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 https://www.ci.milwaukie.or.us/. The IST Director is also responsible for the City's Intranet website, which facilitates data sharing and collaboration amongst City staff.
     

• 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.

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 2000 Suite, Outlook 2000 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.

Last updated: 04/15/2010