TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Bruce Moe, City Manager
FROM:
Terry Hackelman, Information Technology Director
Tatyana Roujenova-Peltekova, Senior Management Analyst
SUBJECT:Title
Enterprise Project Implementation Quarterly Update of Munis Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and EnerGov Land Management System (LMS) Solutions; Consideration of Adopting: 1) Resolution No.20-0128 Approving Amendment No. 3 to the Contract with Tyler Technologies for Munis ERP and Eden Disaster Recovery Services with an Estimated Prorated Total Value of $93,767; and 2) Resolution No. 20-0129 Approving Amendment No. 1 to the Contract with Tyler Technologies for EnerGov LMS Disaster Recovery Services with an Estimated Prorated Total Value of $25,624 (Information Technology Director Hackelman).
a) RECEIVE REPORT
b) ADOPT RESOLUTION NOS. 20-0128 AND 20-0129
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council:
a) Receive the quarterly status report regarding the implementation of the two enterprise solutions;
b) Adopt Resolution No. 20-0128 Approving Amendment No. 3 to the Contract with Tyler Technologies for Munis ERP and Eden Disaster Recovery Services with an Estimated Prorated Total Value of $93,767; and
c) Adopt Resolution No. 20-0129 Approving Amendment No. 1 to the Contract with Tyler Technologies for EnerGov LMS Disaster Recovery Services with an Estimated Prorated Total Value of $25,624.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
The total estimated prorated amount for the Disaster Recovery Services for Munis ERP, Eden Financials, and EnerGov is $119,391 over the course of two and a half years. The initial first year prorated services cost of $22,792.50 is included in the Information Technology (Munis ERP and Eden) and Community Development (EnerGov) Fiscal Year 2020-2021 budgets. The subsequent annual Disaster Recovery services will be budgeted accordingly.
BACKGROUND:
On July 17, 2018, the City Council approved the purchase of two major software enterprise solutions: 1) Tyler Munis ERP system, supporting all financial, human resources, payroll, utility billing, and business license activities; and 2) Tyler EnerGov LMS supporting planning, permitting, inspection, and code enforcement activities. During that meeting, the City Council requested quarterly updates on the implementation of both projects to ensure they remain on target and within budget. Prior project updates were provided to the City Council on January 2, 2019, May 7, 2019, November 19, 2019, February 18, 2020, and June 23, 2020. Due to the impact of COVID-19, the project was put on hold in March 2020 and was restarted in July 2020. This report represents the resumption of the quarterly updates.
DISCUSSION:
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic had significant impacts on the City’s routine operations, including the implementation activities associated with the ERP and LMS projects. Because of the COVID-19 impacts on the City and the vendor implementation staff, the projects were placed on-hold in March 2020. In July 2020, the City reinitiated implementation efforts under amended project schedules.
The amended project schedules carefully considered and reflected the realization that a vast majority of the implementation would be performed by remote vendor implementation consultants and City staff. Working closely with Tyler, the City has established the following amended project schedule.
• Tyler Munis ERP
o Financials - January 2021
o Munis HR/Payroll - July 2021
o Munis Business License - July 2021
o Munis Utility Billing - June 2022
o Asset Management - November 2022
• Tyler Energov LMS Phase 2 - June 2021
It is important to note that the modified project schedule did not adversely impact the project budget. As of this report, the projects are on-track with the amended project schedule and on-budget.
Provided below is additional information on each of the two enterprise systems.
Implementation Update
Tyler Munis ERP
The Munis implementation is progressing as planned under the amended schedule. The staff and implementation vendor, have quickly adapted to using virtual meetings, implementation activities, and training. It should be noted that, as a result of staff working remotely for the past 7+ months, the City staff have identified a number of process improvements that have increased efficiencies and further prepared the City for largely paperless financial processes. Some of the implemented process improvements included online cellular billing access to the Departments, electronic signatures for contracts and agreements, and electronic workflow processing via the City’s existing email system. These efforts also prepare the City for continued adoption of paperless and automated processes offered as part of the Munis ERP system.
To date, the City has completed more than 13 remote training sessions and configuration meetings representing more than 23 days of effort. The training sessions have covered topics such as general ledger, budget, project accounting, purchasing, contracts, account receivable, general billing, cashiering, account payable, payroll, human resources, capital assets, and more. The dedication and commitment of the Finance staff have been instrumental in project success to date, particularly considering the remote nature of all implementation activities. Staff continues to implement system support and maintenance processes to ensure a reliable, stable, and highly available system at Go-Live.
In the coming months, the City will conduct more than 20 additional meetings/sessions to complete training, system configuration, user acceptance testing, Go-Live planning, and end-user training.
Tyler EnerGov LMS
In January 2020 the project team completed the successful launch of the EnerGov online permitting, field mobility, and Customer Self Service (CSS) components of the overall system, and in February staff aggressively moved to begin implementing electronic permitting. The EnerGov project progress was disrupted in late March after the COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home orders were initiated. The project resources redirected efforts to support remote work capabilities as well as reconfiguring the system to enhance remote business transactions for customers, such as enhancement of on-line plan submittal capabilities.
Despite the impact of COVID-19, the Community Development Department staff have continued to implement online permits to the point where all City permits are now available online. Furthermore, the City no longer accepts paper plans and is doing electronic reviews to continue on the goal of moving to a fully electronic environment. It is also worth noting that as part of the Phase 1 implementation, Community Development and Finance in conjunction with Information Technology implemented an online payment system to support the online permit and planning activities.
The EnerGov Phase 2 will implement version 2020 of the EnerGov application and will include enhanced features and functionality that will allow staff to further refine business processes and achieve more efficiencies to streamline operations. Phase 2 will include further automation of the electronic plan review process to move to a truly paperless environment via Bluebeam integration with EnerGov.
Disaster Recovery (DR) Services
With the signing of the amendments, the City will implement Tyler’s DR services to protect the Munis ERP, Eden Financials, and EnerGov LMS systems and ensure timely recovery in event of an on-site failure. A disaster is defined as an unplanned, natural, or man-made event that causes an interruption to vital technology infrastructure or systems, threatening the agency’s financial standing or public image. The DR services are vital to ensure the City is prepared to respond and recover from a disaster. In general, the Disaster Recovery services will include off-site backup, a recovery server, remote access, and service restoration activities for Munis, Eden, and EnerGov systems.
Tyler’s DR services include developing a DR Plan and implementation of nightly encrypted file transfers to Tyler’s East Coast hosting facilities. In the event of a DR event, Tyler will unencrypt the City’s data files and provide interim fully functioning hosted services for Munis,Eden and/or EnerGov systems that will be accessed remotely by staff until the City data and Tyler applications are transferred back to the City servers. The DR services also include the performance of an annual DR test to verify the DR Plan and associated processes are functioning as expected.
CONCLUSION:
While the project timelines for both the Munis and EnerGov projects have been modified as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, staff is confident that we will meet the amended schedule. Tyler Technologies is supportive of this approach and is honoring the existing agreements in place; thus both projects remain within budget.
The proposed addition of the Disaster Recovery services for Munis,Eden and EnerGov systems will provide continued access to the City data in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. The services will ensure business continuity when disaster strikes by protecting the City's stored data, minimizing lost operating time and disruption of the critical processes, and continuing to provide service to the public.
In conclusion, Staff recommends that the City Council: a) receive the quarterly status report regarding the implementation of the two enterprise solutions; b) adopt Resolution No. 20-0128 approving Amendment No.3 to the contract with Tyler Technologies for Munis ERP and Eden Disaster Recovery services with an estimated prorated total value of $93,767, and c) adopt Resolution No. 20-0129 approving Amendment No.1 to the contract with Tyler Technologies for EnerGov LMS Disaster Recovery services with an estimated prorated total value of $25,624.
PUBLIC OUTREACH:
Staff determined that public outreach was not required for this item.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW:
The City has reviewed the proposed activity for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and has determined that there is no possibility that the activity may have a significant effect on the environment; therefore, pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3) of the State CEQA Guidelines the activity is not subject to CEQA; thus no environmental review is necessary.
LEGAL REVIEW:
The City Attorney has reviewed this report and determined that no additional legal analysis is necessary.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Resolution No. 20-0128
2. Amendment No. 3 - Tyler Technologies (Munis and Eden)
3. Resolution No. 20-0129
4. Amendment No. 1 - Tyler Technologies (EnerGov)