ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
INFORMATION SYSTEM (EDIS)
PRELIMINARY
DESIGN DOCUMENT
Developed for the Community and Economic Development Department (CEDD)
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PURPOSE
The purpose of this document is to provide a recommended preliminary design and guidelines for the implementation of the next phase of the EDIS system project. The following paragraphs and appendices provide information concerning:
Background of this project;
What preceded this activity;
Requirements requested by CEDD staff;
Solutions;
Costs;
Recommendation for detailed design and implementation; and,
Preliminary design documents.
The preliminary design documents are blueprints for detailed design and implementation. As such, they may be modified as the implementation progresses to facilitate unanticipated requirements and practical circumstances. These are dynamic documents intended to meet the changing requirements of the department.
INTRODUCTION
The mission of the Community & Economic Development Department (CEDD) is to strengthen the Phoenix economy by creating and retaining employment opportunities, enhancing the business environment, increasing revenue and improving the quality of life. Its goals are to create jobs, enhance the general business environment, increase City revenue, and improve the quality of life for citizens.
Attainment of these goals and accomplishment of the mission requires the collection and reporting of information. Data on work performed, work pending, marketplace demands, and goal achievement is critical to the overall success of the enterprise.
Information gathered by CEDD is of interest to City Council, City Management, and its business partners including the Downtown Phoenix Partnership, Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the State of Arizona Department of Commerce. In addition, other City departments may have a need for information including Disparity Program information and business contact information. Therefore, select data should be made available on the Intranet and Internet.
BACKGROUND
Several years ago, CEDD contracted with Applied Economics (Appendix ?) for a Needs Assessment and Preliminary Technical Specifications study. This was completed February 28, 1998. The ITD/CED team used the report as an introductory basis to begin this preliminary design phase of the project. It became apparent quite early in this phase that the requirements laid out in the consultant's document had changed. The technical specifications were no longer valid, the number of tables required had increased, and the quantity of information and the dissemination needs for the data would not fit the original design.
An additional requirement for information necessary to manage and measure the success of the Small Business Assistance Program was identified. This came about as a result of the program review conducted in 1999 - 2000 by the City Auditor Department.
Initial meetings were held with all work group participants present. The interactive nature of the groups was explored. Meetings were then held with each of the individual work groups to determine their data requirements and define their process characteristics. These meetings form the basis for this document. Supporting documentation is contained in the appendices.
Historically, the business systems supporting CEDD have presented various inefficiencies including:
· Data collection, whether manual or on a PC, is not integrated. Therefore, data is generally relegated to use only by the individuals accumulating the data.
· Staff is generally not well informed regarding what other employees are collecting and its availability.
· When common application software, such as ACT or Excel, is used the database is separated so that each employee cannot share data directly with another thus creating duplicate data entry and potential reconciliation problems.
· Databases have been created using personal database software creating disparate data repositories. These diverse databases create duplicate data entry and potential reconciliation problems (e.g. Workforce Development and Small Business). Therefore, resources are expended supporting and maintaining freestanding systems that could be applied to an integrated system.
· Data standards have not been adopted universally within the department (i.e. - abbreviations in address fields; always enter the area code?). Therefore, even if data could be combined, comparison would be inaccurate and incomplete.
· There is no direct on-line access to information available in other departments including EOD status, permit status, property ownership, zoning, traffic counts, event information, etc. Some information is available on the GIS system to select users.
· Historical program information is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain.
Current software applications in use (in addition to office automation) include:
· ACT 4.x is a contact tracking software package maintained and supported by an Administrative Aide. Each user has a separate data file. While it does a good job of keeping track of various contacts, its scope is limited; and, only a few employees use it. Desired report generation capability is severely limited. Reports are generated by downloading the data into an ACCESS database and then manipulating and enhancing the data to get the desired report. This method is cumbersome and error prone.
· Microsoft ACCESS applications are in place in Workforce Development for client tracking, and in Small Business for limited financial tracking. Microsoft ACCESS is not scalable software and is not appropriate for an enterprise application. It could not, therefore, be expanded effectively.
· GIS provides access to an array of geographic based data. The system is available to a limited number of users. In addition, the GIS has a substantial learning curve. CEDD recently lost its two most GIS knowledgeable employees thus resulting in a skill gap.
GENERAL SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
There are several general system requirements initially submitted by management and users that has “driven” the preliminary design phase and will impact future direction:
· The Citywide Disparity Task Force has identified a requirement that CEDD connect to EOD, Finance, and EAS databases to assure that all parties involved with disparity issues are in sync and communicating.
· On line access to data (other than Disparity issues) in various departments is critical (e.g. EOD, Planning, Development Services, Property Records, etc.).
· The ability to provide summary information by council district to council members and for specific projects to City management is important.
· Other City departments have requested access to business contact information.
· The system must provide for the integration of the various program areas while protecting data that is confidential.
· The system must provide for ad hoc query capability, as there is frequent call for non-standard reports.
· The system must be flexible and adaptable for future requirement changes.
· The system should be accessible from remote locations.
· The system should facilitate expanded use of the Internet for an enhanced Internet site.
· It is important to share specific portions of the system with various partners and stakeholders as appropriate. This requirement increases the impetus for Web enabled software.
· The system should include “core” screens and reports while allowing each work group to have customized data entry screens that match process flows.
· The system should produce data for mailing labels and mail merge functions for mass mailings.
· The system should provide seamless connectivity to the GIS system to facilitate map generation with the variety of overlays and map size designed to be selectable for the intended use. The addition of a business location layer to GIS would be ideal.
· The system should include reporting capabilities that facilitates generation of data for the City Manager’s Executive Report, the Productivity Indicator Reports, updates to the Branch Workplan, and other management reports already required.
· Laptop data entry in the “field” would be desirable to facilitate client interviews.
· Client survey scanning and compilation software may be desirable.
SOLUTIONS
The solutions proposed in this document have an additional four phased approach in common. The implementation phases recommended are:
Phase 2 detailed design and application development;
Phase 3 connectivity to other city departments' databases;
Phase 4 Intranet access; and,
Phase 5 Internet access.
Only the implementation of Phase 2 (detailed design and application development) will be discussed in depth. The remaining phases will build upon the foundation created in Phase 2. It is important at this time to understand at a high level what is proposed for the remaining phases. Contingencies can be incorporated in Phase 2 activities for these future phases.
Phase 2 will include:
the detail design:
the establishment and design of the database;
the population of the database;
the required functionality of reports;
input screens, allowance for ad-hoc reporting;
security;
connectivity to the EOD database; and,
ability to implement remote access.
There will be no conversion of data from existing systems. CEDD staff will enter all data as required to maintain business functionality. This phase will provide CEDD staff with an integrated system for maintaining data necessary to conduct their business.
Phase 3 will provide connectivity to other city departments' databases. The CEDD staff has indicated they would need access to the following:
City Clerk property records;
GIS connectivity;
limited access to EAS for Disparity Program reporting and project information;
limited access to Finance for Disparity Program reporting; and,
DSD for permit information.
Phase 4 will be the implementation of an Intranet presence to allow City Council, City Manager, and other departments' staffs to access limited EDIS data.
Phase 5 will be the implementation of the Internet portion that will allow other government agencies and business partners to access limited EDIS data.
The detail requirements of CEDD for EDIS are provided in the Appendices. The design lends itself to two alternative platform solutions. The first is to build a web-enabled application from the beginning. The second is to build the system as a client server based application and then web-enable the Intranet and Internet portions in Phases 4 & 5.
The considerations for these two development methods are noted in the next paragraphs. Many of the statements concerning the solutions are based on experience and not on survey data.
Web-enabled application development:
¨ Application distribution is relatively simple. With this approach the application is loaded to the web server and there is no update need to the client PC.
¨ The City of Phoenix and application development in general are moving to web enabled systems.
¨ The Phases 4 and 5 will be written using this approach.
¨ Remote access can be accomplished more easily in a web-enabled system.
¨ The cost of Oracle licenses will be less. An Oracle license will not be required on each PC.
¨ If the user leaves the PC unattended, it could 'timeout'. The application would have to be restarted. Any unsaved data could be lost and as well as additional time.
¨ Procedures and processes may require multiple step interactions
¨ Design flexibility and ease-of-use functionality are not as easy as other environments.
Client server application development:
¨ Resources for client server development are more readily available and therefore, the cost for contract resources is lower.
¨ Response time is more consistent. Since only some of the work is being done on servers and most on the client PC’s.
¨ The development tools are more robust than web application tools. This could shorten development time and debugging.
Regardless of which option is chosen, a report writer/generator is required for the application development and future reporting requirements.
COSTS FOR PHASE 2
The estimated cost for Phase 2 of this project is:
COST AREAS / WEB-ENABLED / CLIENT SERVER /Design/Programming/Unit testing 3000 Hrs / $170,000 / $170,000
Technical Support1 / $12,000 / $12,000
Hahtsite Setup (3 developer seats)2 / $9,000
Education (Hahtsite)2 / $20,000
Data Base Server3 / $17,000
Oracle licenses2 / $2,100 / $12,800
Report generator/ data management tools4 / *** / ***
Totals / $213,200 / $211,800
1Technical support includes network support for a web-enabled application, system support to establish the server environment, and database administrator support. The latter includes: finalize the design; create the physical database model; review names of entities to match standards and avoid duplication; size entities; update SQL; install Oracle; define a development, staging, and production database; miscellaneous tasks such as setting up backups; and any operational items.
2Under the client server development the Hahtsite setup and education costs would be eliminated and 12 additional Oracle licenses would be required. As a web-enabled application, 2 Oracle licenses would be needed.
3The new database server would not be needed if this is implemented as a web-enabled enterprise system. In that case, the data would reside on a web enterprise server in ITD. The expected server would be NETD09. Charges would apply for the amount of disk space utilized.
4The cost of a report generator and/or data management tools would be determined based on the specific tools needed. Education for the CEDD staff who would be using these products would need to be factored into the costs.
These estimated costs are based on historical experience. The detailed design may provide savings or increased costs. Hardware and software costs may increase as well, dependent upon the vagaries of the suppliers.
ISSUES
Technical and business issues must be resolved in the remaining phases of the project. Most issues need to be resolved in the phase immediately preceding the phase in which the detail is to be implemented. In many cases the issue requires both technical and managerial resolution. The administrative policy established will guide the development through the remaining phases of the project. If not established properly, the decisions could create a situation where changing business and programming requirements become difficult to implement. The issues presented in the next paragraphs are critical to the successful completion of Phase 2 of the EDIS project. Additional business issues are attached in the Appendix.
Security
This application requires security at several levels - application, work group, Intranet, and Internet. Application security is concerned with who is able to access which programs and data. Specifically, programs that are written for a special need should be protected at the program level. They may also be protected at the work group level so as to restrict them to the individuals who have a need-to-know.
Work groups will also have to have security applied to information that is sensitive and not sharable temporarily or permanently. An example of this is when a prospect does not want to be identified until a decision has been made for relocation. Access to the data associated with this prospect would be limited to the Business Attraction work group.