We reached out to customers to find out how they are leveraging Cityworks to keep their communities safe in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. From taking important city services online to transitioning staff to working from home, here are just a few of the ways they are striving to protect citizens during this crisis.
Athens-Clarke County, Georgia
Athens-Clarke County is using Cityworks Storeroom to track their cleaning supply inventory and any essential goods received from FEMA or strategic stockpile supplies. The county set up a COVID-19 project in all domains to track work activities that occur beyond normal job responsibilities as part of their COVID-19 response.
Independence Power & Light, Missouri
Independence Power & Light (IPL) employees were able to adapt to a remote workforce in a matter of hours with the help of Cityworks and VPN access. Most remote users are able to complete their Cityworks-related activities just as they would if they were in the office. During the early stages of the outbreak, IPL embedded several COVID-19 surveillance dashboards into a custom “COVID-19 – PL Dashboard” tab within Cityworks to help the general manager and city manager monitor the ever-changing situation. The dashboards track confirmed cases, recovered cases, and deaths at a country, state, and county level. In addition, IPL is providing management with on-demand insight into the financial impact with the use of an embedded Cityworks Project dashboard and county-specific virus impact.
IPL’s field staff already utilize Cityworks Office and the Cityworks mobile native app in tandem to assign and perform inspections and work orders. Having this in place has allowed them to conduct business as usual.
Grand Rapids, Minnesota
Before the pandemic, the City of Grand Rapids was already using Cityworks Public Access. It has allowed customers to continue to submit engineering-related permits to city staff in an online environment. Through the online permit submittal process and functionality of automating task notifications for the city’s internal work process, it has allowed staff to continue to conduct business in the city’s ongoing effort to maintain social distancing practices while still allowing customers to continue work within the city with the proper permits.
Auburn, Alabama
The city’s Inspections Services Department was using Cityworks PLL, but office staff couldn’t access their enterprise cashiering system from home. The city worked with Timmons Group to quickly give remote staff access to Timmons Group PLL Portal. This allowed customers to make payments through the customized web portal and also gave remote staff the ability to easily process payments over the phone.
Auburn’s fleet management employees were already using Cityworks work orders to track all vehicle maintenance, but it was still common to receive maintenance requests via phone, email, or walk-ins. Once the city had to close to the public, the fleet department was directed not to allow walk-ins to drop off city vehicles. One of the city’s GIS business analysts worked with their web developer to quickly stand up an intranet web form for any city employee to report a vehicle issue, which uses the Cityworks API to create a service request. After submitting the request, the user then brings the vehicle to the repair shop and drops the keys in a lock box. Fleet personnel then sanitize the interior before bringing the vehicle inside for service. The city chose to create an intranet form instead of directly creating the request from Cityworks since many employees, such as police officers, use the vehicles but don’t have a Cityworks login.
Douglas County, Nebraska
Douglas County, Nebraska, is using Esri’s Crowdsource Reporter together with Cityworks to manage and route COVID-19 citizen requests. They are also using Esri ArcGIS Dashboards and ArcGIS Hub to share COVID-19 information with the public.
Weston, Florida
Broward County, Florida, issued an emergency declaration on March 22. Since then, the City of Weston has been using a Cityworks project to track all work related to COVID-19. This includes the regular cleaning of facilities, playgrounds, parks, and other public areas, as well as activities that qualify for state and federal reimbursement. The city also set up a COVID-19 website and created a video for their citizens.
Denton, Texas
Digital workflows and reporting systems involving Cityworks were in place prior to COVID-19, and the city is making full use of them in the current environment. The city is also handling all support and training situations in virtual environments using Microsoft Teams.
Shoreline, Washington
The City of Shoreline, Washington, is working with King County to convert a soccer field to a field hospital with approximately 200 beds. The city created a Cityworks project to track work related to the COVID-19 response, including clearing the field, preparing the emergency hospital, and deep-cleaning efforts at various campuses around town. Cityworks is one of the tools the city is utilizing to track hard and soft expenses to submit for FEMA reimbursement.
City of Topeka, Kansas
Several departments are using a Cityworks project to track labor, cost, and materials associated with the ongoing Covid-19 response. For example, the facilities department is tracking rigorous cleaning schedules and supply inventories across several city buildings. The city is also an avid user of GIS data for open data reporting to the public. They are using Survey123 and a map dashboard embedded in their public website to help local businesses self-report their availability and services during the pandemic.
St. Johns County, Florida
In Florida, the St. Johns County Public Works Department is using Survey123 and ArcGIS Operations Dashboard to help managers monitor employee work availability while also protecting staff health and safety. The solution was so effective for the Public Works Department that the County Administrator requested an expanded version of the solution to support more than 1300 employees across all departments.
Share Your Experience
We want to hear how COVID-19 is affecting your field operations. Take this short survey and share your stories with us! View the current survey results here.
It’s our collective responsibility to ensure worker safety and protect customer well-being while continuing to deliver essential services. To learn how Cityworks can quickly help your organization reprioritize field work, manage emergency response, shift to remote work environments, and respond to customers, contact us here.
You can also watch this Cityworks & ArcGIS: Solutions for COVID-19 webinar recording and visit our COVID-19 resources page.
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