SOS STORIES OF SERVICE
FALL/2020
Dear Fellow County Teammates Who knew that seven months later, we’d still be entrenched in the COVID19 pandemic? What the County is going through is a microcosm of what is happening globally. Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, our workforce continues to serve our 10 million constituents, with many of us doing it remotely. Never have I been so proud to be a part of this County team! When I look at the many Stories of Service over the last few months, what strikes me the most has not just been our ability to quickly and aggressively adapt to the cliched “New Normal”, but our ability to come together as one County team. We helped each other to stay connected. We simplified processes. We automated the heck out of anything that could be automated so telework was an option for many people whose job didn’t previously allow for that opportunity… ultimately for the sake of serving our County residents without interruption. The lines blurred between departments, as traditional departmental roles and territories were secondary to helping each other accomplish critical missions. Nowhere else will that be more evident than with the upcoming Presidential election, where this collaboration and unity will be absolutely crucial to its success. It truly is all-hands-ondeck time.
"We automated the heck out of anything that could be automated" As we look towards the end of the year, it is a comfort to know that the leadership of many departments have already come together to help shape what operations may look like as this pandemic lingers, and what it may look like when our workforce returns back to the workplace. Perhaps, very little will be “normal” anymore. But, one thing is certain…when we do return, let us not return back to an old, antiquated normal, but continue to advance and transform for a new future.
-Trinh Mac, ITS Deputy General Manager
02 PAGE
SOS STORIES OF SERVICE
CONTENTS
Prosper LA
04
From Home
05
Improve Your Home WiFi
07
The New Public Health Tier 1 Call Agents
08
ISD Customer Billing Dashboard
11
ISD Finding Ways to Support in the Virtual Environment
15
Virtual Design Thinking Workshop
17
Appstream, ZScaler, Nintex
18
Links and Information
20
03 PAGE
You are invited to help strengthen our economy, streamline our government, and accelerate our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The County of Los Angeles is seeking innovative ideas to streamline its contracting process, assist businesses, and identify potential cost-savings
b y Kenneth Nakahara
to County operations. This effort is part of the County's roadmap to economic recovery from the impacts of the pandemic. Actionable ideas will be a part of a special quarterly report to the Board of Supervisors and help the County improve its internal procedures, empower businesses, and expand publicprivate partnerships. The County is ready to take action and it starts with you! Please visit the Prosper LA website at https://ProsperLA.lacounty.gov to fill out the intake form to submit your ideas. We appreciate your time and insight on how we can enhance County operations and programs during this time.
04 PAGE
FROM HOME WHETHER A NOVICE OR A TECHIE, OUR VIEWERS CAN
LEARN SOMETHING NEW WITH LA COUNTY PARKS
LA County Parks and Recreation (LA County Parks) is committed to providing healthy and resilient communities during the COVID-19 crisis with our very own Virtual Recreation Center. On April 22, 2020, LA County Parks From Home was launched, an innovative opportunity that brings our world-class programming directly to our residents home and mobile devices. Aim to fill the gap of outdoor experiences during COVID-19, LA County Parks team members are creating instructional classes that include exercise, health, and sports skills development for all levels. Parks From Home offers streaming and live videos to expose residents to the rich history and culture of the County’s natural areas, trails, and botanic gardens. In addition, step-by-step specialty classes, do-it-yourself (DIY) projects, and other activities are added every week. For teens and youth, Our Spot’s virtual experience with cool live streaming offers workshops like drumming, visual arts, and multi-media. From funny lava segments to learning to make a colorful centerpiece, improve your golf chip shot, get you workout going with full Zumba and kickboxing classes, and learn about our historic sites in 60 seconds, there is something for everyone.
05 PAGE
Parks From Home programming provide an array of options within seven categories. The majority of classes are produced in English; however, Spanish capabilities are available in several of the categories. Recreation and Sports – Skills clinics, fitness classes, dance, workouts, and technique sessions Arts and Culture – Visual and performance art classes. Painting, DIY, and step-by-step segments Nature and Outdoors – Virtual tours of parks, botanic gardens, and natural areas Trails and Historical Sites – Virtual exploration of trails, historical and archaeological artifacts, and bite-size fun-facts Specialty Classes – From baking, cooking, floral arrangements, to music and language of arts; this is the flex category Our Spot Virtual – Weekly live stream workshops, visual arts, poetry, and more. 'Grab-n-go' kits at Our Spot locations. Teens ages 12-18 must sign up with parent permission. Technology Classes – Basic coding, computer skills, and new media method introduction segments
This program was created in-house with a committee encompassed of LA County Parks communications team, videographer (with feature film experience), and several field agency team members (full-time and part-time). A program strategy with goals, objectives, and official guidelines were created to keep a consistent look and feel across all content. LA County Parks aims for the committee to have a positive experience, practice safety measures, and feel empowered that together we are making an impact!
Parks From Home is accessible via the LA County Parks website at https://parks.lacounty.gov/virtual/ Content is
filmed across the County both at inside and outside facilities while following COVID-19 health guidelines. While LA County Parks is slowly opening amenities, many high contact sports will not be available this summer due to the COVID19 health order. A percentage of the population continues to be extra cautious as they might have underlying health conditions or are just not ready to visit public areas. LA County Parks From Home will continue to be there for our residents and offer access to healthy opportunities and create calm spaces to maintain mental wellness in a matter that supports social distancing.
06 PAGE
IMPROVE YOUR HOME WIFI
By Jamel Thomas
Location, Location Location...
The location of your router makes a difference. If you walked a straight line between your router and all the devices you want connected to your router, how many walls, doors and floors would you walk through? How far would those walks be? WiFi uses radio frequencies to send signals between devices. Centrally located routers have a shorter distance to all devices within the house. The shorter the distance the better the signal. Ensure your router is centrally located to improve your WiFi signal.
WIFI SIGNAL BLOCKAGE BY BARRIER TYPE BARRIER
LEVEL
Wood
Low
Plaster
Low
Synthetic Material
Low
Glass
Low
Water
Medium
Bricks
Medium
Marble
Medium
Concrete
High
Metal
High
Mirror
Very High
Increase your WiFi Range WiFi Range Extenders extend your WiFi signal by receiving your current signal and repeating it with amplifiers and antennas. Extenders are easy to install and can give you complete home WiFi coverage.
Some Barriers Create WiFi Dead Spots WiFi dead spots can be the result of blocked WiFi signals. Remember some materials become barriers to WiFi signals. Some barriers are more difficult than others for those signals to penetrate.
Mirror Metal File Cabinet
Good WiFi
Good WiFi
Dead Zone
Simply install the extender midway between your router and the dead zone. Your signal will then give life to the once dead zone. The link below will help you decide which extender is best for you. https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-bestwireless-range-extenders
Good WiFi Good WiFi
Dead Zone
07 PAGE
The New Public Health Tier 1 Call Agents The Doctor was speaking with the call agent about her patient who was suffering with Coronavirus. She was updating the status on the individual, and the agent was generating the case information. But before the call would have ended, the Doctor suddenly hesitated and became a bit choked up, with a slight quiver in her voice. Because it was during that brief 90 second phone call that the Doctor informed the agent to change the ticket from a patient case, into another COVID-19 death. This was not a typical call, but most of the calls dealt with the life and death issues surrounding Coronavirus. One thing every call did have in common was who the call agents were. One minute, a Customer Applications Branch (CAB) employee would be working on a typical assignment within the branch such as creating an automated electronic work form in order for a Department to run more efficiently; and the next minute they’d find themselves on the front lines of a worldwide pandemic, working virtually shoulder to shoulder with Doctors, and Nurses within the Department of Public Health (DPH).
It all began on March 23rd that the CAB branch completed a “soft” telework reconfiguration of the Public Health’s call center, and then retooled about 23 of its own staff to work as tier 1 call center support agents. Today, these teleworkers qualify as Disaster Service Workers. Normally, the Customer Assistance Division (CAD) would be called on to handle these kinds of calls. But this was a pandemic, with no end in sight, and CAD were already handling provider calls related to other infectious diseases. They would need more people (which they didn’t have). The only other option was to pull public health professionals (who are already stretched thin) off their critical jobs and have them screen calls. This is where Trinh Mac, CAB Deputy General Manager stepped in and assigned Jon Neill from her team to manage the project of building a tier one COVID-19 call center to support DPH. In the beginning, Jon was given one simple directive from DPH: take calls from health professionals who are
08 PAGE
by Philip Crippen
reporting COVID-19 cases and statuses, and open or update a ticket accordingly. From there, a nurse would receive the ticket, and return the provider’s phone call. This all appeared pretty straightforward until around mid-April, when a second phase to the support program was rolled out. Now, the CAB team would also manage a homeless intake line which was set up to place COVID-19 positive (or suspected positive) people experiencing homelessness (PEH), meaning those who needed a place to quarantine, into a facility where they could isolate. It also included helping COVID+ people who were not PEH per se, but had no other way to isolate themselves. For instance, if mom or dad came down with the virus, the home displacement line was used to coordinate a location where the infected parent could quarantine until such time as the risk was mitigated. The call agents worked with providers, social workers, and other homeless outreach teams to gather the information needed to properly place these individuals. A third phase began shortly thereafter with something called the “sector” line. This line was opened for direct communication with the likes of businesses, schools, healthcare facilities, and restaurants. With this phase, the program with the CAB agents became more complex. Calls came in from a high school principal asking, “how do we handle graduation?” The City of La Habra wondered, “what are the guidelines currently for our employees?” Calls even began coming in from the public with concerns such as one from a man wondering about his wife working at a place where they were not practicing social distancing. Every one of these calls was handled by the CAB team, and every single one had a ticket created for Doctors and Nurses at Public Health to address. One of the not-so surprising outcomes of suddenly being thrust into this kind of work was
the emotional toll it created. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, a patient died while the Doctor was on the phone with the call agent. More commonly, Jon Neill explained, “we have the elderly who are worried about COVID. ‘Where can I get results?’ People were angry, scared, and frustrated and sometimes took that out on the agents. We virtually have a group of IT professionals handholding these folks through the entire process.” Soon, the teams were meeting in their own self-made support groups, talking through their day and more difficult calls. “There was definitely an emotional toll on these folks,” Neill concluded But remember, we’re dealing with IT professionals, so what do you think they would instinctively do? They’d document their process, and then wonder if they can apply their skill sets, such as analytics, to any of this. Can they come up with predictive and prescriptive analytics within this new CABrun call center? Of course they can! Jon Neill and his squad collected all the daily data they could find: Call volumes, call lengths, call agent totals, hold times, etc., and they began building models for this data, both predictive and prescriptive. Now, before we continue, let’s get some definitions out of the way. There are three main types of analytics: descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive, and according to Pete McCrystal of Accent Technologies they are described as follows: “Descriptive analytics is often considered the base level of what is possible with analytics. The analytics engine compiles the data, processes it, and describes to you what happened. An example of this might be
09 PAGE
a report showing open and click-through rates for a sales email blast. It’s still useful, since it gives you a holistic view of data, but it’s also very surfacelevel.” “The next level of analytics is predictive. These analytics are used to predict what is likely to happen in the future based on past data. Predictive analytics are often used for better sales forecasting. Based on past sales performance, the engine can predict how the business will fare for the next quarter. The accuracy of predictive analytics is dependent on how strong your analytics engine is (e.g. how many variables the engine uses to predict future events, as well as how much data the engine has available for use).” “Prescriptive goes one step beyond predictive to identify and suggest the best action, given a certain data set. This can be incredibly beneficial for B2B sales teams, since prescriptive analytics can be used to guide sales reps in the best actions, content, and messaging to use with leads for each unique sales situation.” By undertaking data analysis, Neill and his team were able to come up with projections on things like how many agents will be needed on a Friday if we want to have 90% of the calls answered without being put on hold, and how much would that cost? “Then you begin to see things,” explained Neill, “like
10
PAGE
10 agents gives us 85% coverage, but 11 agents gives us 99%. So, you have to decide if 85% is good enough or not. It probably is.” Using this type of insight to set staffing levels is what data-driven decision making is all about! Next, they took this information to the next level by working with the Customer Assistance Division (CAD), which is the ISD call center for most things. They presented their findings to Jasna Lukin, the Division Manager over CAD, and framed it as a prescriptive model for her business (can these findings lead to insights for CAD, and do they point to a future solution?). These results, and the final conclusions remain to be seen, but certainly, they should be helpful. If Neill has collected enough data points and was able to predict his workloads on any given day, certainly he should be able to do the same thing for Lukin’s team. At any rate, the range of assets that the CAB agents utilized, from empathy to analytics, is something rare indeed, and beautiful to behold.
ISD CUSTOMER BILLING DASHBOARD By Rex Avendaño ITS IT Business Management
ITS IT Business Management, in collaboration with ISD Finance and ITS Technology Division, is currently developing a Customer Billing Dashboard to visually present budget and billing information using bar chart, gauges report, pie charts and tabular reports, this is in addition to WebBASIS reports. The goal is to provide departments improved visibility and insights to charges billed by ISD and assist them with their business decisions regarding services rendered by ISD. The Customer Billing Dashboard consists of nine (9) budget and billing reports. They are updated monthly from BASIS billing system. It have drilldown capabilities up to three levels, to provide more detailed information. Users can expand the report by using filters with dropdown menu selection for a variety of options. You can also change the report time period aggregation from yearly to monthly
and vice versa. The monthly aggregation will present billing charges by month and the yearly aggregation will summarize the charges by year. Customer Billing Dashboard Reports FY Expenditure Summary – Tabular report including Budget amount, Projected billing charges based on average of actuals and Year to Date (YTD) charges within the Fiscal Year (FY). Budget vs YTD Expenditure - Gauge report indicates the percent of YTD Expenditure compared to Budget amount. In the example, the YTD expenditure needle is at 82% of the budget. Budget vs Projected FY Expenditure – Gauge report indicates the percent of FY expenditure compared to budget amount. In the example, the projected FY expenditure needle is at 98% of the budget.
11
PAGE
Activity Trend - Bar chart report displaying the activity billed charges by month. It provides insight into the activity charges throughout the year and visibility for billing charges that may significantly increase or decrease from month to month. For example, the pink bar on March 2020 for
‘Midrange Database Admin’ charge was higher compared to previous months. By clicking on the bar chart, users can drill down to the ‘Expenditure by Activity Details’ report to identify the account number, account description, bill code, activity code and activity description with the largest billed amount in March 2020.
YTD Expenditure - Pie chart reports presenting the expenditure proportion by Activity, MAPS and ISD Services. Each pie chart has drilldown capabilities for more detailed information. For example, from the YTD Expenditure by Activity report, click on the Pie chart’s yellow slice ‘SENIOR MEMBER TECH STAFF’.
It will open ‘Expenditure by Activity Details with Other Desc’ report with MAPS code, ISD Service, Account number, Account description, Bill Code, Activity Code, Activity Description, Other Description (in this case, the programmer name) and Year-to-Date total billed amount. Users can change the aggregation from yearly to monthly (highlighted) and it will display month when the billing charges were applied.
12
PAGE
Expenditure by MAPS – Tabular report displaying MAPS code, MAPS description and YTD billing charges for two fiscal years for comparison. Expenditure by Activity – Tabular report showing MAPS code, ISD Service, Account Number, Account Description, Bill Code, Activity Code, Activity Description and YTD billing charges for two fiscal years for comparison.
13
PAGE
The Customer Billing Dashboard will soon be ready for pilot testing with a few departments. We will be working with them to fine tune the dashboard reports to cater to our customers’ needs. The plan is to rollout the dashboard to more than 1,250 users of WebBASIS by the 3rd or 4th quarter of 2020. We appreciate your feedback, if you have any suggestions or questions, please email Technology Division’s vRB Billing team at EDL-ISD-TDVRB@isd.lacounty.gov.
14
PAGE
ISD FINDING WAYS TO SUPPORT IN THE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT
By Jim Allen
During these times, the County has required us to pivot into new and innovative ways to deliver services and support our customers. The use of virtual collaboration tools such as Teams, Webex and Zoom have become our new daily platforms to interact with our teams and provide service to the public. Staying connected with our teams and the public has never been more important and one area we found was lacking was support for larger scale virtual events. In late July we were approached by Lisa Garrett of Department of Human Resources to help support her acclaimed and very well attended DIAlogue Series which focuses on informing and educating our County workforce on a range of topics that fulfill the County’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and acceptance. This is a largescale virtual event which requires significant expertise, resources and investment to produce and support.
15
PAGE
continued... The issues we found was that the event was only a few weeks away and had already had over 1500 RSVP’s and both department heads and elected officials presenting. With a cross functional team from within ISD, partnering with DHR’s Team we leapt into action to support the planning, production and delivery of the event.
"I want to thank and commend the ISD team for providing such great service for DHR’s DIAalogue Series Event last month. I appreciate the on-site assistance and the pre-event consult, which contributed to the success of our program."
With the inter-departmental team, we developed the project plan and daily meetings to support this critical effort. The event hosted over 1800 attendees and panelist from five different departments and two presentations from our Board of Supervisors. “I want to thank and commend the ISD team for providing such great service for DHR’s DIAalogue Series Event last month. I appreciate the on-site assistance and the pre-event consult, which contributed to the success of our program”. Lisa Garrett We hope to be able to support the needs of your programs during these socially distant times and beyond with all event services you need, both virtual and in person.
-Lisa M. Garrett, Director of Human Resources
16
PAGE
Coming Soon! ISD-BRM hosted VIRTUAL DESIGN THINKING WORKSHOPS
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN ──── THE DESIGN THINKING APPROACH AND HOW IT IS USED TO SOLVE PROBLEMS AND CREATE NEW OPPORTUNITIES
If you missed last year’s workshops, more are on the way! The ISD BRM team will be hosting VIRTUAL workshops in Design Thinking, a proven innovation process that embraces empathy, inspires creativity and encourages experimentation to solve problems and develop new ideas. Using a common challenge faced by LA County Departments, you will be part of a small team to work through the five stages of Design Thinking: empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing. You will walk away from the workshop with a strong understanding of the key tenets of Design Thinking, how they can be applied to your department, and how to execute them in your work. The workshops will be led by Jeff Warren from Barkley Consulting Group. Jeff has many years of experience leading Design Thinking workshops for corporations, educational institutions, and government organizations, and serves as the Program Director for Design Thinking at Stony Brook University. Look for invitations coming your way soon!
17
──── A SOLID UNDERSTANDING OF INNOVATION; HOW TO INSPIRE CREATIVITY AND THINK INNOVATIVELY
──── HOW DESIGN THINKING IS USED TO ADVANCE BUSINESS GOALS
──── VALUABLE OBSERVATION, BRAINSTORMING, PROTOTYPING, AND STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES
PAGE
────
HOW TO MOVE RAPIDLY FROM IDEA TO ACTION USING RAPID PROTOTYPING, EXPERIMENTATION, AND ITERATION
Mobility, Efficiency, and Productivity with BYOD In today’s times, the workforce needs to be agile and mobile. The ISD’s new Virtual Cloud Computing Service provides a streamlined approach to delivering, accessing and managing Virtual Desktops and Applications using AWS Appstream 2.0 while ensuring that end users can work anytime, anywhere, across any device through a single platform. Employees gain secure access to applications from any county-issued or noncounty-issued device running Windows 7, Windows 10, MAC OS or ChromeOS; thin clients, and tablet devices - simply accessed from a modern browser. For more information, please Relationship Management ISDBRMTeam@isd.lacounty.gov.
contact the Team
ISD at
Business EDL-
Telework Made Easy
Working from a remote location with a county-issued device has never been easier. Zscaler allows your County-issued device to work outside the County network from a remote location, just as if it were inside the County network. By simply having the Zscaler App installed on your device (and an Internet connection), you’ll be able to access the applications you need in a secure manner as if you were inside the County network. For more information, please contact the ISD Business Relationship Management Team at EDLISDBRMTeam@isd.lacounty.gov.
18
PAGE
Your Form Your Way
With Nintex Forms, you can create dynamic online forms to capture and submit accurate and current data from wherever you are. The user-friendly design canvas, drag-and-drop controls, and advanced business logic make it easy to customize your forms for every business need. Using Nintex Forms, ISD quickly created a DHS Nursing Skills Survey eForm that nurses can fill out an online survey with their skills, length of experience, work preferences, and certifications. DHS Management can use this to prepare for the COVID-19 patient surge and as a tool to re-assign staff to impacted areas. The dashboard also uses GIS to allow management to see where nurses live and move them to hospitals as needed that are close to their homes. ISD also created DHR’s Employee Verification Form (EVF) that was made available to 95,000 plus employees. This form displays a LA County employees’ entire work history. It allows the employee to do a comprehensive review of their employment record. They can verify or challenge the accuracy of the information. Additionally, there is a County Wide and departmental dashboard that allow the DHRM to view completion details and to take action to resolve disputed submissions. For more information, please Strategic Software Solutions eformsupport@isd.lacounty.gov
contact the ISD Team at EDL-
19
PAGE
LINKS AND INFORMATION WDACS Great Plates Delivery Program https://wdacs.lacounty.gov/greatplates/ ISD The one stop shop for everything telecommuting related. Connect.lacounty.gov DCBA LA County Disaster Help Center (help for businesses, workers, non-profits, tenants/landlords for COVID related help and resources) https://lacountyhelpcenter.org/ Report Illegal Price Gouging stoppricegouging.dcba.lacounty.gov BOS Submit Public Comments to the Board of Supervisors https://publiccomment.bos.lacounty.gov/ Virtual Board Meeting http://bos.lacounty.gov/Board-Meeting/Live-Broadcast Economic Resiliency Task Force Meeting http://bos.lacounty.gov/Live-Broadcast DPW COVID-19 Construction Guidelines https://dpw.lacounty.gov/building-and-safety/docs/pw_guidelines-constructionsites.pdf DPW’s Online Services https://dpw.lacounty.gov/landing/onlineServices.cfm DPSS Toy Loan Backpack and School Supply Drive https://toydrive.lacounty.gov/ FIRE Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) unveiled its revamped website (fire.lacounty.gov) with a responsive and enhanced design that is user-friendly and accessible by a wider range of devices. TELEWORK We've got an App for that! Quickly becoming the favorite app of 2020 among County departments, the Employee Check-In & Telework Form App is a cloud-based, mobile-friendly app that's easy to use and quick to implement. Using their smart phones or computers, employees check-in and submit their telework (or daily tasks) forms electronically and securely. This makes it possible for managers and supervisors to account for employees, whether in the office or working remotely each day. Interested in learning more? Contact ISD Business Relationship Management at EDLISDBRMTeam@isd.lacounty.gov
20 PAGE