The Information Systems and Technology (IST) Department is responsible for a
wide array of support and services for the City. Those responsibilities
are divided between the current four members of the department: IST
Director, IST Analyst II, IST
Analyst I and GIS Coordinator. An
overview of those services are listed below.
IST Director:
Project Management (Inter and Intra Departmental Collaboration)
A good portion of the IST Director's position is spent in project
management. The IST Director works in concert with other
departments to determine and meet the needs of their staff.
This team-based approach often results in multi-departmental solutions
that support the overall mission and goals of the City.
Intergovernmental Cooperation and Relations:
The IST Director is responsible for negotiating, renewing (if
applicable) and overseeing intergovernmental agreements (IGA) as they
relate to the Information Technology (IT) needs of the City.
Contract Administration and Support:
The IST Director negotiates and maintains contracts as they relate to
data, networking and voice systems that benefit the City's data and
voice processing networks. Examples of this include
contracts for Service Level Agreements (SLA) or Standard Maintenance
Agreements (SMA) support and for direct services, such as Internet and
interagency lines.
Tier II Help Desk Support:
The IST Director provides Tier II support to the Help Desk for all data
applications, all hardware and software, networking systems, systems
administration, voice systems and other telephony related systems.
Internet and Intranet Website Development and Support:
The IST Director provides the primary design, development and support
for the City's Internet Website. It can be accessed at http://www.cityofmilwaukie.org
.
The IST Director is also responsible for the City's Intranet website,
which facilitates data
sharing and collaboration amongst City staff.
IST Analyst II:
Tier II Help Desk Support:
Tier II Help Desk Support is activated for complex technical problems
that cannot be addressed by Tier I Help Desk Support. The
complexity of the problem can range from server issues, to networking
issues, to applications issues or advanced workstation problems.
Several of the City's larger applications have a Standard Maintenance
Agreement (SMA) or Service Level Agreement (SLA), which generally
provide for version release upgrades, patches or fixes and a help desk
support solution. The SLAs and SMAs allow Tier I and II Help Desk
Support to address critical outages with a vendor support team.
The goal of the Tier I and II Help Desk Support Team is to minimize the
downtime and productivity loss of users in the City with regard to their
data and voice processing environments.
Workstation Hardware and Software Design:
The City maintains a standard configuration for its workstation
hardware and software, which facilitates data sharing and collaboration
among City staff, Council and affiliated agencies. This standard
is determined by the IST Director and the IST Analyst II. The IST
Analyst II position is a highly skilled position with extensive
knowledge in workstation hardware and operating systems design.
This position must understand and test new commercial software
application interactions with both the operating system and other City
supported applications before accepting and implementing the application
on City workstations. This may require extensive collaborative
efforts with the application vendor and their support staff.
Server Hardware and Software Design:
The City maintains a standard configuration for its server hardware
and software, just as it does for its workstation hardware and software.
This standard is determined by the IST Director and the IST Analyst II.
The IST Analyst II has extensive knowledge of server hardware and
software design and is responsible for the daily operation of the server
platforms in use in the City. This position selects, implements
and supports toolsets to assist in the management and diagnosis of
problems within the server environment. This can include disk
defragmenters, remote management, remote access and hardware trouble and
failure detection tools. This position is also responsible for
understanding database management and application-operating system
interactions before deploying applications in the City's data processing
environment. This may require extensive collaborative efforts with
both the application and hardware vendors in order to implement a stable
and productive server environment.
Network Hardware and Software Design:
The City maintains a standard configuration for its networking
hardware and software, which provides the backbone infrastructure to the
City's data processing environment. The IST Director and the IST
Analyst II determine the standards and protocols used by the City.
This network includes the switches, routers, hubs and circuits that
transfer data between City buildings and affiliated agencies as well as
the large departmental printers deployed on the network. The IST
Analyst II position is responsible for defining the printers on the
network and ensuring their availability.
Systems Administration:
All City staff are connected to a network with access to many network
resources. Network access allows staff to share information,
applications and printers within the City infrastructure. The IST
Director and the IST Analyst II position is responsible for defining the
machine (workstation) and user logon policies that govern what local and
network resources each user and machine can access. The IST
Director and IST Anlayst II are also responsible for working with
various departments to determine user level access to various City
applications. In some cases IST staff are also responsible for
working with affiliated agencies to gain and maintain network access for
key staff in the City.
IST Analyst I
Tier I Help Desk Support:
A centralized Help Desk was established to funnel and track all
trouble reports and service requests for computer, voice and network
related issues from City staff, City Council and affiliated agencies.
Reporting trouble tickets or service requests can be accomplished
through the dedicated hotline, through the Help Desk e-mail distribution
group, by fax or in person requests. A dedicated IST staff person
responds to all reports of trouble and service made to the Help Desk and
will attempt to initially resolve the issue with the customer.
Tier II support staff may be activated for more complex trouble tickets,
service requests or large volumes of requests to the Help Desk.
Workstation Hardware and Software Support:
The City maintains a standard configuration for its workstation
hardware and software, which facilitates data sharing and collaboration
among City staff, Council and affiliated agencies. This
standardization includes commercially supported (non-clone) hardware, a
business operating system, a set of business appropriate local software
(e.g. Microsoft Office Pro ’97 Suite, Outlook ’97 e-mail, Microsoft
Project, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc.) and client installations of
supported server software, such as the Financial or Human Resources
application, etc. The IST Analyst I position is also responsible
for troubleshooting and resolving problems with local and network
attached printers.
Systems Administration Support:
All City staff are connected to a central network with access to many
network resources. Network access allows staff to share
information, applications and printers within the City infrastructure.
The IST Analyst I and II positions manage account creation, maintenance
and deletions for network access as well as most server applications.
In some cases IST staff are responsible for working with affiliated
agencies to gain network access for key staff within the City. An
example of this would be Police Department access to the Clackamas
County Sheriff’s Office where our local Police enter and inquire
information on criminal activity for the City.
Software and Hardware Inventory Support:
Nearly all City staff are provided with a workstation to use as part
of their daily job. IST staff are responsible for purchasing,
configuring, implementing and providing support for both the workstation
hardware and the software loaded on each PC. Part of that support
entails recording and tracking each workstation (and other related
peripheral devices, such as printers, modems, scanners, etc.) as well as
the licenses for each piece of software loaded on the workstation.
The IST Department performs periodic workstation audits to ensure
licensing compliance. IST staff record and store all
software media and licenses in a secure location.
Staff Training and Orientation:
The IST Analyst I and II positions create accounts for newly hired
staff with the appropriate levels of access as requested by their
supervisors or managers. These analysts are then responsible for
providing basic training on network layout, explaining levels of user
access to both network resources and applications and explaining IST
policies and procedures.
GIS Coordinator:
GIS Design, Maintenance and Support:
The Network GIS Coordinator is a pivotal position in the City,
providing mapping products (e.g. drawings, plats, graphics, etc.),
geographic and demographic analysis and other cartographic data to both
internal departments, such as Planning, Engineering, Sewer, Water,
Storm, Streets, etc., and contracted agencies such as the City of Happy
Valley. The GIS Coordinator oversees the physical storage of the data
and tool sets and establishes quality controls to ensure the integrity
of the GIS system. The Coordinator works cooperatively with City
staff and partner agencies to meet their GIS needs and offers ways to
enhance information dissemination using geo-based referencing and
reporting.
Gather and Maintain City GIS Data Sets:
The Network GIS Coordinator regularly coordinates updates to the
City's GIS data sets with partners such as the Clackamas County Tax
Assessor's Office, Metro and the U.S. Census Bureau. The GIS
system also relies on data gathered by the City’s global positioning
system (GPS), which has significantly improved the mapping accuracy of
City resources. The City has recently entered into an agreement
with Clackamas County to acquire a new data set that is based on
coordinate geometry (COGO). The accuracy of plots within this data
set using COGO will be well under a foot. The City's current data
set has accuracy approaching fifteen feet.
Telephone and Voicemail Support:
The Telephony Analyst administers the City's telephone PBX (three
switches) and voicemail systems. This position is responsible for
providing basic administration on the telephone system which includes,
moving extensions from one physical location to another; creating,
modifying and deleting: phone extensions, boss groups, hunt groups,
libraries, etc.; programming telephone set buttons, training and
orientation and troubleshooting customer problems and requests.
The Analyst also provides basic administration of the City's voicemail
system, which includes creating, modifying and deleting voice mailboxes,
transfer mailboxes and calling trees. The IST Director and the
Analyst are responsible for planning and coordinating upgrades to the
telephone and voicemail systems with the City's established vendor.
Cell Phone and Pager Support:
The City maintains a base of pagers and cell phones to facilitate
critical communications between City management and line staff.
The Telephony Analyst is responsible for ordering and replacing broken
equipment, making new promotions available to management, analyzing cell
phone and pager plans and working with established vendors to ensure
continued support.
