A unique feature of the City’s infrastructure is that the water system is a 100% gravity flow system. There are no mechanically pressurized water mains in the city. (Coming from an engineering background, I thought that was pretty cool!)

Bozeman purchased 19 Cityworks licenses, 2 desktop and 17 Anywhere, utilizing the ArcEngine Runtime license. Ten of the Anywhere licenses are dedicated to field laptops for use with DataPump. The asset information is stored within an ArcSDE 9.2 geodatabase and the Cityworks database runs on SQL Server 2005.

The staff at Bozeman was great to work with and had a good foundation to build upon. From day one, they were dedicated to getting Cityworks up and running. We held our initial Kickoff Meeting on February 18, 2008 and the City went live on April 1st, 2008 – in just 6 weeks!

The employees at Bozeman have already felt the positive effect Cityworks has on their operations. John Alston, the Superintendent of the Water/Sewer Department says, “Being only into the system a month, the amount of paper I handle

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has been cut by 90%. I like being able to look at the map at any time throughout the day and quickly see what outstanding (open) work orders and service requests there are and their location without having to ask someone or go through a vast amount of paper to find out.”

Using Anywhere and the spatial reference allows them to better plan their work days. John continues, “With rising fuel and labor costs, Cityworks has and will allow us to schedule work orders in similar areas of the city rather than “bouncing” all over the city throughout the day, especially for work orders such as the Curb Box Program, fire hydrant or sewer flushing, and our water valve exercise program to name a few. I feel the Cityworks system has helped take our maintenance program up to a higher level of organization, and allow us to quickly access asset history at the touch of a mouse.”

The Transition to Cityworks Bozeman chose Cityworks to replace their old-fashioned way of managing infrastructure and work maintenance to the Cityworks way of doing the same. The City has an excellent history in gathering and maintaining GIS data. This data is heavily used by several City departments, citizens, and the greater Gallatin Valley area. Therefore, finding an application that fully incorporated this information into their asset maintenance system was crucial. Cityworks and Bozeman were a natural fit.

Jon Henderson, the GIS Manager for the City summarizes: “The City of Bozeman is committed to using technology and people to help organize customer needs and department operations. From the beginning, it was obvious that leveraging spatial data would enable us to see relationships between jobs and requests and track our assets more efficiently than ever before. Starting with a strong GIS has allowed us to take full advantage of the power of Cityworks and bring data and records into the field. Currently, our Water, Sewer, Street, Signs, and Forestry divisions utilize various parts of Cityworks with opportunities to expand into other areas of the City. Like any large-scale solution, this project involves support and dedication at all levels to maintain the best information. Only a few weeks after startup and our staff is becoming more comfortable improving the way we track our work. Through time, we will no doubt begin to realize the full benefit of our accomplishments and better plan for the future. Cityworks allows us to visualize that progress and give value to effort.”

Like many of our clients, Bozeman moved from a mostly paper-based management system. They did not have any previous software applications to migrate over to Cityworks.

In fact, on the second day of the onsite end-user training, I noticed a box placed on a shelf right behind me as I was training the City’s Water/Sewer staff. Upon closer inspection,

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Project Management Update (cont.)

I found the old asset maintenance management system that we were migrating from… See pictures.

I especially liked the “Do Not Throw Away” plea someone wrote on the box. I pointed the box out to those in the training session and we all had a pretty good laugh.

Someone asked if I put that there; it was almost too perfect to be a coincidence, but it was. Here was a box full of old paper work orders piled randomly in the parts warehouse while we were training them on how to use Cityworks Anywhere and DataPump. I jokingly challenged them to see how quickly they could find a history of all work performed on sewer manholes located on Main St. between 7th Ave and Bozeman St. for the fiscal year of 2007-2008. Of course they couldn’t. So, with confidence and feeling pretty good about myself, I emphasized that next year at this time they will be able to open Cityworks, run a search, and find that information in just a few clicks. They would even be able to utilize the Event Layer function and display those results on a map document. At that point, everyone realized the incredible benefit of using Cityworks combined with the GIS data they already had.

Many municipalities move to Cityworks from a paper-based system. In fact, that is one of the primary reasons they make the investment. Paper-based systems are outdated and require so much time and effort to manage and organize (if there is even an organization effort in place!). Further, with years of data and thousands of documents filed, it becomes incredibly difficult to find any work history or anything telling at all. For the guys up in Bozeman, don’t feel embarrassed about these pictures, that “system” is prevalent everywhere. We see it all the time. You aren’t the only ones who have a box of old work orders stashed away in a warehouse. Take pride in knowing that you have become one of many clients who transitioned from the same “system” over to Cityworks. Thanks for letting us use these pictures.J Bozeman’s Cityworks Profile One of the immediate benefits of Cityworks realized by the staff in Bozeman was the fact that Cityworks utilizes a relational database management system (RDBMS). The RDBMS provides a centralized location where all the data resides. It is no longer spread across hundreds of files on computers and hard copies in boxes. In addition, the builtin search functions allow users to find EXACTLY the data they are looking for in just a few clicks. Users can specify any combination of search parameters on the work order or service request search forms to quickly find what they need. What’s more, NO MORE PAPER COPIES AND BOXES OF PRACTICALLY USELESS DATA!

Bozeman implemented Cityworks for five of the city’s divisions. These five divisions are managed by two separate departments: 1) Water/Sewer Department, and 2) Forestry, Streets, and Signs Department. Each of the two departments operates independently of one another. Furthermore, the people from both departments were pretty adamant about keeping the two departments’ data independent. The Forestry, Streets, and Signs crews didn’t want to be able to see or access any of the Water/Sewer data and vice-versa.

Due to this distinction and other reasons, it was best to keep these two departments separate. More importantly, that’s what they wanted, so that’s what we provided.J Typically,

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Project Management Update (cont.) this would be an ideal situation to use two separate Cityworks domains in the database, one for each department. Work order templates, request templates, and employees are specific to the domain. Thus, two domains would keep the departments independent but within the same Cityworks database. However, early in the implementation, we decided to put both departments in one Cityworks domain. We did this as a result of two significant items that came up in the Kickoff Meeting.

The first reason is simply because managing one domain is easier. Jon Henderson is the GIS Manager for the City. He and Carrie Shockley (GIS Specialist) are the two responsible for managing Cityworks. Carrie is the dedicated GIS Specialist for the Water/Sewer department. In addition to Cityworks, they are responsible for managing the GIS for the City. They are heavily used by every other department (Engineering, Police, Fire, Parks, etc.). They also have a significant role in the Gallatin County GIS as Bozeman is the county seat. Jon has a significant role in the Montana State GIS community as well. To say the least, they have their hands full. Consequently, we decided to implement Cityworks in a way that would require the least amount of effort on their part.

The second and the most important reason we chose one domain was because there are two Administrative Assistants who take service request calls for both the Water/Sewer and Forestry, Streets, and Signs Departments. These two individuals also have a role in entering work orders retroactively for the Forestry, Streets, and Signs Department based on timesheets they receive from the crews. Using two domains would have required them to maintain two different Cityworks logins, one for each domain. Furthermore, they would have had to log out and in to the correct domain multiple times throughout the day depending on if a call was related to Water/Sewer or Forestry, Streets, and Signs. Two domains would have made their jobs unnecessarily more difficult. A lot of information moves through these two women each day and we needed to make sure that Cityworks would make their jobs easier and not hinder them. One 14was the right choice. domain

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

After we decided to use a single domain, we still had the challenge of keeping the data collected from the two departments separate, with as little crossover as possible.

How did we accomplish this and keep everyone happy? We did it by utilizing the Group Security settings on the work order and service request templates. We created Employee Groups to organize the employees for each department. We then set the security rights on the WO and SR templates respective to each department to the different employee groups within each department. By denying the two department’s employee groups View, Add, Update, Delete, and View Costs on each other’s WO and SR templates, we kept the data distinct. Thus, a Water/Sewer worker cannot create, view, or even search for a Forestry, Street, and Signs work order and vice versa. We then created a separate group for the Administrative Assistants to which we gave permission to access both of the department’s WOs and SRs. Group security settings enabled us to use one domain but keep the two departments separate while still allowing the Administrative Assistants the bridge into both departments.

It should be noted that using one domain and the group security permissions doesn’t completely isolate each department from one another. For example, when adding labor to a work order, workers from both groups can see each other’s names as options to add from the employee list. Also, the Employee Relates crossover both departments on a single domain (meaning the Initiated By, Submit To fields, etc. are populated with the employees from both departments). But, during the training we discussed this and trained the users to simply find their name or group and pick from that list. In the end, this was a small compromise that everyone felt was acceptable.

Cityworks and Bozeman are a natural fit. The City is now able to take full advantage of their GIS data and incorporate it into their Cityworks management system. Cityworks also provides them a level of customization to meet each department’s needs. As they continue to enter work orders and service requests via Cityworks, the staff at Bozeman from both departments will see the incredible benefit of having an electronic version of their data that is organized and easily searchable. Bozeman has already realized benefits from their transition to Cityworks, and the improvements they experience will only escalate as they continue using their new and improved maintenance management system. J

11

Re a ch i n g a W i d er Audience with C ityworks And Orion OnPoint

by George Mastakas, Director of Enterprise Solutions, Azteca Systems, Inc.

So you’ve deployed Cityworks and your users are humming along happily collecting lots of operational data. Cityworks provides those users with a great set of tools for retrieving and displaying that data. But there’s rumblings...

Others in your organization have learned about this ‘Cityworks CMMS deployment’ and they’re requesting access to that data too.

And, your organization has other business systems whose data needs to get out there.

These individuals are not core users of the business systems, yet somehow they must become consumers of the data stored in them. So congratulations! Your successful implementation of Cityworks has ‘earned’ you the distinguished honor of having to make this information available to the masses. There’s just one small problem...

With your already overflowing buffet-sized platter of work, how are you going to find the time to provide a weekly report that summarizes the twenty different things these various consumers wish to see? And what if they want accompanying maps? And what happens if one week they want the report (or map) one way, but the next week they want it completely different?

Figure 1

Answer: Orion’s OnPoint.

When it comes to deploying a centralized web data portal with information from business systems and ESRI GIS, OnPoint is the leading technology and the one to consider. It provides out-of-the-box implementation capabilities that requires zero programming. It includes advanced security, tools for customizing and managing your portal, and data integration features.

An SDK is also available to extend it further.

When coupled with Cityworks, the result is quite effective.

In your Cityworks database lives data related to (for example) the number of times a sewer main was flushed, the number of potholes filled, the number of street trees pruned. And quite possibly you’re tracking other metrics like, the number of feet flushed, the quantity of asphalt used, labor hours, equipment time, inspection results, etc. Again, a Cityworks core user can easily retrieve this information, but getting it out to non-Cityworks users for their specific purposes is how OnPoint can help.

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Figure 2

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

Leveraging the idea that the Cityworks database is an open structure that can be accessed directly by third-party applications, OnPoint provides the ability to connect to the database and create customized queries against it. Those results can be presented to the user in a multitude of ways - table view, bar chart, pie chart, and even in an ESRI map service. Since Cityworks cross references the GIS assets/features, the x,y coordinates of work orders and service requests can be displayed. (Figure 1 - left) Details from the service requests and work orders displayed on the map can be retrieved from the Cityworks database in real time, then printed. (Figures 2 & 3)

Figure 3

Feature attributes can be viewed, and similar to Cityworks, if there are associated historic or pending work orders, they can be displayed too. As part of the configuration, the data presented can be filtered so that certain columns are shown and only to those with the appropriate security levels.

(Figure 4) Analytical queries on service requests, work orders, and inspections can be performed, and the results can be aggregated and presented as a “dashboard” of Key Performance Indicators. (Figure 5) The fine-grain detail can also be queried so information about costs, accomplishment units, and frequency of repairs can be rolled up and presented in a summary, or left as individual records.

Figure 4

The capabilities of OnPoint running with Cityworks provides the organization’s non-core departmental users (e.g., executive, legal, finance, and planning) access to information they would not easily have otherwise. The data is served in real-time and available at the user’s disposal. The included configuration tools allow the presentation to be created and customized quickly, and the security of the data published is never compromised.

OnPoint is the ideal solution if you require specialized applications for your unique needs.

Learn more about OnPoint by contacting Shafik Jiwani @ 905.754.8100. You can also see OnPoint in action in Orion’s booth at this year’s Cityworks User Conference. J

Figure 5

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

13

La faye t t e U t i l i t i es System Sees Cityworks Grow

by Warren Paul Boudreaux, P.E., Systems Engineering Supervisor, Lafayette Utilities System

Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) will be making a presentation at the 2008 Cityworks Users Group Conference during June in Snowbird, Utah. Cityworks software is used for asset management and work tracking. The software was implementated at LUS with in-house personnel and the advice of Cityworks personnel. LUS user group meetings have been established to help spread Cityworks knowledge across our divisions.

Pipeworks was first used by the Wastewater Collection Section in 1996. Pipeworks became Cityworks in 1997, but it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until September 2006 that LUS upgraded from Pipeworks 2.1 to Cityworks 4.3. By November 2006, Water Distribution was set to use the software. Electric Dispatch (24/7) came online in February 2007, using Cityworks to log water and wastewater complaint calls. In October 2007, Electric Distribution Street Lighting used the software to log their complaint calls. They added Street Lighting Maintenance the following month. Electric Engineering started inputting service requests for Tree Trimming and Street Lights in December 2007. By February 2008, Communications was utilizing Cityworks for FTTH Make Ready Service Requests. Then, T&D converts the FTTH Make Ready Service Requests to work orders to help track which employee has the job. We are currently reviewing how electric connects and disconnects customers, along with pole and transformer work can be handled by Cityworks.

Various sections utilize Cityworks in different ways. The Civil Engineering Section uses it to track Infiltration and Inflow construction jobs in wastewater. This section creates a work order for each individual repair and attaches it to the feature worked on in the field, such as a manhole or

14

mainline. The project name is included on each work order. The unit price bid for each item is used for the materials and costs. Hence, they keep track of each individual contract repair and each contract job cost. The Wastewater Collection Section uses the software to address complaint calls. Because their jobs tend to be longer in duration, the work orders are used to communicate work progress between the supervisors and crews. The Water Distribution Section uses the software to address complaint calls. Soon they will be using work orders for water mainline, service line, and fire hydrant flow work tasks. The Electric Engineering Section uses Cityworks to request tree trimming and new street lights. The Electric Distribution Section is our newest member on board. Like the other sections, complaint calls are logged in and work orders created for the work done. They have three areas, Street Lighting, Tree Trimming, and T&D (for FTTH Make Ready) actively creating service requests and/or work orders.

DataPump has been very useful for both Wastewater Collection and Electric Distribution. This allows the employees to get their individual work assignments from the server to their laptops which they can take into the field.

Civil Engineering plan to purchase laptops in the near future to assist them with their field tasks. LUS has a wireless system in place throughout the city. Currently there are 24 hotspots that the employees can download and upload their open and closed service requests and work orders. Our wireless system further enhances the use of Cityworks. J

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

The following tables show Cityworks growth within LUS over the last six months.

SERVICE

REQUESTS

Generated (last 6 months)

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

March

Electric Engineering

0

0

22

23

15

3

FTTH Make Ready

0

0

18

17

44

31

Street Lighting

376

308

290

388

320

416

Tree Trimming

0

0

18

17

44

31

Wastewater

72

83

71

6

102

106

Water

335

249

241

292

305

310

WORK

ORDERS

Generated (last 6 months)

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

March

Civil Engineering

FTTH Make Ready

90

53

255

63

157

219

104*

0

0

0

0

193

Street Lighting

Tree Trimming

438

416

368

470

360

473

0

0

13

30

42

89

Wastewater

293

358

273

364

440

390

Water

0

0

0

0

0

0

*Inputted in March, backdated to show actual dates of work done

WELCOME NEW CITYWORKS USERS! Bozeman, MT Central Arkansas Water, AR Cucamonga Valley Water District, CA Fulton County Public Works, GA Greenville City, SC Greenville County, SC Grosse Pointe Woods, MI Hallsdale-Powell Utility District, TN Kearny, NJ Kitchener, Ontario Loganville, GA

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

Lucas County, OH Macon Water Authority, GA Mesa, AZ Oakland City, CA Oroville, CA Redlands, CA Santa Fe, NM South San Francisco, CA Troy, OH Van Buren Township, MI

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Cit y works E n t e rprise License Program Now Available New O p t i o n E n ables Faster, More Ef f icient GIS-Centric Op e rat i o n s M a n agement

By Lindsay Ferguson, Communications & Marketing, Azteca Systems

The Small Government Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) Program has now been made available by Azteca Systems, allowing unlimited deployments of Cityworks’ software to municipalities and counties in the United States. The program provides access to the leading GIS-centric asset maintenance management and permitting solutions small governments need within a clear, tiered pricing schedule.

“This new licensing option enables smaller agencies with the leading business process solutions specifically designed for local government,” said Brian Haslam, President of Azteca Systems. “In alignment with ESRI’s Small Municipality and County Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) Program, we’ve introduced this unique and innovative option to help smaller municipal and county governments implement the Cityworks suite of software. The Cityworks ELA saves time and money, and allows agencies to not only leverage their investment in GIS, but extend their spatial data into day-to-day business operations.”

The Cityworks ELA Program is available to government agencies in the United States with populations of 100,000 or less. Benefits to these organizations include: •

Full suite of Cityworks software and add-on tools,

• •

Product update and technical support, Flexible deployments for desktops, web-servers, and mobile devices, • Unique opportunity to consolidate business processes and IT initiatives within a GIS-centric environment.

“Azteca Systems provides a powerful set of management solutions layered on top of ESRI’s GIS products,” added Christopher Thomas, ESRI Government Industry Solutions manager. “With the complete set of ESRI’s GIS and Azteca’s Cityworks now available in an ELA, government agencies can quickly and efficiently deploy these solutions in a true, GIS-centric enterprise environment, improving operational efficiency and customer service.”

The technology in the ELA includes the entire suite of Cityworks products – the only asset, maintenance, and permitting solutions built exclusively on ESRI’s leading GIS platform. Cityworks is used by decision makers, management, field staff, and the public in more than 300 sites around the world and is available for desktops, mobile devices, and Web deployments. For more information about Cityworks and the new Enterprise License option, visit our website at www.cityworks.com.

Pa r t n e r D i re c t o ry Authorized Business Partners

Associate Business Partners

International Distribution Partners

• • •

• • • • • • • •

• • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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Burns & McDonnell Chester Engineers Civic Engineering and Information Technologies, Inc. Civil Solutions Collier Engineering GeoAnalytics, Inc. IT Nexus Jones, Edmunds and Associates Motorola Municipal Information Systems North Arrow Technologies NTB Associates OneGIS, Inc. Power Engineers, Inc. Schneider Corporation Short Elliott Hendrickson (SEH) Timmons Group Velocitie Integration, Inc. VESTRA Resources, Inc. Wade Trim Associates Westin Engineering Weston Solutions Woolpert

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Arcadis G&M Inc. Associated GIS, LLC Bowne Management Systems BP Barber & Associates CH2M Hill, Inc. Clark-Nexen Data Transfer Solutions, LLC Enterprise Information Solutions, Inc. GeoDecisions geographIT Jones & Demille Engineering KCI Technologies Malcolm Pirnie Michael Baker Jr., Inc. Midland GIS OHM, Inc. PBS&J, Inc. PSOMAS Quartic Solutions Razavi Application Development Resource Data, Inc. Service4GIS, Ltd. Stantec Consulting Strand Associates, Inc. Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (VHB)

ESRI Canada ESRI Costa Rica (Geotecnologias SA) ESRI Israel (Systematics) ESRI Sweden (Meldis AB) gViz Pty Limited OneGIS, Carribbean

Strategic Partners • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Cobra Technologies CompassCom Coulter Mapping Solutions Dig-Smart ESRI iWater Laurel Hill GIS MWH Soft Onbase (Hyland Software) Orion Technology Inc. RIVA Online Route Smart Spatial Wave TC Technologies Televent Miner & Miner WinCan America

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

Cityworks 2008 User Conference If you missed it this year, save the date for next year!

cityworks 2009 user conference Oct. 21 - 23, 2009 Dixie Center at St. George, Utah To learn more about the area visit:

http://www.utahstgeorge.com/ INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

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Ti m m o n s G ro u p

(co n t . f ro m p age 1 )

define an issue. They can, however, recognize a problem.

The Citizens Request Portal employs multiple searching options and the Cityworks service request configuration for each request type to provide a more robust, methodical and user-friendly tool. This greatly improves the details on the service request which results in a more accurate and timely response. The Citizens Request Portal captures problem or request details, comments, caller information, and the address of the incident. It then accesses the Cityworks service request configuration to assign a priority and to appropriately route the request by populating the SubmitTo and DispatchTo fields. To avoid duplicate service requests submittals, the user will be prompted to first locate the incident address and view previously logged, open requests via the mapping service. This similar functionality within Cityworks is known as an event layer and is specified by search criteria. These criteria for the web application can be customized by an organization and is dependent on their specific needs.

The Citizens Request Portal uses web services to interface directly to the Cityworks database and therefore requires no third-party database or Cityworks database customization.

Once the service request is submitted online, it is automatically saved to the Cityworks database where a Cityworks user can manage the request as they would any other request. The portal can utilize many different external mapping services such as Google Maps, ArcMap, ArcOnLine and Google Earth as well as the organization’s internal GIS. Timmons Group plans to update and enhance this software application as our clients request new functionality.

General Functionality Searching 1. Division/Department Search: The user can select the division/department (Cityworks Category list) which will filter the Cityworks service request types.

2. Keyword Search: A user can type in a keyword and perform a search to identify the related request types.

This mimics existing Cityworks search functionality.

3. Search All: Displays the complete list of available service request types.

Questions and Answers – The questions are presented in sequential order as configured in Cityworks Designer.

Subsequent questions are determined dynamically, in the branch Q/A model. The portal accesses Cityworks service request configuration to populate the fields Submit To, Dispatch To, and Priority based on the responses.

Mapping and Geocoding – The user enters the address of the incident along with their personal information. The user then locates the incident within the map service. The service request portal can utilize an external map service or the organization’s GIS. Results – The user then submits their request and a service request is created in the Cityworks database. The user can view the status of their request at any time by returning to the portal and entering the service request ID.

For more information on Timmons Group’s Citizens Request Portal application or to find out how our Cityworks Implementation Experts can assist your organization on your journey to advanced asset management, contact Ed Singer, Principal (804.387.6618), or Jen Coughlin, Project Manager (757.613.0539).

YOUR VISION ACHIEVED THROUGH OURS

Markets Served Public Utilities, Public Works, Investor-Owned Utilities

Service Offered Enterprise GIS, Asset Management, Permitting

Offering unmatched Azteca expertise in the following areas: Desktop, Anywhere, Server, CRP, Permitting

www.timmons.com • 804.200.6500 Virginia | Washington, DC | North Carolina | Florida Pennsylvania | Utah | Nova Scotia

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INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

Ann Arbor

(cont. from page 1)

Ann Arbor has been actively using Cityworks since 2004 to track citizen issues associated with the following departments: Public Works, Community Standards, Forestry, and Water Utilities. The issues are typically reported to the City via phone call, voice mail, or letter. However, the City wanted to enhance the way it communicated with its citizens by using a website to solicit issues and provide a way for citizens to check the status of their requests. These desires led to the creation of the City’s Online Citizen Request System (CRS).

Russ Hanshue, the City’s IT Application Manager, states, “The City’s IT unit is focusing on providing innovative solutions to our customers, both the citizens of Ann Arbor and the City units we support. The CRS website provides the citizens direct access into the system that controls the work performed in the City.”

The City worked with VELOCITIE Integration to design and develop the CRS website. The website consists of four web pages. The first page is an introduction to the website and explains the services the City provides. (Figure 1 - below)

Figure 2 — Street Light Repair Request Form

Figure 3 — Email Confirmation

Figure 1 — Citizen Request System Overview

The second page is the main page that allows the user to enter the request type, location, comments and their contact information. (Figure 2 - right)

If the user chooses to provide their email address, the website sends them a confirmation when the request is submitted and closed. (Figure 3 - right)

Once the user submits the request, a third page opens to provide the user with the tracking numbers. (Figure 4 - right) Figure 4 — Citizen Request Confirmation Number

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

19

Ann Arbor

(cont.)

The fourth page allows the user to check on the status of the service requests by entering their email address and the online confirmation number. (Figure 5)

Figure 5— Check Status

The website, written in C#, uses Cityworks Service Request API, Google Maps API, and the reCAPTCHA module. The Cityworks Service Request API provided the methods necessary to insert and query data in the Cityworks database.

Using the CRS API procedures helped streamline the development process allowing the City to focus on the user interface. Additionally, as the Cityworks database is upgraded, the API will be updated to reflect the changes. The API also supports the use of the Cityworks service request questionand-answer functionality. This capability allows the city to customize the questions that are asked depending upon the type of service request. (Figure 6 - right) Brian Haslam, President/CEO of Azteca Systems, stated, “The Cityworks Service Request API is Azteca Systems’ response to the need for local government to modernize their customer service at a time when citizens’ expectations, and often preferences, are to submit and receive updates for service requests via the internet. Beyond being responsive to citizen expectations, local government can realize improved efficiency by leveraging existing IT investments. The deployment of the API by VELOCITIE for Ann Arbor is a very good example of responding to citizens’ expectations and improving efficiency.”

While the Google Maps API was readily accessible and also streamlined development, this approach can utilize other low-cost map services, including ESRI’s ArcOnline or Microsoft Virtual Earth. Hanshue states, “We chose Google Maps because it was an easy-to-use map interface that is free and familiar to our citizens. By using a third-party map source, we don’t have the overhead of publishing our own maps. For

20

Figure 6 — Service Request Question Form

the purpose of service requests, the recently updated aerial photos and base maps work great.”

The reCAPTCHA module, developed by School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, was added to verify that the user was a human. The user needs to interpret the distorted text correctly to be able to submit the service request. This module added another level of security to the website and also limited the possibility of a disgruntled citizen entering hundreds of service requests.

David Wilburn, one of Ann Arbor’s Applications Specialists, states, “The most time consuming part of the project was working with the departments to decide what service requests types should be available online and reviewing the processes used to handle the requests as they come in. Once the departments understood that the web request would be handled the same way we handle our current call-in requests, some of their worries subsided. When a request is submitted via the new website, it is handled the same way in Cityworks.

The only difference is that the “initiated by” field on the service request form is set to WEB. (Figure 7- next page) The website automatically converts the latitude\longitude location collected in Google maps to our State Plane

15

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

The website is currently in production with a subset of service requests (Figure 8).

Figure 8 — Service Types

Figure 7 — Cityworks Service Request Initiated by WEB

coordinate system so the request shows up in the correct location in ArcMap and overlays perfectly with the City’s facilities.

22

As the year progresses, more departments are scheduled to come online to enable handling more types of service requests. The citizens of Ann Arbor are now participating more in the City’s process of improving the timeliness and levels of service, which also will be monitored and measured through this new website. J

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

Macon County Water

( c o n t . f ro m p age 5 )

It is a proven fact that operating in a REACTIVE mode (meaning you typically “fix things after or when they break”) costs 2-3 times more (labor, parts & materials, and loss of service) than does operating in a PROACTIVE environment.

Being PROACTIVE through the use of regular inspections, effective PM’s, various predictive technologies, etc., we find problems before they occur and “fix” them prior to actual failure. This is not an impossible task, but one that takes some structure and continual monitoring.

Our PROACTIVE asset care environment now includes all of the techniques mentioned above along with effective planning and scheduling and work order “feedback loops” to provide asset history. Eventually this will allow our Maintenance Planners to do data-mining, statistical process control (SPC), failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA’s), and, even better, root cause failure analyses (RCFA’s) when we do experience one of those unexpected failures. In this day and age, keeping this kind of data (timely, accurate, and available) requires a good computerized maintenance management system (CMMS); hence, we decided to install Cityworks.

Optimizing Efficiency The “strategy” for optimizing asset life, reducing overall operating costs, and increasing efficiency primarily fell under the responsibility of supervision and management. Our two basic requirements are to:

1. Establish the proper “key performance indicators” (KPI’s) for our asset care processes using job planning and realistic scheduling to insure work is completed in a timely manner, avoid backlog on preventive maintenance to prevent emergency situations, determine the appropriate response in an emergency situation, and track scheduling compliance.

2. Collect the right kinds of data, at the right time, in a consistent format allowing us to make “data-based” decisions versus “best guess” and also know where and how our funds are spent. We would need sufficient information in enough detail to know whether to “repair, refurbish, or replace” any given asset and predict what the consequences of that choice might be.

While the basic fundamentals of our AMMS strategy seemed simple to enact, we found it wasn’t as simple as we had hoped, especially since our organization had been somewhat lax in incorporating many of these elements for years.

We recognized that the services of a professional Asset Maintenance Management consulting company would be valuable in assisting us with putting some things in place and “ramping us up” as quickly as possible before we could realize any true benefits. We are looking forward to a brighter future with CMMS. J

Ef fe c t i ve Te a m Building

By Karen Thomas, Azteca Systems

Lorraine Cohen, a business consultant for over 25 years, states: “Having cutting-edge technology, innovation, great products, and services is not enough to guarantee sustained success. Why? Because people drive the success of a business. The greatest asset a company has is its workforce. To grow a business, you must also be growing your people.”

So we’ve got the computers loaded with the GIS component from ESRI and the Cityworks asset maintenance management system, now all that’s missing is getting the buy-in from the everyone who’ll be using it. (Or maybe you’re still in the stage of trying to convince management and City officials to approve a budget for the equipment and software you know will enable your organization to be more effective.)

Notice the articles in this InPrint alone about the concept of teamwork (people working together to accomplish a common goal, which has been around since the 1830s) and team building. (Check out what Ann Arbor (MI), Allegheny County (PA), or Macon (GA) are doing.) Team building, a newer concept, takes that results-oriented group a step further by gauging its effectiveness and improving performance by:

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

• •

Establishing and defining shared goals.

Building ownership (buy-in) across the team.

• Identifying ways to improve teamwork within the organization.

• Implementing changes to produce the desired results.

A national survey, HOW-FAIR, done in 2003 found that the most important factors in getting ahead in the workplace are, in this order, being a team player, merit/performance, leadership skills, intelligence, making money for the organization, and long hours.

“As organizations seek to become more flexible in the face of rapid environmental change and more responsive to the needs of customers, they are experimenting with new, team-based structures.” (Jackson & Ruderman, 1996) The management team at Azteca Systems has recognized the benefits of collaboration from the beginning. The Cityworks User Conference has become a forum for sharing ideas.

Come get more ideas at the conference in the Effective Team Building workshop. J

23

Cityworks User Acknowledgements Th e M a rk o f E xcellence — Cityworks User Allegheny County, PA Ea r n s A P W A A c creditation The following article contains excerpts from the original publication “In the Works, Special Addition: Accreditation 2007,” a publication of the Allegheny County Department of Public Works Original publication written by: Cathy Trexler, Allegheny County Department of Public Works Edited for Inprint by: Lindsay Ferguson, Azteca Systems Photos courtesy of Margaret Stanley, Allegheny County Photographer

On November 28, 2007, the Allegheny County Department of Public Works became the first public works agency in Pennsylvania to be accredited by the American Public Works Association (APWA). They are the 46th agency in North America to have earned this prestigious distinction since the program began in 1996. “It is an incredible honor to be recognized as one of the best public works agencies in the country,” states Tom Donatelli, Allegheny County Director of Public Works, who recently retired following the acceptance of the award. “The need for change has continued to accelerate, and the APWA accreditation process has proven to be the perfect tool for assessing our operations. I am extremely proud of our employees who contributed to improving our practices in order to deliver high-quality services in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.”

public works operations and management to improve efficiency and reduce the cost of delivering services. The accreditation program of the American Public Works Association (APWA) provided a means to achieve this goal. In 2002 the decision was made to embark on this road to excellence.

Accreditation involves five phases: application, selfassessment, improvement, evaluation, and accreditation.

Throughout the process, the County found easier, more logical, and cost-effective ways of doing their jobs. They updated and streamlined practices, eliminated obsolete or duplicate tasks, and incorporated new or revised standards and regulations into practices. They developed standardized or centralized processes and more efficient methods of recording and analyzing data. Improved processes enabled them to allocate resources more effectively, justify funding needs, determine when to replace or repair, and whether to perform tasks in-house or by consultant or contractor.

Cityworks Implementation The County’s implementation of Cityworks was “the hub of our process improvements,” affirmed Donatelli. Cityworks made it possible for the Public Works Department to…

The APWA accreditation program recognizes public works agencies that go beyond the requirements of the management practices established nationally in the public works industry. On a daily basis, accredited agencies meet or exceed standards of performance in areas such as engineering, road repair and maintenance, building and parks maintenance, and fleet management. Accreditation is a voluntary process offered through the Accreditation Council, the accreditation-granting arm of APWA. Accreditation is the mark of professionalism indicating that a public works agency has made the commitment to continuous improvement in the delivery of public works operations and services in the community it serves.

APWA Accreditation Process Years ago, Tom Donatelli set out to find a solution to maintain the quality of services at the County with diminished resources. In order to do more with less, he realized the necessity of evaluating and improving the County’s

24

• Centralize their work management system.

• Create a Call Center to record and track services requests and work orders • Analyze work history with the associated costs, inspections, and tests; prepare reports; and plan maintenance schedules • Track and transfer materials inventories among storerooms, allowing for a more efficient use of resources • Monitor Highway Occupancy Permits (HOP’s).

• View assets and related work orders and HOP’s spatially on a GIS map • Combine the spatial data for Public Works with the Department of Emergency Services • Analyze and evaluate GIS maps in emergency situations • Incorporate additional applications, such as MicroPaver and Video These improvements facilitated by Cityworks helped the County reach operational successes, enabling them to achieve accreditation. “The implementation of Cityworks made it possible for us to meet or exceed the requirements of APWA’s nationally recognized standards,” says Donatelli. Other technological upgrades included the electronic distribution of bid packages, improved parts and fluids inventory control for equipment maintenance, enhanced inspection and preventive

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

maintenance programs, and use of an employee database for immediate identification of skills or certifications required for specialized tasks or emergency response. An emphasis on communications and training also contributed to their success.

The County’s hard work paid off. As a result, the APWA Evaluation Team recommended to the APWA Accreditation Council that the Allegheny County Public Works Department be granted full accreditation. Furthermore, two of the Department’s manuals - the safety manual and fleet vehicle manual - have earned the status of “Model Practice.”

Accreditation does not mark the end of Allegheny County’s journey as it is not just simply a destination. It indicates that a public works agency is well managed, complies with recommended practices, and remains dedicated to continuous improvement. “Thanks to all of our employees at all levels who have been instrumental in this achievement,” says Dontatelli. “Our commitment to continuous improvement will make us better prepared for the changes ahead.

Accreditation is the mark of excellence. The APWA Accredited Agency logo will serve as a constant reminder of our employees’ dedication and commitment to the citizens of Allegheny County.” J

Waterford Township Receives Michigan AWWA Research & Technical Practices Award Township realizes Improvements to Utility Locating Services Utilizing Cityworks and Dig-Smart In September of 2007, Cityworks user Waterford Township, MI, was awarded the Michigan AWWA Research & Technical Practices Award. Waterford received this prestigious recognition following vast improvements they demonstrated in Utility Locating Services as a result of collaboration between Dig-Smart and Cityworks applications.

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

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Regional News Director of Sales & Marketing Tom Palizzi 303-467-2738 tpalizzi@cityworks.com

2008 started off with a bang with increased business and several new customer sites. With an election in the works and fears of economic stress, our customers still recognize the need to use technology to do more with fewer resources. Cityworks has always been designed with that in mind and continues to deliver value with performance. I can say our sales and marketing team continues to work harder than ever to keep up with growing interest here in the US and abroad.

I’m pleased to introduce you all to Josh Stroessner, our newest regional account manager who will be taking over the Great Lakes Region! We’re not only happy to have Josh, but equally excited to see Becky Tamashasky move into her new role as our Business Development Manager where she will be supporting our Business Partners and International Distributors. In addition, she’ll be providing support for our regional account managers with product demonstrations, research and development toward pre-sales opportunities.

On the marketing front, we made a broad movement toward the branding of the “Cityworks” name after acquiring the cityworks.com domain. We will continue to build on the Cityworks brand-name in an effort to expand and enhance our presence across industries and geographies. Though the azteca.com domain will remain active indefinitely, you’ll want to tweak your thinking to “Cityworks.” J

If you are interested in submitting an article for the InPrint, please contact Kaye Ryser (801) 523-2751 or kryser@cityworks.com

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Mountain/Plains Region William Lang

970-471-5666 wlang@cityworks.com

Greetings from Denver! The unofficial headquarters of the Mountains & Plains Region. It has already been an exciting and busy to 2008. We would like to welcome Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Cityworks user community. Santa Fe will be implementing Cityworks in their Water Department. We would also like to recognize Loveland, Colorado, who recently expanded to a site license.

We know we will continue to see great things from the team at Loveland as they expand upon their alreadysuccessful Cityworks deployment.

Finally, congratulations to Bozeman, Montana for kicking off their Cityworks Implementation!

Cityworks Permitting is now live in both West Valley City, Utah, and Fort Collins, Colorado! West Valley City is utilizing Cityworks Permitting for Building Inspections & Code Enforcement while Fort Collins is managing their Rightof-Way Permits. Congratulations and continued success to both of you!

Azteca Systems and ESRI held another successful round of Public Works Seminars. Together we visited Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, and Tucson. Thanks to everyone that attended. It was a pleasure meeting all of you! A special thanks to Kevin Hodson and Jason Channin at ESRI for all their hard work putting these seminars together.

Finally, Azteca Systems, Short Elliot & Hendrickson, and MWH Soft held a joint seminar at the S.E.H. offices in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was a successful day filled with riveting discussions of water modeling and GIS-centric software!

Thanks to everyone that attended!

Thanks, everyone. I look forward to visiting with you throughout the year!

J

Pacific Region Darin Loucks

206-225-7429 dloucks@cityworks.com

Spring has come to Seattle finally, bringing with it 50-plus inches of snow in April. Great for skiing, but not if you like the sun.

I’d like to welcome a couple of new Cityworks clients to our growing numbers in the Pacific Region—the City of Oroville in Northern California and the City of South San Francisco located, you guessed it, south of San Francisco.

I’m very excited about the new Enterprise License options we’ve just announced. Cities and counties fewer than 100k in population can take advantage of this option that dovetails with ESRI’s ELA. Please contact me for more information.

As always, I’m here to help. Please contact me with any questions or concerns. I hope to see you all in Snowbird for the Cityworks User Conference in June. J

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Regional News

Southeast Region Brent Wilson 214-507-0579 bwilson@cityworks.com

The Southeast (SE) Region of the US is busy as usual. From the expansion of systems to brand-new clients much is happening in the way of growth for the region. We’re getting close to the hundred-client mark for the SE and I hope we hit it in the next year. We’ve had an influx of new clients for CMMS and now some are looking at Cityworks as their permitting system as well. I contribute our success to the awesome network of clients and your success with the solutions we provide.

Treatment plants have been a huge success for us over the last year and in the SE, we have a number of those clients, including Palm Bay, FL, which was highlighted at the 2007 UC. Other areas that are expanding are gas, electric, and parks & rec. Another client is Horry County, SC, who not only uses us for county road and bridge type applications, but also fiber optics, and many other functional areas we never really thought to much about…until NOW! Thanks Team Horry for expanding my thinking of our application.

Many unique ways to use Cityworks will be shown at our User Conference this year. I hope to see you all there. Please come help us make this the biggest and best conference yet. We will also be at the ESRI UC and APWA in August. J

Northeast Region Phil Mogavero 716-667-6987 pmogavero@cityworks.com

I’d like to welcome Washington DC’s Department of Transportation and congratulate them on their decision to go department-wide with Cityworks. DDOT’s Urban Forest Agency has been using Cityworks for several years now and due to their

INPRINT SPRING/SUMMER 2008

continued hard work and success, they are moving forward with the implementation of Cityworks in several divisions. Nice work!

So another winter is behind us and it’s been a busy new year. I look forward to seeing many of you at the Cityworks User Conference. There have been some exciting developments here at Azteca including the progress and beta testing of Cityworks Permitting. I would encourage anyone interested in more information on Cityworks Permitting or any other Cityworks product to please contact me.

Please note the change in my office phone number; the new number is 716-667-6987. Also, our email is now under the Cityworks domain, so my new email address is pmogavero@cityworks.com.

Please have a safe and enjoyable summer.

Quote of the day: Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. Benja J

Great Lakes Region Josh Stroessner 920-254-1112 jstroessner@cityworks.com

Hello - I’m Josh, the newest account manager over the Great Lakes region. Let me share a few things about myself....

I was born and raised in the vibrant metropolis that is Sheboygan, Wisconsin. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a BS in Technical Geography. After graduation my wife, Bobbie, and I moved to Arizona and got jobs in the booming real estate market. While in Arizona, I attended Arizona State University and earned a master’s degree in GIS. When I finished my coursework we moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin, home of the Circus World Museum. After getting hired with Azteca we moved back to the Sheboygan area where I will be based.

(cont.)

I have many interests. the greatest of which is playing with my 3-yearold daughter, Ava. I am also a huge baseball and football fan and am a bit of a gadget junkie.

I look forward to working with each of our Great Lakes clients and hope to meet you at our Cityworks User Conference in June. J

International & Business Partners

Becky Tamashasky 574-231-8029 btamashasky@cityworks. com

2008 has been off to a great start in the Great Lakes Region – despite the nonstop snowfall experienced in every corner!

The Michigan User Group meeting wrapped up in April and it was a extraordinary event. Canton Township hosted this meeting and definitely set the bar for future user groups. There were great presentations by Canton Township, Wayne County, Oakland County, Ann Arbor, and Waterford Township. The topics covered everything from sidewalk inspections and mobile usage to conversion from legacy maintenance management systems for fleet and facilities. If anyone is interested in receiving the presentations, please, let me know.

Also, if there are other organizations interested in arranging a User Group in their area, please speak up!

Last, as has been announced now, I will be transitioning from the Great Lakes Account Manager to a role focused on supporting the Sales and Marketing needs of Business Partners. I just wanted to say that it’s been great working with the folks in the Great Lakes and I look forward to seeing you again at the Cityworks User Conference! J

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A z t e c a N ew s - We l c o m e Fo u r N ew E m p l oye e s !

Adriana Durac joins our Project Management team. Adriana was born and raised in Romania where she attended Gheorghe Asachi Technical University and attained her master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. She recently came to Azteca Systems from Service4GIS (her own company) in Scottsdale, AZ, where she supplied IT/business solutions and project management for multiple clients in the USA and New Zealand. She continues to reside in Scottsdale. J

Ryan Harris joined Azteca Systems in February as a Documentation Analyst working with John Jarnagin specifically on training documentation. Ryan is currently attending Weber State University, working on a degree in technical writing. He and his wife, Shelly, are the parents of three children. In Ryan’s “spare time,” he likes to go snowboarding, hiking, or running, depending on the season. J

Mindy Horton became part of the Azteca office staff in March. She previously worked for Costco and also as a nanny. She attended Brigham Young University for one year where she met and married Kylir Horton, an Azteca programmer, two years ago. She is currently working as a receptionist and being trained in documentation. J

Josh Stroessner joined Azteca Systems in April as our newest account manager over the Great Lakes region. Be sure to read his introduction of himself on page 23! J

This & That!

Azteca Systems Diversifying???

A few examples of others who like the Azteca name.

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Darin Loucks snapped this in Marina, CA

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Becky Tamashasky & Darin Loucks in Moses Lake, WA

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Tom Palizzi found this Azteca restaurant in Palm Springs, CA

Last summer we attempted to get our whole staff together for a first ever Azteca company picture.

Sadly, we were missing a few who had to be out of town.

But we did our best!

How many can you name?

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