Projects

Hybrid Workplace

With the pandemic situation improving, the County is preparing to bring its employees back to the offices in a Hybrid mode. The IT Department (ITD) took the opportunity to review how our business users did their work. The pre-pandemic setup was inefficient, paper-centric, and often involved multiple technologies that needed to be kept current, secure, and operational. ITD is enabling a hybrid workplace that is modern, efficient, and secure, allowing work from anywhere, anytime using a single device!

View hybrid workplace photo

Virtual First

In 2018, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors (BOS) updated its 10-year Strategic Vision using Google’s 10x Thinking. The development of Vision 2026 included numerous brainstorming sessions involving County leadership, community representatives, and a renowned futurist to discuss challenges likely to affect local services in the coming decade in how residents will expect to be served by local government. The plan is used to develop all departmental strategic plans, budget submissions, and any initiative submitted to the board.

AC3 Azure Project

The Office of Alameda County Health Care Services Agency (HCSA) is currently implementing the Social Health Information Exchange (SHIE) project as part of the Whole Person Care pilot. Thrasys is the technology partner for the SHIE but HCSA staff need to have direct access to this data so that HCSA is not solely dependent on Thrasys for all their reporting and data analysis needs. HCSA is using Power BI from ITD as the visualization tool that runs on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Alameda County has moved towards a hosted solution in Microsoft Azure that is cost effective, secure and easily scalable for HCSA. This is aligned with ITD’s 10-year strategic plan for IT infrastructure set up. This approach has required less maintenance as software tools are available for Azure cloud has enabled automation.

ACGOV Contact Us Chatbot

In accordance with the County’s Vision 2026 goal of Accessible Infrastructure, the County continually improves constituent services by making them accessible wherever, whenever, and on whichever device they choose. 

More and more constituents are looking to engage with government online, and so, the County must modernize its legacy applications and processes.  Many of the typical County functions, such as ordering documents or paying taxes, are fully available online now, as well as many previously in-person only processes such as Season of Sharing grant applications.  As services move online, the County takes a constituent-centric user experience approach to ensure these processes are as easy to use as possible and are accessible to all. 

To improve on the experience over time, the County uses analytics and feedback gathered from its various touchpoints such as websites, social media, mobile apps, call centers, and counters.  The constant two-way communication between the public and the County keeps the improvements coming. 

This continual improvement process is aided by adopting new technologies focused on automation and AI.  The County already has six chatbots in use. The newest chatbot on the main County website launched in Dec 2022 and was implemented to reduce customer calls and cut down on emails about commonly-asked questions.  The chatbot is continually updated and has already reduced email volume by 81%.  This is just one example of giving the users more than one channel for getting the help they need. 

The ACGOV chatbot remedies these problems and aligns with the priorities of increased constituent engagement and providing better customer experience. By creating the chatbot, ITD created a user ‘wow’ experience, answered users’ questions more quickly, and significantly reduced staff time related to this task. ITD and multiple departments collaborated to create the chatbot, and it is continuously trained to stay current.  

In the two-week period after the Chatbot went live, the ITD Web Team saw an 81% decrease in the number of emails coming from the Contact Us page. All County Departments appreciated ITD’s modernizing the way we communicate and the use of low code technology to develop systems in very short time frames, as they not only save time and money but also add tremendous capabilities to the Alameda County Development Platform.  

http://acgov.org/government/contactus.htm

ACGOV Contact Us Chatbot

Acvote.org Accessibility Certification

A big part of the redesign for the Registrar of Voters (ROV) website was to make it as accessible as possible. The WCAG 2.1 AA standards are in place to ensure users with disabilities have the same access to information as everyone else and that websites meeting these standards must be compatible with screen readers. During a yearlong effort in 2019 and 2020, ROV took it one step further and worked with the National Federation of the Blind to get the site certified for Accessibility through WebAim, a leading web accessibility non-profit organization. To meet this highest standard, the entire code base for acvote.org was evaluated and modified where needed to meet the stringent requirements for certification and ensure all citizens of Alameda County can get the voting information they need.

Active Directory Hardening and Consolidation

Active Directory is the core of our security platform and we working on strengthening this platform to improve our resiliency and limit exposures that could bring down this critical system. To achieve our goals, we are approaching this initiative from different perspectives. The first is by working with various stakeholders to centralize and consolidate our landscape where we can have better control and oversight over any areas of weaknesses and then follow up with implementing Microsoft best practice guidelines to add layers of protection of our critical assets in Active Directory.

Assessment Appeal System

An assessment appeal is the due process a taxpayer may initiate if the assessed value of his or her property cannot be agreed upon with the county assessor. Clerk of the Board is processing a range of 2000 to 5000 assessment appeals every year.

CBS Assessment Appeal System is a new modern online system designed by the Information Technology Department for Clerk of the Board, with the goal of providing an open and transparent process that relies on a clearly written set of procedures and provides due process, reducing paper usage, improving the productivity of the staff and the quality of service to the public.

The Information Technology Department partnered with Clerk of the Board and Assessor’s office that resulted in an in-house system that has been successfully used by both Clerk of the Board and Assessor staff to better serve Alameda County’s residents. This system was released in July 2020 and it will be followed by Phase 2 that will incorporate the legal appeals into the system.

In a prior initiative, Information Technology Department and Clerk of the Board designed and released an Assessment Appeal Online portal that allows property owners to electronically submit Assessment Appeals using DocuSign technology for electronic signature and allow online payments.

Both systems are now able to exchange data in an efficient way and keep property owners informed about their Assessment Appeal status.

Assessment Appeal System Screenshots

Assessor Property Assessment and Record Management System

The Assessor and IT Department partnered to re-engineer the system with the goal of increasing productivity and operational agility, reducing use of paper and improving service to the public. The project resulted in the development of IMPROVE (Integrated PROperty ValuE system), the most advanced and sophisticated Assessor’s system in California. Alameda County was the first in California to launch a full-featured web-based Assessor system, all built in-house by internal resources. This solution has been delivered in incremental releases. The latest releases in 2020 and 2021 support Assessor’s initiative to implement paperless business process. The team implemented the upload of electronic documents submitted by the taxpayers into the system and the retrieval of the documents scanned by the Assessor team. This initiative allowed Assessor to digitize over 15,000 paper files.

Updated March 2021

IMPROVE screenshots

Ballot Curing

Mail-in voting has grown in popularity, requiring voters to provide their signatures on the ballot envelopes for identification. Signatures are validated through an automated process, but missing or discrepant signatures result in the automatic rejection of the ballot. In California, the rejected ballots are processed according to the Election Code Section 3019, which requires election officials to provide notices to the voters and give them the opportunity to submit their corrections by 5 PM two days prior to the certification of the election. This important and essential process of notification and correction is known as ‘Ballot Curing’.

The Registrar of Voters (ROV) partnered with ITD to develop a scalable, innovative, secure, and robust Ballot Curing system to improve their process.  It aligns with the leadership priorities of ensuring the integrity of election process, increasing voter participation, streamlining the voting process, and building trust with the community. The Ballot Curing system was implemented in May 2022. It was used for the June 2022 Direct Primary Election and November 2022 General Election. This provided a platform that is user-friendly, accurate, and efficient, reducing staff by 70%, and time spent by 50% for this task and providing timely and better notification management.

The system was innovative, as it uses modern technology to automatically detect discrepancies and creates a letter or email to notify impacted constituents. The system supports seven languages as required in the County per Section 203 of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. Sec. 10503)) such as English, Chinese, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. The system has approval and notification workflows and provides correction methods via letter, text, email, and phone call, which allows voters to fix errors and ensure that their votes are counted.

Ballot Curing

CalSAWS

Alameda County is one of the 18 CalWIN counties that have successfully transitioned into the CalSAWS system. The county’s IT department has streamlined the migration activities into ten work streams to manage various departments and cross-functional collaboration effectively. The IT department is proud to be the only county that has successfully migrated 200 million legacy documents into the CalSAWS cloud environment, resulting in significant cost savings. This migration was an important accomplishment that required technical expertise. The IT department has also developed a generator tool to map the CalWIN tables to CalSAWS tables, translating CalWIN queries and Power BI Dashboards into the CalSAWS version. This tool has proven extremely valuable for the county’s reporting needs.

Central Collections Electronic Statements

Saving the County the costs of producing Central Collection Statements on paper and the associated costs of mailing, is the goal of this project. Clients will be able to opt in to receive a monthly email instead of receiving a paper statement in the mail. The email to the client will contain a link to the County website for credit card payment or payment by check. If check is preferred a payment stub can be printed from the website to include with the clients payment.

Implemented March 2015.

Chatbot

Service Desk Chatbot

ITD has implemented a Service Desk Chatbot with customized skills integrated with the ticket management system that is capable of voice interaction. This Chatbot is available for the County employees to interact with the ITD Service Desk 24×7 to get their tier1 questions on technology answered. Additionally, the Service Desk Chatbot will allow users to view ticket status, request the technician for an update, and create new tickets.

COVID-19 Chatbot

As the pandemic started, nearly all the County’s communication channels were bombarded with several questions, reports, and concerns regarding the pandemic and how to stay safe. With an influx of questions, Healthcare agency needed an immediate solution to help alleviate the stress on our communications channels and free up the staff to focus on more complex issues.

The project started with multi-department collaboration between four Healthcare departments, CAO, and ITD with limited scope and focused solely on handling COVID-19 related questions. Through agile planning and development cycle, the technology was locked down as Azure, the branding and functionality decided upon, and a working prototype was up in a matter of days.

Through internal testing and continuous learning on what our constituents were commonly asking about, we continued to develop the chatbot features to take advantage of multiple knowledge bases as well as different ways of interacting with the chatbot. This multi-lingual chatbot takes in content from both the CDC and the Public Health Department, as well as other county resources. It accepts typed-in questions and supports a menu tree system for those that want a guided path to the answers they seek.

The chatbot was launched on May 8th and recorded 5000+ questions soon after. Two more chatbots were created for IT HelpDesk and another for Probation. This new emerging technology implementation provides a blueprint for future chatbot developments. The existing chatbots continue to learn and provide service to our constituents for years to come.

Cloud Governance - Cost Management

To more effectively track, report, and allocate Azure cloud costs, Alameda County’s Cloud Governance and FinOps team (ITD) implemented an Azure Resource Tagging strategy that streamlines the cost management process and provides detailed and transparent chargeback of cloud resource consumption costs to Departments and Agencies.

To get to the detail of reporting needed to accurately identify and allocate these costs, the ITD team tagged over 2,400 resources in the County’s Azure cloud tenant with a BusinessUnit tag, indicating which resources were owned by which Departments or Agencies, irrespective of which Subscription or Resource Group they were provisioned in.

Additionally, to ensure ongoing compliance with tagging requirements, ITD implemented an enforcement policy, which requires the Business Unit tag to be populated from a pre-defined list of 21 Department/Agency names during new resource provisioning.

CLETS (CA Law Enforcement Telecommunication System) Switch Upgrade

The CLETS switch is the only means of connection of all Alameda County Criminal Justice agencies to the CA Department of Justice databases, The current version was written over 40 years ago on the mainframe and is no longer supportable. AWS is a multi-county warrant management system used by Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Francisco. AWS and CLETS switch were both implemented on the mainframe using IBM Assembly language and COBOL.

CLETS switch was replaced with a new Windows based vendor system that will allow for better connectivity. AWS was replaced with a REST API based solution that can be used by other applications, including CRIMS (Consolidated Records Information Management System), that can provide a user-interface to it.

Combined Charities 2022

Combined Charities is the County’s annual charitable giving campaign that:

  • Offers employees a wide and diverse range of charities to choose from and the ease of contributing through an automatic payroll deduction.
  • Benefits the County by running a single campaign that is efficient and cost-effective, with minimal administrative overhead.  ​
  • Supports the community through the contributions made by the County’s compassionate and generous employees.

Each year, a different County agency leads the Combined Charities campaign with the goal of increasing both year-over-year employee participation and the total amount donated.  In 2022, ITD led the campaign, leveraging the creativity and technical expertise of ITD employees to exceed both these goals.

ITD titled the campaign Giving is Better, Done Together, recognizing that for the last two years, many County teams and colleagues were separated due to the pandemic and were slowly coming back together. Giving Together helps make a big difference in the local communities.

Using innovative technologies such as fun videos, gamification, MS Teams communications, and a #GivingChallenge, the 2022 campaign raised over $400,000 with 108% employee participation.

The campaign kicked-off with a message from Tim Dupuis, CIO and Registrar of Voters, framing the event in the context of the difficult time that was ending and the gradual shift back to the social norms missing over the past two years.  Human Resource Services Director, Joe Angelo, playing the role of race announcer Ace Pennington, used humor and a very large dash of enthusiasm in a video to declare the start of the race — the gamification part of the campaign — and later, to supply race update videos with an accompanying web page where employees could see the different Departments’ progress as their animated race cars advanced towards the goal in real time.

In a nice change from email, ITD created ALCO COMMS to send communications about the campaign to all County employees through MS Teams, which grabbed employees’ attention in a way that email no longer could.  To make it even more fun, the winning Department received a heart-shaped trophy representing ACGOV Cares, the County website (https://acgovcares.org/) that showcases how Alameda County employees care for their communities.  The trophy will rotate to winning Departments in future years as well.

Congratulations to 2022’s winner, the Alameda County Fire Department, and to the over 1,000 employee donors, who made Combined Charities such a success!

Community Health Record (CHR)

The successful implementation of Alameda County innovative Community Health Record (CHR) system was achieved through multi-departmental and multi-jurisdictional collaboration among several public and private agencies and healthcare partners. With 1.8 Terabytes of data and 1.6 Million patient records, CHR connects with data sources from multiple external providers like: Alameda Alliance for Health, Anthem Blue Cross, Collective Medical, John George Psychiatric Hospital, St. Rose Hospital, ACBH (Mental Health and SUD), Homeless Management data, Jail Data and more.

The CHR system is managed by UpHealth, Inc. and is innovative because it uses referential data matching software from Verato to match and link patient data to resolve any discrepancies or duplicates, provides privacy framework to securely hold sensitive information, and is designed to improve patient outcomes by providing healthcare providers with a comprehensive view of a patient’s health history, regardless of where they received care.

The CHR system is designed to be interoperable with other health information systems, allowing healthcare providers to access patient records from a variety of sources, including electronic health records (EHRs) and other health information exchanges. The CHR system uses advanced data security and privacy protocols to protect patient health information, and patient consent is obtained before their health information is shared through the system.

The CHR system provided several benefits, including improved care coordination by 20% reduction in hospital readmissions, better patient outcomes by 14% reduction in mortality rates, and reducing healthcare costs by 7%. By allowing healthcare providers to access a patient’s comprehensive health history, the CHR system helps avoiding duplicate tests and procedures, improving diagnosis accuracy and reducing the risk of medical errors. The CHR system also allows healthcare providers to identify and address gaps in care, such as missed appointments or medication refills, which can improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs in the long term.

Connected Infrastructure Projects

The County has an over-arching goal to support access to services securely any time from anywhere. To facilitate this objective, ITD is leading a series of projects to advance the ability for residents, employees and business partners to access County systems through a connected infrastructure strategy. These projects include:

  • VPN Standardization
  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure
  • Voice Modernization Initiative
  • Modern Authentication
  • Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Backbone for Radio
  • Active Directory Consolidation
  • Azure ExpressRoute Connectivity

Collectively, these initiatives improve efficiency, security, and cost-effectiveness while ensuring universal access and forward-looking infrastructure.

Consolidation of Technology Services

In support of the County’s Centralized Technology Policy encouraging consolidation of technology services, a number of departments are moving the support of commodity technology services to ITD. These services include help desk; end user and device support; server, storage and cloud administration; web-site support; network; unified communication; and technology procurement.

Countywide Efficiency Initiative

The initiative seeks to improve the County’s efficiency through process re-engineering and implementing new technologies.

For 2016: ITD is continuing to build new imaging applications to reduce paper and improve workflow. We will also be implementing an enterprise eSignature and eForms solution as a tool in reducing paper and streamlining business processes. And we are promoting the use of video conferencing supporting the Climate Initiative.

COVID-19 Chatbot

As the pandemic started, nearly all the County’s communication channels were bombarded with several questions, reports, and concerns regarding the pandemic and how to stay safe. With an influx of questions, Healthcare agency needed an immediate solution to help alleviate the stress on our communications channels and free up the staff to focus on more complex issues.

The project started with multi-department collaboration between four Healthcare departments, CAO, and ITD with limited scope and focused solely on handling COVID-19 related questions. Through agile planning and development cycle, the technology was locked down as Azure, the branding and functionality decided upon, and a working prototype was up in a matter of days.

Through internal testing and continuous learning on what our constituents were commonly asking about, we continued to develop the chatbot features to take advantage of multiple knowledge bases as well as different ways of interacting with the chatbot. This multi-lingual chatbot takes in content from both the CDC and the Public Health Department, as well as other county resources. It accepts typed-in questions and supports a menu tree system for those that want a guided path to the answers they seek.

The chatbot was launched on May 8th and recorded 5000+ questions soon after. Two more chatbots were created for IT HelpDesk and another for Probation. This new emerging technology implementation provides a blueprint for future chatbot developments. The existing chatbots continue to learn and provide service to our constituents for years to come.

COVID-19 Self-Screening Assessment

The State allowed board meetings to be held virtually. Alameda County chose to develop a hybrid format that allowed for a combination of a physical and a virtual meeting experience that was safe and secure. The County used Zoom Webinar for safe public meetings. The board room was upgraded with AV equipment to support virtual meetings. New processes and procedures were created for the COB, ITD, BOS and the public to participate. Closed captioning was added for ADA compliance. A library and talent was created to support public facing zoom meetings for use by all departments/agencies. Training of new procedures was established for the BOS, COB, ITD, department/agency heads, and the public to use the new platform.

The CDC recommended that all employees take a self-assessment test before beginning work. Human Resources in collaboration with ITD created aself-assessment screening form that employees can access from anywhere, anytime and from any device. The screening is a set of questions which provides direction to the employees on whether they should return to the office or stay at home. The County Announcement regarding the same was sent to all employees explaining the importance of filling out the form daily.

COVID Continuity of Operations

To maintain continuity of operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the County had to quickly change the way services were delivered to the community. County agencies and departments had to transition to a new hybrid work environment while still providing all critical services. This included providing the necessary equipment and software for employees to work securely from remote locations and to develop virtual services for customers that were previously provided in-person at County offices. Collaboration tools such as Teams and Zoom were provided to keep the staff connected regardless of whether they were on premise or working remotely.

The support for business operations fell into 3 main categories:

  • Remote Work – providing technology support to allow employees who normally work in the office to work securely from home or elsewhere. This included providing laptops and peripherals, softphones and headsets, VPN access and remote or virtual desktop capabilities. This also included allowing contact center workers to work remotely while still leveraging call management systems.
  • Virtual Services – allowing residents to access County services without requiring face-to-face interaction. This included capabilities like electronic document approval (DocuSign), rapid application development (SalesForce), video and audio conferencing, and virtual contact centers.
  • Public Engagement – continuing the transparent conduct of business in public meetings and other forums while complying with social distancing mandates. This included audio and video conferencing, conferencing services (Teams and Zoom) and the use of websites for public communication.

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic required Alameda to upgrade facilities to protect the health and safety of their employees and the community. The General Service Agency (GSA), working with the County departments, implemented changes based on guidance from county, state and national health agencies. Changes included updating and adding COVID-19 signage, installing safety screens, providing enhanced janitorial services, installing touch-free utilities, installing MERV air filters and placing temperature scanners in County facilities.

In addition, The COVID-19 pandemic required Alameda to upgrade facilities to protect the health and safety of their employees and the community. The General Service Agency (GSA), working with the County departments, implemented changes based on guidance from county, state and national health agencies. Changes included updating and adding COVID-19 signage, installing safety screens, providing enhanced janitorial services, installing touch-free utilities, installing MERV air filters and placing temperature scanners in County facilities. In addition, ITD provided mobile cleansing kits to keep staff safe when servicing equipment.

COVID Hotel

The COVID Hotel project is a part of the larger Project Room Key initiative, which assists in serving people affected by COVID-19 who are experiencing homelessness and living in high density settings in Alameda County. The system is designed to track clients from their initial referral to the program from an outside provider, through their intake into a hotel, clinical assessment, exit from the hotel and finally an outreach assessment (post-exit), performed by a Street Health Team. The COVID Hotel application was built on the Salesforce Platform with collaboration from ITD, the Health Care Services Agency, as well as frontline medical personnel and outside vendors.

The project continues to be enhanced to serve the needs of the homeless community in Alameda County.

CRIMS-SB384

Effective January 1st, 2021, SB384 transitioned California’s lifetime sex offender registration schema to a tier-based schema. SB384 established 3 tiers of registration for adult registrants for periods of 10 years, 20 years, and life. SB384 allows the registrant to petition the superior court for termination of their sex offender registration requirement on or after their next birthday after July 1, 2021, following the expiration of their mandated minimum registration period. Registrants can petition to have themselves removed from the sex offender list and the “Megan’s Law Website.”  Based on criteria listed in SB384, the court will either grant or deny the petition.

This program requires communication between Police departments, Sheriff Central Identification Bureau (CIB,) District Attorney’s office (DA,) Courts and California Sex and Arson Registry (CSAR,) which was addressed by providing a common automated workflow platform in the CRIMS system. It aligns with the leadership priorities of social justice that promotes equity and helps to ensure that all residents of the county have access to the resources and opportunities they need to thrive.

So far, 146 sex offenders have petitioned, and 129 have been granted to be taken off the registry and Megan’s Law website. All these cases were processed successfully through the newly developed CRIMS SB384 module. This program was innovative because it eliminated paper forms, provided real-time interfaces with various law enforcement partners, provided timely notifications to all parties, alerted law-enforcement of urgent tasks, and integrated with the existing PC290 sex-offender registration module.

This project is an exemplary example of multiple law enforcement agencies collaborating to solve a problem in which each one has a role to play, and the result benefits everyone. Regular meetings were conducted during the design phase involving Police agencies, DA, CIB, Courts, CSAR and ITD to finalize the optimum workflow.

CRIMS-SB384

Cybersecurity Program

Alameda County recognizes the increasing risk to County data and resources from cybersecurity threats. ITD is leading a comprehensive security program to address the existing and emerging threat landscape.

The program includes projects in multiple areas including:

  • User awareness and training
  • Data privacy, data encryption
  • Security monitoring
  • Incident response
  • Zero-trust framework
  • VPN standardization
  • Identity and access management
  • Policies, standards and guidelines

ITD collaborates with departments to implement security projects consistently across the County.

Data Center Modernization and Optimization

The Data Center Modernization & Optimization initiative is to allow ITD to best respond quickly and easily to meet the ever-evolving demands of the business and consistently deliver a superior customer experience.  Under the umbrella of this initiative, ITD implemented a state-of-the-art printer at the data center to handle high volume jobs, at speed and with efficiency.  Work is also being done to reduce the physical footprint of the data center by leveraging Cloud technologies to host the infrastructure.

Data Hub Projects

Alameda County’s data strategy makes data a centrally governed enterprise shared asset and provides departments with secure, easy, and efficient access to a single version of the data. A central data hub supports discovery, indexing, and analytics. Data marts are being created to transition departments away from using Microsoft Access and Excel sheets for data sharing and archiving. A number of data marts have been created simplifying the process of managing the data by making data collection, curation, and access faster.

SSA Data Hub

  • We are in the process of building various data lakes for a data hub for SSA reporting and analytics
  • IFCN – Integrated Fraud Communication Network data repository
  • CIS – County Information Server (CalWin) data repository
  • WDT – Workload Distribution Tool (SSA Integration Team) data repository

Health Care Data Hub

  • COVID data
  • COVID vaccination data
  • Public Health Laboratory Services for Behavioral Health

Dependency Investigating

The Alameda County Information Technology Department (ITD) and Social Services Agency (SSA) partnered to develop and launch a mobile-friendly Dependency Investigations (DI) web application, significantly improving the business process efficiency and tracking that are critical to the petitioning of the safety and protection of a child in danger.

Prior to March 2021, SSA managed and assigned dependency investigations manually, using a single Excel file on a shared drive.  Supervisors across multiple locations needed to enter information into the spreadsheet to keep track of case assignments. This was a frustrating and tedious process as only one person could update the spreadsheet at a time.  In addition, the file would lock when line staff was looking up information, preventing supervisors from quickly assigning referrals.  With multiple users having full permissions to the Excel file, there was a high risk of data loss and errors, and when errors did take place, they caused unnecessary business process delays.

SSA Children Family Services needed to modernize, automate, secure, and streamline the DI process to speed up referral times and increase data and staff efficiencies.

ITD incorporated all the functionality of the spreadsheet process in the new Web Application and improved upon it by enabling supervisors and line staff across the county to work in the system simultaneously.  Many enhanced features were added to improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the assignment process.

Staff can now access the new DI app from anywhere, anytime, using any device.  DI data is safe and stored in a secure data center with cybersecurity and physical controls in place to protect against unauthorized access and compromised or lost data.  Since the app’s release in March 2022, SSA reported: 656 new cases created and distributed, a 75% decrease in time managing DI case assignment and administration, and 97% system uptime.

Dependency Investigating

DevOps

ITD is committed to continuous improvement in operational efficiency. We have been working on streamlining internal operations and implementing automation for internal processes using DevOps methodology. Using various development tools, developers automate deployment and testing of the in-house applications. This effort leads to an increase in quality of our in-house applications, reduced implementation time, and improved communications with the customers and other teams within the department.

Design Guidelines

A design guidelines website has been established as a resource for anyone in the county to utilize. It not only incorporates accessibility guidelines but also focuses on best practices for common design and UI elements. The goals are to allow developers and staff across the county to improve their overall user experience, build consistent interactions across platforms, and speed up the design and development process. This applies to anything from applications to PowerPoint presentations. There has never been anything like this in place before and having this as a tool should help improve efficiencies across the County.

 

design guideline screenshot

design guideline screenshot

 

Digital Transformation

The Digital Transformation initiative that was launched by the ITD to fundamentally change how the endpoints are provisioned, configured, deployed, and managed across the County has been a big success. There are multiple projects tied to the Digital Transformation that include:

  • Staying current with the Microsoft Windows Operating system using ring model of deployment
  • Migrating departments to the modern M365 Apps for their business
  • Eliminating GPOs and migrating necessary rules to Intune
  • Encrypting devices using Microsoft BitLocker
  • Implementing Multi-Factor authentication for users and admins
  • Migrating user files and department file shares to Microsoft One Drive
  • Leveraging Intune to push upgrades and updates to County devices
  • Using cloud tools to modernize the provisioning of user devices

District Attorney’s Case Management System DALITE

ITD Criminal Justice team is implementing a new version of DALITE, RD3 that is used by the DA in all their daily criminal caseload management. It includes functionality to file a case electronically with the Court’s Odyssey system and to manage the complete lifecycle of the case. Phase 1 of the system was implemented in 2020 and Phase 2 is currently in development.

District Attorney Charging Packet Automation

All law enforcement agencies in Alameda County bring their arrest information to the District Attorney (DA) on a daily basis to allow the DA to make charging decisions. This information, called the DA Packet or the DA Charging Packet, consists of the police report, RAP sheet, Probable Cause Declaration, etc. Currently the packet is in a hard-copy format brought over to the DA by each police agency. During the pandemic, a short term process and system was implemented to allow police agencies to submit this information using Secure File Transfer (SFTP) accounts. ITD Criminal Justice Team is working on a long-term system solution to allow agencies to submit the DA packet using Consolidated Records Information Management System (CRIMS). This will create a completely automated system with secure and audited document storage and retrieval and integration with RD3, the DA’s Case Management System.

eCRIMS Modernization Project

The eCRIMS modernization project converted all of the mainframe CORPUS green-screen functionality to the web based CRIMS platform. The new system created with the ITD, Superior Court, District Attorney, Sheriff, Probation, and the Public Defender working together creates a Criminal Justice Data Hub.

Phase 4, which included integration of Court’s Odyssey system with the various case management systems of the County’s Criminal Justice Partners, was completed July 2016. Currently work is in progress on decommissioning the legacy mainframe systems.

eDocs

ITD successfully designed and launched a cloud-based application using Salesforce.com to automate the end to end application process used by the Social Services Agency (SSA) In-home Supportive Services Division (IHSS) social workers.

Alameda County IHSS division currently processes an average of 6,000 new applications for intake and about 18,000 reassessments annually. The eDocs application is designed to automate many of the manual steps of the intake process. Through integration to various source systems, the application pre-populates the forms needed by the social worker. The capability includes an electronic signature by the recipient and digital storage of the signed forms in the enterprise document management system. As a result, the application saves time and has a reduction in data entry errors. The projection for the time savings is estimated between 15 and 30 mins per application. When Phase III is completed in summer 2020, the projected time savings is about 4,000 – 8,000 man-hours yearly.

The eDocs application can generate all the necessary forms in five languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Farsi, and Vietnamese) thereby allowing SSA to serve the recipients of these languages better. Per state-mandate, these documents are digitally signed and emailed to the recipients during home visits thereby eliminating the paper printing and the additional effort for scanning, storing, printing, etc.

Emergency Tracking System

County of Alameda played a significant role in helping battle the October 2017 destructive wildfires that occurred in Northern California. Various county agencies were involved in providing staff and coordination for Fire and Rescue, Law Enforcement, Emergency, Public Health and Medical Mutual Aid services. ITD created this cross-collaboration tool, which allowed agencies to add resources, time, and cost information for services provided to tackle destructive and widespread wildfires in Napa and Sonoma Counties. This summary information could then be easily reviewed by Department Heads, the County Administrator’s Office, and the Board of Supervisors.

Implemented in October 2017.

Emergency Tracking System Sample Screenshots

Family Visits for Juveniles

With a stay-at-home order during the pandemic, the Probation Department allowed juvenile detainees in the Juvenile Hall to visit their families in a safe manner. They made available tablets with Wi-Fi access points so families could have virtual meetings with the detainees.

Endpoint Detection and Response

As the types of cyber threats become more sophisticated, ITD has implemented an Endpoint Detection and Response tool for all Alameda County endpoints. In addition to addressing traditional anti-virus threats, EDR addresses zero day and fileless attacks, and prevents malicious files from being executed using both signatures and behaviors. Potential attacks are monitored and stopped not only through the agent, but through a security operations center 24/7.

Form 700

Every elected official and public employee who makes or influences governmental decisions is required to submit a Statement of Economic Interest, also known as the Form 700. Departmental filing officers used a time-consuming manual process for collecting the Form 700 statements from all filers and used Excel to keep track of all received statements. The Clerk of the Board was unable to view the filing status of each department and send notifications to overdue filers.

eForm700 is an in-house system developed by the Information Technology Department in collaboration with the Clerk of the Board, with the goals of moving from a paper-based reporting system to a more transparent electronic system and improving the productivity of departmental filing officers by eliminating the manual work and providing all necessary information to view filing status and various reports.

Electronic filing makes it easier for the County’s officials to comply with reporting obligations and provides the public with the information in a more accessible and consistent format.

The system was tested and certified by the California Fair Political Practices Commission in 2019. The eForm 700 system was used County-wide for the 2020 filing year by over 800 filers. Access and use will be extended next year to all Board and Commissions and Alameda County schools to assist over 2000 filers.

Generative Code

MS Access Database applications are well past their prime. With security risks, performance issues and other constraints, migrating to newer systems is a must.

While Microsoft Access Database applications can enhance certain business processes, they come with significant limitations, including restricted scalability, security vulnerabilities, and reliance on specific devices. To tackle these challenges, the Information Technology Department (ITD) collaborated with the Social Services Agency to transform the MS Access Database applications into scalable, secure, and mobile-friendly, 3 tier architecture (.NET Core, Angular and SQL Server) web applications.

Leveraging generative code, ITD streamlined the conversion process, adopting a modern technology stack. The initial application conversion time was reduced to 120 days, and subsequent applications were completed in just 45 days (a remarkable 63% reduction in time). Currently, using the Generative Code approach, application conversions take approximately 15 days (an impressive 88% reduction in overall conversion time).

As a result, the App Generator was designed to handle any and all future Access databases which need to be converted. This solution is scalable, and currently converting more databases across multiple agencies. The first converted database “E2Lite” was finished and launched in the summer of 2024.

This convertor is projected to save over 25 man-years of costly developer time and security risks long term.

Angular Code Generation

Household Hazardous Waste Scanning

With over 45,000 residents disposing Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) material such as paint, light bulbs, needles, etc. every year,  Alameda County offers multiple free, convenient options for properly and safely disposing hazardous waste. It allows County residents to dispose at three HHW facilities located in Oakland, Hayward, and Livermore. In addition, HHW holds multiple one-day annual events at other convenient locations.

In June 2020, Environmental Health launched the state-of-the-art HHW Scanner system at all facilities eliminating the archaic paper-intensive process. The new system was developed in one year as an integrated three-part system comprised of an Android application (app) for scanner devices, web services for syncing scanned data to County databases, and a web application for HHW Program administrators to manage the system.

The new system was a huge success as it streamlined and automated the process, eliminated paper, improved data security, reduced staff time, centralized data, and generated accurate and timely reports. During the pandemic, it eliminated the use of high-touch items like pens and clipboards and assisted in social distancing. By using NASCAR style processing, the system improved customer service, allowed speedy check-ins, shorter customer wait times, and allowed HHW staff to safely serve more customers.

Since June 2020, due to the pandemic, all facilities allowed appointment-only participation and scanned 55,000 unique driver licenses and collected respective survey data. This is the highest number of customers the program has ever recorded, and the data produced is legible and accurate. The data entry is automated, and records are immediately accessible. With this new system, no transaction has gone unrecorded, which was not always the case with paper records. The residents can now be contacted in case of additional questions. The reports suggest that 30% of the residents were repeat customers. The reports also show a 5% – 10% increase every month in Alameda County resident participation. HHW staff is now able to target cities/locations that need awareness of this free program by using flyers and other modes of marketing and promotions. The HHW Scanner data and survey reports are sent on a regular basis to the Environmental Health management  who are elated on the tremendous success of the new HHW Scanner System.

HS2 HomeFinder

HS2 Homefinder addresses Alameda County’s homelessness, aiding in permanent housing solutions aligned with the County’s Vision 2026 goals to End Homelessness. Built on the Salesforce Platform within existing healthcare infrastructure, the system efficiently integrates data sources such as Clarity HMIS, Behavioral Health Yellowfin, and PSH Feeder files. The core automation engine, Find Match, empowers staff to assess eligibility and preferences, initiating a search process for project/unit and client matches. Results can be managed to create Matches or Referrals, with an accessible history of match records. Users can edit, reassign, or delete records, generate Referral records from Matches, and mark Matches for special export. This system automates the matching of clients with housing, offering a rich interface, dashboards, and reports for real-time updates.

The innovation lies in the HS2 Homefinder’s algorithm, which pairs homeless individuals or families with suitable housing based on their unique needs. It accounts for factors like location, amenities, size, and accessibility, optimizing successful placements. By integrating real-time data from housing databases and shelters, the system ensures accurate, current housing information for case managers and seekers. Stringent data privacy and security measures safeguard sensitive information.

HS2 Homefinder Screenshots

Hybrid Cloud Platform

The Hybrid Cloud Platform developed from a need to solve multiple challenges that come from sustaining an expensive and aging centralized compute and storage infrastructure. In addition to keeping up with evolutions in technology, we also recognized an opportunity to evolve how technology is consumed for ITD and the departments which we provide our services. Taking public cloud offerings as a model, the solution was designed so that capacity is “subscribed” directly from our technology partners giving us the ability to scale up or down capacity as demand evolves. In this model, we get to “right-size” the physical footprint, control our costs for the actual amount of technology required, and transfer the responsibility of hardware lifecycle management over to our technology partners. Continuing on the public cloud principal in that a customer can self-service provision their own resources within the cloud, our Hybrid Cloud Platform will accommodate dedicated tenant spaces for departments to self provision and manage as much or as little of any resource as they see fit. The Hybrid Cloud Platform brings all of the conveniences that come with using public cloud infrastructure into the on premises environment.

ITD also takes a “Cloud First” approach when considering technology solutions while also recognizing that there will always be a need for on premises infrastructure. With this in mind, what truly makes this solution “Hybrid” is that through this platform, integrations will exist with public cloud providers so that users can choose to provision resources either on premises, in a public cloud, or any combination in between. Additionally, users of the Hybrid Cloud Platform will have the ability to self-service shift existing workloads from on premises to a public cloud and vice versa. All of these conveniences will be available from a single management console via the Hybrid Cloud Platform so users only need to go to one place to manage their on premises resources as well as their public cloud resources.

Hybrid Workplace

With the pandemic situation improving the County is preparing to bring its employees back to the offices in a hybrid mode. The IT Department (ITD) took the opportunity to re-examine how our business users did their work. The pre-pandemic setup was inefficient, paper-centric, and often involved multiple technologies that needed to be kept current, secure, and operational. ITD is enabling a hybrid workplace that is modern, efficient, secure allowing work from anywhere, anytime using a single device!

The workplace before and after:

hybrid workplace before

workplace before

hybrid workplace after

workplace after (hybrid)

ITD Ops Shipments

In the middle of 2024, ITD launched ITD Ops Shipments, a modern, integrated, and efficient shipment management system. This solution was developed for ITD’s Operations team to replace outdated legacy systems that demanded extensive manual effort to track shipments of technical equipment that the department ordered, as well as coordinate with several other ITD teams that are involved in the procurement process. ITD Ops Shipments offers tight integration with other ITD applications involved in the procurement process, enabling highly efficient workflows and removing the need for cumbersome back and forth communication. The application also offers real-time customizable data reporting, reusable email templates, and other such efficiencies all within a user-friendly, modern UI.

ITD Ops Shipments

ITD Proposal System - ProSys

In a leading step towards efficiency and innovation, the Alameda County Information Technology Department (ITD) launched the centralized Proposal and Board Letter System (ProSys) in September 2023, leveraging the advanced capabilities of Salesforce and Microsoft technologies. This implementation marked a transformative milestone, empowering ITD to seamlessly submit proposals to various agencies for approval while concurrently automating the generation of the requisite Board Letter.

ProSys, driven by the dynamic functionalities of Salesforce and Microsoft, facilitates a streamlined approach when ITD engages in the procurement of equipment, licenses, and systems, or provides essential support through staff augmentation for county agencies. The system initiates a proposal, which follows a customized approval workflow designed for each county agency.

On a bi-monthly cadence, the system generates a comprehensive Board letter for the Board of Supervisors (BOS). This document serves as a comprehensive compendium, encapsulating over 150 approved proposals, a financial recommendation, and a Budget tracking form. The seamless integration of ProSys not only expedites the approval process but also enhances the transparency and accountability of ITD’s engagements, fostering a more agile and responsive mechanism for handling the diverse needs of county agencies. In adopting this solution, ITD and the county agencies have not only modernized their operational framework but have also fortified their capacity to navigate the county procurement with efficiency.

ITD Proposal Management System (ProSys)

ITD Service Desk Self-Service Functionality

ITD has rolled out the self-service module of the ITD Service Desk software (Ivanti) to all employees in the County. Now users can report incidents and make requests related to services provided by ITD. Once created, users are also able to track their incidents and service requests.

Implemented Q2 2020

ITD Store

In early 2023, ITD launched the ITD Store, a modern, automated, and efficient inventory management system. This new solution was developed for ITD’s Client Services team to replace outdated legacy systems that demanded extensive manual effort to track inventory totals and distribution records. The ITD Store offers real-time, customizable data reporting, automated inventory updates, and a host of other efficiencies, all within a user-friendly, modern UI.

ITD Store Project

Measure A

Measure A1: Between 2010 and 2015, State and Federal funding for affordable housing decreased by 89% and the County and its Cities faced a shortfall of over 60,000 homes affordable to low-income families. Alameda County stepped up to this crisis. The Measure A1 Bond program provides $580 million in funding to create and preserve affordable housing for residents most in need – seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and frontline workers. The Measure A1 General Obligation Bond Funding provides housing resources for people struggling with housing costs, provides supportive housing to people experiencing homelessness, and it helps families buy homes, a critical step for building wealth and financial stability.

Measure A1 (acgov.org)

Measuring for Success

To continue to serve the public the best we can, we identify Key Performance Indicators (KPI) across our services to measure and improve performance. Some of our KPI for our websites are Behavior Maps,  Scroll maps, Bounce Rates, Visits and Time on Site to evaluate how well our sites are doing.

For our Social Media Platform our KPI is followers.  We use customized tracking links to measure how effective the messaging is in campaigns and our social media analytics dashboard measures engagement and compares it to nearby counties. The tool also gives recommended post times which are used to maximize engagement.

The KPI for newsletter/messaging system is subscribers. Sign-ups are promoted across county websites and departments are encouraged to leverage the tool to reach constituents as well.

Microsoft Teams

Alameda County uses Microsoft Teams to chat, meet and collaborate with internal and external partners.  The employees of the County use Teams for project collaboration, staff meetings, crisis management, one-on-one conversations and much more.  Here are the Teams usage stats for March 2023 to Feb 2024.

 

Category Counts
Team Chats 94,556
Private Chats 17,265,038
Calls 2,525,856
Meetings 822,930
Meetings Organized 195,914
Meetings Attended
210,050

Network Broadband Expansion

Alameda County General Services Agency manages five Veterans’ Memorial Buildings across the County. Up until recently, the buildings either had no Internet or consumer grade Internet services. Additionally, there was no wireless networking installed in the buildings. ITD partnered with GSA to deploy high-speed, enterprise class Internet services and wireless networking, which provide wireless services throughout the buildings. The local wireless networks are managed through a cloud-based portal to allow for remote access to the networks, which is critical as the buildings are not connected to the larger county network. The greatly improved Internet and wireless services will allow GSA to host large community and county events in the buildings. The Veterans’ Halls can now also be used as business continuity sites for agencies in case of disaster. ITD is actively engaged with other agencies to expand broadband systems to assist in providing community services.

Network Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute

Alameda County has embarked on hybrid cloud strategy to improve security, system resilience, application access and reduce cost. In support of this initiative, the county recently completed a project to migrate from Internet based VPN connections to Microsoft ExpressRoute circuits to connect the county network to Azure services. The ExpressRoute circuits improve network performance by reducing latency and providing four times the bandwidth of the prior VPN connections. The ExpressRoute circuits also improve connection resiliency by providing redundant network equipment and circuits for cloud connectivity while being supported by Microsoft published SLAs. The ExpressRoute connectivity will help ensure a robust and highly performing cloud environment for County agencies and departments.

Network Segmentation - ROV High-Speed Ballot Sorter

It is of paramount importance to ensure the security and efficiency of Alameda County election related systems. To that end, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters recently implemented a high-speed ballot sorting system to improve the efficiency around critical election processed. To provide a secure environment for the high-speed ballot sorting system, ITD created an isolated, firewall protected, network segment to protect the integrity of the system. The isolated network provides a highly secure network segment while allowing ROV to efficiently run elections.

Network Refresh

Alameda County is engaged in an ongoing project to refresh its network equipment to enhance cybersecurity, ensure network performance and maintain support capabilities. Keeping network devices up to date will allow for the implementation of security tools which will help mitigate risks and vulnerabilities that could compromise the integrity of the County’s data and systems. The network refresh will also ensure reliable and efficient network services to support mission critical public services provided by County Agencies and Departments. A current project supporting the refresh initiative is the network upgrade of the Gail Steele building in Hayward, which is a large and significant site for Alameda County Social Services and other tenant agencies. The ongoing investment in network and cybersecurity services is essential in providing a network platform to facilitate County agencies and department in meeting their goals.

New Acgov.org Website

The County has adopted a “mobile first” design philosophy and is applying it to all new websites including the redesigned ACGOV.org, allowing the site to be viewed on any desktop or mobile device. Using a minimalist approach, the usual navigation bars were removed and the search bar emphasized. The search functionality provides various filters and suggested keywords to aid locating the content faster. For those users who still like to click through a site, key links were added through out to help the user locate important and highly visited pages. This new search-centric implementation provides the public the opportunity to easily locate County services and information without the need in understanding government hierarchy. ITD will continue to improve and enhance the site with the user experience in mind.

New Boards & Commissions Salesforce App

The new Boards and Commission application not only gives the Clerk of the Board better tools to fill and monitor the over 650 board positions in Alameda County, but it also provides the members of the Board of Supervisors new insight into which positions are vacant or will need to be filled for their individual districts. The new application integrates with the websites for each individual board or commission, so that any changes to the memberships made in the app are immediately reflected on the websites for each board or commission. And lastly, the Salesforce platform for this new application will allow ITD to efficiently add new features and enhancements to further improve the usefulness of this application by allowing members of the public to submit their applications directly into the system for review and processing.

Implemented October 2017.

Boards and Commissions Legacy System and Upgraded System Screenshots

Online Penalty Waiver

The Online Penalty Waiver Project took a decades-old manual “Claim for Refund of Delinquent Penalty” application and review process performed by the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Office and transformed it into a 100% online, self-service solution available 24/7. This project implemented an online screening/pre-approval solution that automated repetitive activities, reduced paper usage and storage, and provided constituents with an option to securely upload sensitive documents to the County.

Open Data Initiative

The Alameda County Data Sharing Initiative provides the public with easy online access to records and information about County business and operations. The Initiative aims to enhance the County’s commitment to transparent government and to encourage civic engagement.

ITD continues to support the initiative by maintaining the County’s data sharing website and by hosting community hackathons.

Property Tax Systems Modernization

A complete overhaul of the in-house Property Tax Systems is under way. ITD developed a roadmap for the migration of the property tax systems from Mainframe to the browser-based modern system. The team implements at least one roadmap project every year. In 2020, the team automated processing of the tax refunds and rolled out a taxpayer portal which allowed taxpayers to check a status of the refund online in real time.

Updated March 2021

Refund Status Lookup – Tax Analysis Division – Auditor-Controller – Alameda County (acgov.org)

Pretrial Pilot Project

The 2019-2020 California state budget earmarked $75 million to the Judicial Council of California (JCC) to launch and evaluate two‑year pretrial projects in local trial courts. The project’s aim is to increase the safe and efficient release of arrestees before trial; use the least restrictive monitoring practices possible while protecting public safety and ensuring court appearances; validate and expand the use of risk assessment tools; and assess any bias. The JCC selected Alameda County as one of the 16 counties to participate in a 18-month Pretrial Pilot project.

The Alameda County Superior Court, the Alameda County Probation Department, and the Alameda County Sheriff and other police agencies all worked together to create a system that will allow pretrial evaluations, assessments, and judicial reviews to happen efficiently. County’s CRIMS (Consolidated Records Information Management System), a consolidated system that is used by all public safety and criminal justice organizations, played a crucial role in creating interfaces with Probation’s Tyler Supervision (TS) Case Management System and with Court’s Tyler Odyssey Case Management System, to create a seamless automation.

Query Compass

Converting old database schema queries to CalSAWS can now be done in one click of a button. This tool creates an equivalent query from Alameda’s old state system and dramatically speeds up the migration process. This reusable design ensures that any database schema change can be automatically migrated, without spending resources on converting a query manually. The produced web application Query Compass removed 85% of the man-hours needed to get queries converted.

Query Compass

Recruitment Enhancement Project

ITD worked closely with JobAps to enhance the Alameda County hiring process as part of the Recruitment Enhancement Project. The collaboration led to the launch of the Human Resource Services New Employment Opportunities Landing Page, featuring a refreshed logo and tagline. The improvements included creating an online checklist for recruitment planning, automating the Certification Response Form, shortening the Requisition Form, automating job postings on social media, and providing information on examination testing sites in Alameda County. The redesign involved various agencies and a dedicated Advisory Committee, resulting in a user-friendly Employment Opportunities website accessible on mobile devices. This site offers job links for both internal staff and the public, serving as a comprehensive resource for the county hiring process and the employee referral program.

Radio MPLS Backbone Implementation and Encryption

ITD provides support for the East Bay Regional Communication System Authority (EBRCSA) radio system which provides a 2-way radio communication for public safety organizations throughout Alameda County. The EBRCSA network currently is operating at or above expected capabilities, with over 20,000 regular users communicating on the network. To address this, the TDMA Migration Project was started, moving all radios from the legacy FDMA system to the newer TDMA technology, which will double the capacity of the system and provide additional capabilities. The TDMA Migration Project is intended to provide EBRCSA Users the ability to access TDMA enabled radios and any necessary upgrades to operate on the impending EBRCSA Phase 2 TDMA Infrastructure.

The objectives of the TDMA Migration Project are as follows:

  • Provide Faster Access to TDMA Radios
  • Provide greater services to our customers
  • Provide ITD Radio Services better control over the EBRCSA radios used by Alameda County and outside agencies

Usage models indicate by doubling the network capacity with the TDMA Migration Project, we will provide current users unparalleled connectivity for the next ten years or more. The TDMA system upgrade will also allow other regional users to join EBRCSA, furthering regional interoperability and providing potential ITD Radio Services opportunities.

The MPLS Backbone Implementation Project will consist of upgrading the existing Aviat TRUpoint microwave radios to the latest ECLIPSE microwave radios. Several microwave paths will be upgraded from 10 GHz to 11 GHz. Along with the ECLIPSE microwave radios and path upgrades, we will be adding an integrated MPLS router to position EBRCSA for Layer 3 services and network scalability.

The Encryption Project expands our neighboring communities interoperability and ensures DOJ regulatory compliance. EBRCSA has approximately 14,000 radios and approximately 190 consoles that require a programming technician to implement encryption. Careful coordination among all law enforcement and cooperating agencies is critical to maintain interoperability during the implementation of this project. We will also be upgrading the radios to accept multi-key and over-the-air programming at the same time we add encryption.

Security Awareness Training Program

To address the increasingly complex and dynamic cybersecurity risk landscape, we have established a security awareness program. We conduct formal training using an industry‑leading training system, quarterly testing of employee awareness, regular communication to remind County employees of risks to avoid, and security workshops to engage technical and business leaders in the importance of security awareness. Additionally, we are implementing a phishing alert button so all Alameda County has a quick and simple way to report possible phishing emails.

Technology Acquisition Request (TAR)

In 2022 the successful implementation of the centralized Technology Acquisition Request (TAR) system was achieved through multi-departmental and multi-agency collaboration. Information Technology Department (ITD) built an online system using low-code technology to request and review IT procurements across agencies.

The objective of the program was to automate the procurement request submission and reporting process to make the Technology Acquisition Review transparent, fast, and user-friendly. The solution was planned to be developed in late 2021/ early 2022 and go live by March 2022. Before making technology purchases, departments submit technology initiatives to the Information Technology Department (ITD) for review and recommendations with the goal of eliminating the duplication of systems and services, increasing system availability while improving services throughout the County, and having a consistent approach to implementing, maintaining, and enhancing cybersecurity capabilities.

TAR program has been set up to address the following policies in the county:

1)Centralized Technology Policy: Encompass new technologies and encourage agencies to partner with ITD for the management of common technologies to achieve greater efficiencies and enhanced security protection.

2)Cybersecurity Policy: To protect the county’s technology and information assets by promoting consistent behavior across agencies, as well as providing guidelines to information owners on how their technology and informational assets can and should be managed and secured.

With the use of technology to automate the process of reviewing the request from a department, the tedious manual process has been greatly simplified by asking the right questions needed to decide if a technology purchase is needed or not. This new automation has made the process transparent and accountable with the automatic routing of approvals. The streamlined process is also accessible across departments and is mandated as part of a procurement request thereby making it possible to know all the technology needs in the county.

Technology Acquisition Request (TAR)

Tech Reuse

Under the guidance of the Board of Supervisors, we donate refurbished computers through our board approved partners who distribute them to local schools, communities, and non-profit organizations. The cool thing about this program is the processes that were developed in collaboration with those donation partners to manage the supply chain, digital data erasure, and distribution of computer assets on an ongoing basis.

Upgrade of Automated Employee On-Boarding System

A major accomplishment in the recruiting area is the implementation of a digital friendly onboarding system called SmartERP. This new system streamlines the process of bringing a new hire onboard by having the prospective employee fill out all the relevant applications, their personal information and all other required new hire information completely online. This eliminates the need for candidates to make a special trip to the job site to fill out and sign stacks of paperwork prior to the hire date. It also allows them to read and certify new hire policies before they even start. All this can be done by the candidate at their own pace and in the comfort of their home. The information then flows into PeopleSoft, reducing the amount of information that needs to be manually entered by the department.

In November of 2020, the On-Boarding system was upgraded to the latest version, which has and improved user friendly interface. System can be accessed on any device including mobile phones. Users are able to digitally sign the on-boarding related documents, upload required I-9 documents such as driver’s license, social security card, etc.

Upgrade of HRMS, Financial - ERP System

In March of 2019 we successfully completed an upgrade of our PeopleSoft Financial system to the latest delivered version of PeopleTools 8.56 and PUM 29. As before, this upgrade was achieved completely by in-house staff. The upgrade was flawless. County vendors are able to use the latest version, called FLUID version for bidding on any County Projects.

In August of 2019 we will be upgrading our PeopleSoft HR and Payroll system to the latest delivered version of PeopleTools 8.56 and PUM 28. New upgrade system will be current with the latest delivered version by Oracle.

In March of 2021, as per the bi-annual schedule, PeopleSoft Financial System was upgraded to the latest delivered version of PeopleTools 8.58 and PUM 37 along with an upgrade of both the infrastructure and database. As always, this upgrade was achieved completely by in-house staff, was completed on time, and went without a hitch. The Auditor and GSA user departments were integral in a smooth deployment and users encountered no issues after upgrade.

In August of 2021, we upgraded our PeopleSoft HR and Payroll system to the latest delivered version of PeopleTools 8.58 and PUM 36. The new upgraded system is current with the latest delivered version by Oracle.

alcolink dashboard screenshot

alcolink dashboard screenshot

Virtual Board Meetings

The State allowed Board meetings to be held virtually. Alameda County chose to develop a hybrid format that allowed for a combination of a physical and a virtual meeting experience that was safe and secure. The County used Zoom Webinar for safe public meetings. The board room was upgraded with AV equipment to support virtual meetings. New processes and procedures were created for the Clerk of the Board (CBS), ITD, Board of Supervisors (BOS), and the public to participate. Closed captioning was added for ADA compliance. A library and talent was created to support public facing zoom meetings for use by all departments/agencies. Training of new procedures was established for the COB, ITD, BOS, departments/agencies heads, and the public to use the new platform.

Upgrade of Enterprise SQL Server

We will be upgrading our SQL Server Enterprise Solutions to the latest SQL Server 2019 version. Current version of SQL Server 2012 will be end of life in July 2022. New upgrade system will be current with the latest delivered version by SQL Server.

Virtual Filing of Property Documents and Forms

To support remote work, the Assessor needed to eliminate paper documents mailed in by the taxpayers and the cities for property assessments. In collaboration with ITD, the Assessor team updated their website with eForms for taxpayers to send documents electronically. The information was made available to the Assessor through their IMPROVE system. The documents were uploaded and stored electronically including millions of archived paper documents which were scanned and stored electronically for easy retrieval.

Virtual First

In 2018, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors (BOS) updated its 10-year Strategic Vision using Google’s 10x Thinking. The development of Vision 2026 included numerous brainstorming sessions involving County leadership, community representatives, and a renowned futurist to discuss challenges likely to affect local services in the coming decade and in how residents will expect to be served by local government. The plan is used to develop all departmental strategic plans, budget submissions, and any initiative submitted to the board.

Virtual Marriages

In April, Governor Newsom issued an executive order to officiate marriages online. The Auditor-Controller in collaboration with ITD implemented a contact-free, electronic payment solution. The application and marriage certificate process became virtual with the very first virtually officiated marriage in Alameda County being officiated in May 2020. ITD created a workflow to electronically route and sign the marriage certificate using DocuSign. This new business processes supported virtual marriages. Services were advertised on social media and the Clerk-Recorder web site.

Voice Modernization Initiative (VMI)

The County has an aging, legacy phone system based on Avaya technology. To support the goal of a more mobile and flexible workforce, the Voice Modernization Initiative (VMI) was initiated to replace the legacy system with a new, cloud-based phone system. In addition to replacing outdated equipment, this project will add key benefits such as the ability to work remotely and accept calls over wireless, cell, or other technologies securely. It allows employees to use mobile phones, laptops, or desk phones to make and receive County calls using their County number. The County is using Microsoft Office 365, which includes Teams to support voice communications and other collaboration functions. Teams is based on a cloud platform that is not tied to a specific geography or device. The VMI solution is expected to drive reduced operational costs and better alignment with accessible infrastructure for mobile and remote workers. This solution supports Alameda County’s current and future needs and is in accord with ACGOV Vision 2026.

Solution Benefits Summary:

  • Supports mobility, collaboration, and security
  • Not tied to a specific geography or device
  • Better support for remote work
  • Cloud based solution providing flexibility and lower cost
  • Alignment with ACGOV Vision 2026 Goal of Accessible Infrastructure

This project is in progress and as of March 2021, approximately 700 staff have been converted to VMI.

VPN Standardization

With the onset of the pandemic, Alameda County, like most organizations, faced an enormous challenge of supporting numerous remote workers while determining the most secure way of connecting them safely. In order to do work remotely, users needed to connect to documents and systems that required a VPN connection. A VPN solution was implemented to satisfy the immediate need, but as we step back to review the overall strategy going forward, we are determining the requirements of all systems and teams, and providing upper management with options and cost analysis in order to standardize on a VPN solution that best suits the needs of the County. This effort also conforms to the Alameda County Strategic Plan and Vision 2026 of providing “Proven, flexible, and dynamic cybersecurity strategy and framework”.