In Touch - OTC Newsletter - Winter Edition

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Main Title
Tech Talk

 As internet usage in mobile users continue to rise, it’s important that the City also moves forward to provide users with the best mobile experience. Over the last twelve months, OTC has explored various technologies to drive the City forward in the mobile space.

OTC launched the new city website, providing a responsive mobile solution. Currently 44% of our website traffic comes from mobile users. In February 2016, we launched the Winter Parking app, a custom app available in the app stores and used by 5500 mobile users during the last snow season. In October, the TISH app was launched, a web application used by Truth in Sale of Housing evaluators. 25% of users have transitioned from paper to tablet or mobile device while the rest of the users are using the app on their computer. More recently, we launched Parks Security Log, a Microsoft Power App that moved the daily security log from paper to mobile.

As we move forward in 2017, OTC is excited to offer various mobile solutions that range from a couple days deployment to 6-8 months. Expanding our solution set this year will increase our ability to deliver next year.

Phone
Side Bar
Project Updates

Customer Satisfaction Survey a Success

Thank you to the almost 600 City of Saint Paul employees who completed the OTC Customer Satisfaction Survey. We received valuable feedback from people from every department including over 775 comments throughout the survey. Stay tuned for a full report with the specific lessoned learned and action items OTC is taking to address your concerns.

Open Information St. Paul makes data dynamic, relevant and user-friendly

We recently launched our open data portal, Open Information St. Paul, with the aim of providing an open data site that is dynamic, relevant and user-friendly. This allows residents, business and employees to access public information to facilitate transparency and knowledge. This work was recently highlighted in an article in by the Sunlight Foundation.

New Phones Coming

In January, OTC began a telephone replacement project that will modernize phone capabilities for most city workers. This new system will extend the existing Microsoft Skype for Business capabilities to include the ability to make and receive phone calls.

The new system will extend the city’s communication and collaboration abilities by leveraging existing Microsoft Skype for Business capabilities to include the ability to make and receive phone calls. There are many new features the phone system will have, including:

  • Caller ID
  • Redial last number
  • “Missed call” and “recent call” logs
  • A unified messaging system with enhanced voice mail features
  • Call forwarding – You can forward calls to your current location if you're traveling or working from home, or route calls automatically to a coworker if you're out of the office.
  • Simultaneous ring – You can set your incoming calls to simultaneously ring your phone and another number or contact.

This new phone system directly affects those in City Hall, City Hall Annex, Police Headquarters or any other city phone numbers starting with “651-266”.  However, even though you may not have a 266 phone number, you will still see benefits from the new phone system. The primary benefit is the ability to dial-in to Skype online meetings from a telephone; currently only PC-to-PC audio is allowed. When complete this project will migrate over 2,000 phone numbers to the new Skype for Business (SfB) phone system. 

OTC will begin deploying to early adopters starting in March 2017. Then starting in May/June the remaining phone numbers will be migrated with completion by the fall of 2017.

Password
security

Never Reuse Your Passwords. If you use the same password for all of your accounts and a single account is breached, all of your accounts will become vulnerable. Always use completely unique passwords for each of your accounts. Don’t use variations of your password for separate sites, such as a base password that has a single alteration each time; these can be guessed.


Has your email been breached? Check if you have an account that has been compromised in a data breach.  Simply enter your email address into this online tool to see where your account may have been breached. https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Its Worth Your Time

We think these quick tips and example of using technology will help you be more efficient and innovative in your day-to-day work. You can always visit City Help for a more comprehensive list of help tutorials or Lynda.com free through the library for more advanced videos.

Outlook & Skype Quick Tips

  1. 1. Need to access your Outlook via a web browser? Go to https://www.outlook.com/stpaul.gov to use the Outlook Web Access (OWA) online tool.  To learn more about the Outlook Web Access interface and features check out this YouTube video.
  2. Read these instructions to see how to change your photograph that appears in Outlook account including Skype.
  3. Learn how to schedule a Skype Meeting with Video from both outlook or your Skype application. Did you know you that external users that don't have Skype for Business can still join a meeting you created? Watch this 2 minute tutorial video to get you started.

Sharing Your Computer Screen using Skype
Whether it's in a Skype Video Call or Skype instant message you can share your desktop team with your colleagues. This 2 minute YouTube Video walks you through the steps how to share your screen. The most common use of this tool is to share a presentation or document during a meeting. 

Service Desk

Contact: 651-266-6767
Email: servicedesk@ci.stpaul.mn.us
Support Hours: M-F 7am-5pm, Sat 8:30-5:00pm

The most common question Service Desk receives is about resetting employees passwords. You can use the online Password Reset Tool to reset a password on your own or unlock account that you are locked out of.

Please provide the following information when sending in a request for service via email:

  1. Make sure your subject line is a quick, precise description of the issue. ("My PC is broken again" is not very helpful while "My Outlook keeps asking for my credentials" is.)
  2. Description of the issue you are having and when it started.
  3. Name of any software having the issue and any error messages being produced. (Screen shots are very helpful - How to take a screen shot.)
  4. A good contact number to reach you at.
  5. Computer ID Number (Can usually be found on a white sticker on the tower of a desktop or top cover of a laptop. Starts with Property of US Bank Leasing...) e.g. OT15-S123-A001
  6. Location of the PC.
  7. Make sure to delete out any RE: or FW: in the subject line unless it is referencing a current incident number!