Digital Infrastructure

Major IT Projects:

Development Services Software

The City went live with EnerGov on July 13, 2020 for Development Services, Engineering, Planning, Building Safety and Code Enforcement Departments. This provided the foundation to implement operational efficiency that were recently identified in a lean process review project. Staff is tasked with leveraging EnerGov to continue to improve operations and increase the amount of customer self-service options related to Development Services. This project includes providing tablet or laptop computers to all Code Enforcement Officers, Engineering Inspectors and Building Safety Inspectors. The new devices provide staff access to information and allow staff to spend more time in the field and less time in the office processing paperwork.

Public Works Software

The City completed the implementation of Lucity's work-order and asset-management software in 2021 within Transportation, Water, Sewer, Airport, Recycling and Trash, Parks Maintenance and Facilities Management. The new software includes a new complaint management module to improve how the city tracks and manages public infrastructure maintenance, tight integration with the City's GIS Mapping system and a new public portal called SeeClickFix that improves how the public submits and tracks work requests. This project included deploying tablet computers to field staff to reduce paper, reduce manual data entry, improve accuracy and improve efficiency of the processing of work orders. 

Development of a City-Wide Institutional Network

Network connectivity upgrades to City facilities were completed in the fall of 2017, providing increases in network speed to the majority of facilities and a decrease in annual expenses. The implementation of Wi-Fi to various public facilities was complete in February 2018 and was funded by the savings from City facility network upgrades. Additional information regarding public Wi-Fi can be found here. City staff review each water, sewer, street, facility, trail and sidewalk infrastructure project to determine if installing fiber conduit makes sense to add to any project for current or future technology needs. Recently City staff developed a fiber master plan map to help with the prioritization of fiber conduit projects and to help determine if fiber meets the City long term connectivity goals. Recent work includes installing fiber conduit in conjunction with downtown sidewalk replacements to support future smart city initiatives.

Cybersecurity

This project allows the City to address cyber security preparedness by providing funds for end user training and network security testing. This project helps the City mitigate security risks and improve overall security posture through a comprehensive cyber security training program and both internal and external network penetration (PEN) testing to simulate cyber-attacks. Training will focus on a variety of topics including how to recognize social engineering and phishing attacks through email or phone calls. Training includes simulated phishing attacks sent to staff with automatically generated feedback how staff process the test emails. City IT staff also attends new employee orientation to provide Cybersecurity information and basic concepts to all new employees.

Police Building Technology

City IT staff continues to work with Police staff and the Police building design team to ensure current and future technology needs are addressed in the design and configuration of the proposed Police facility. 

Fire Station Technology

City IT staff completed the configuration and startup of Fire Station 8 and Fire Station 9 which including the design, purchase, configuration and implementation of all technology within the stations. This included phones, computers, WIFI, security cameras and audio visual needs. GIS staff worked with Fire Administration to rebalance Fire run zones when each Fire Station was commissioned to ensure efficient routing of Fire calls. 

Water and Sewer Technology

City IT staff, Water and Sewer Administration staff and Jacobs Engineering completed an overhaul of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system for both wastewater treatment plants and water distribution system in the fall of 2021. This project included a thorough redesign of underlying technology network and replacing the SCADA software with a new state of the art system. The new network increases redundancy, speed and cybersecurity resiliency while the new SCADA software includes many enhances with operations, reporting and out of the box secure remote access for staff to monitor and manage both water and wastewater systems.

Water Meter Wireless Reads/Automated Meter Infrastructure

City Water Administration and Water Meter Staff are in the process of deploying new water meters that can be read via wireless cellular technology. This project is lead by the Water department with support from the IT department as needed. To date the Water Meter team have deployed over 10,000 wireless water meters which increases water read accuracy and reduces the number of time staff have to visit meters in person.

New Utility Billing Deposit

A new Laserfiche form combines all required new Utility Application and Deposit information into a single location that allows customers to submit everything required for a new utility in a single form. New customers can access the new utility account form from any device and attach required documentation within a single simple process. The new form provides an efficient and intuitive process for utility customer service representatives (CSR) to review new applications, confirm the application is accurate and respond to the customer through email if needed for additional information. The new form also supports remote workers since the form is electronically submitted directly to Laserfiche and can be reviewed and processed through Laserfiche. The form also allows CSR’s to copy and paste customer information directly from the form to New World ERP which reduces data entry time and errors. 

• More info can be found at the Setting Up New Water and Sewer Services page.
• View the existing PDF: Application for City of Fayetteville Utility Services

This project built on to the Utility Billing utility account transfer Laserfiche process that was developed in 2018 that manages customers who transfer service to new locations. Since Fayetteville has a very high rental market the number of customer transfers is a very large task for staff to address. The 2018 project showcased how Laserfiche could improve efficiency and results in estimated 300,000-page annual reduction in paper documents processed by Utility Billing staff.