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The City of Fayetteville is undergoing changes in the way it does business. Because the county in which the City of Fayetteville is located has a low-tax base, the city needs to do more with less money. In response to this situation, city managers looked for ways to streamline and become more efficient. SharePoint™ Team Services from Microsoft is helping them do just that. The city has found that communicating and collaborating through the SharePoint Team Services-based Web site is helping it keep track of and share important information.
The City of Fayetteville covers a wide geographic area and is home to 127,000 people. In addition to the city's official population, Fayetteville is host to students who attend the state university, a private college, and North Carolina's second largest community college-all of which are located in the city limits. Then there's Fort Bragg, one of the country's largest military installations, right next door. All this adds up to a large number of people that the city government needs to serve, and the city's 1,300 employees are doing their best to do so.
But it's a challenge. "There's so much happening now," says Jason Brady, City Public Information Officer, "and we're expected to do much more with fewer people." About a year ago, the city recognized that it needed to reevaluate its business processes. "For example, citizens now can and want to access government information at the drop of a hat," says Brady. "When citizens have those expectations, local governments must
respond. Therefore, we're going through kind of a metamorphosis as city government. We're working to increase our efficiency because we understand that people require that of us. Businesses are getting lean and mean, and we have to follow suit." So the city is working with consultants and talking to other government entities to see how it can streamline business processes and become more efficient as an organization.
One of the major difficulties that the city faces is how to organize and keep track of extensive information. The sheer number of email messages that the employees need to manage has become almost overwhelming. "We are really moving fast on a lot of projects, and there's a lot of information flowing," notes Brady. "The more things you do and the quicker you do them, the more you need to share information. Basically it's gotten to the point where there's so much information that it's hard to keep track of it, let alone get it out and share it quickly." And to make things even more complicated, department directors are physically scattered all over Fayetteville.
SharePoint Team Services: Helping the city do more with less
So when AIT, an Internet hosting company based in Fayetteville, approached the city about using SharePoint Team Services, a new technology created by Microsoft that enables easier and more effective information sharing, the city jumped at the chance. It decided to try out the SharePoint Team Services-based Web site as part of its new way of doing business. The site is used primarily as a central location for employees to post announcements, coordinate calendars, share documents, and assign tasks.
"SharePoint Team Services plays a key role in the whole redesigning process," says Brady. "It's one of several things that helps us do our jobs a whole lot better and a whole lot more efficiently."
In addition to using SharePoint Team Services as part of the bigger effort to update and streamline its business processes, the city is also migrating its network server from Banyan Vines to the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 operating system. "We are migrating from Banyan Vines because there is no support, it is unreliable, and no longer is robust enough to meet our needs," says Scott Dorney, Fayetteville's Chief Officer of Support Services.
The city chose Windows 2000 for numerous reasons, including the fact that they will now be able to integrate the city's network with that of the Public Works Commission, the utility provider that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the city, also migrating to Windows 2000 in the year 2002. In addition, the decision makers at City hall were attracted to the mobility that Windows 2000 provides. "Key to our workforce is the opportunity to get remote access to the network from home or on the road. We can't wait!" comments Dorney. Other deciding factors included the reliability, performance, and manageability of Windows 2000. Says Dorney, "We look forward to having an advanced network that will be the basis for improved efficiency in our internal operations and a platform for future e-government initiatives."
Training facilitates use SharePoint Team Service
As part of the implementation process of SharePoint Team Services, city employees received training on how to use the Web site. During the current testing phase, top managers and key administrators are using the Web site. According to Brady, not all of the 18 department directors, especially those of an older generation, were completely comfortable with using new technology. Brady credits the training provided by AIT as helping to relieve some of the concerns. "People who use SharePoint Team Services have to be attuned to the fact that the technology is here to stay, and you've got to use it to be successful with it," he says. As more and more of the managers embrace SharePoint Team Services, they find that they are saving time and communicating in more efficient ways.
For many employees of the city, SharePoint Team Services has turned out to be "the greatest thing since sliced cheese," says Brady. He cites the multitude of uses of the Web site: The city's project manager uses the SharePoint site to post projects and assign tasks to various employees. Everyone uses the "deconflicter" calendar to ensure that multiple events are not scheduled at the same time. Discussions ranging from City Hall security issues to the use of cell phones are posted. Documents are shared. Brady himself tracks state and national legislation, and posts summaries of those pieces of legislation that will affect Fayetteville. And, of course, the site includes commonly used links such as the to the Institute of Government out of the University of South Carolina, Chapel Hill; to the City Web site; and to internal links such as to the Human Resources department.
Communication greatly improved
Having a central place for important information has been a tremendous benefit in the city's move toward efficiency. The main advantage that the SharePoint Team Services-based Web site offers the city is greatly improved communication. "For our top management, SharePoint Team Services is a good way to reach everybody at once," notes Brady. "It's a great tool to keep in touch with each other." Managers are able to assign tasks, share documents, and discuss those documents all within the SharePoint Team Services-based Web site.
In addition, the SharePoint Team Services-based technology that enables ongoing discussions among multiple users has been very beneficial for the city and a great improvement over the previous method of electronic discussions. "We had our e-mail system, of course," says Brady. "But that didn't let us do what we do now." With email, discussions were conducted only between two people, or distributed to many people, some of whom did not need or want to be included in the discussions. Such a method was clumsy and inefficient, requiring multiple emails on a subject before actions could be taken or decisions could be made. Now, says Brady, "anyone who wants to can contribute to discussion about policies and events that affect us all." And these back-and-forth discussions can take place in a single location.
As the spokesperson for the city, Brady has found the SharePoint Team Services-based Web site tremendously valuable. "It is an excellent resource," says Brady. "At any moment, I am supposed
to be able to know what's going on anywhere in the city. So to be able to bring up this Web site and have a broad array of information in front of me…it's incredibly helpful. I know what projects people are working on, and I know what issues are. To me, it's been an invaluable tool in keeping in touch with what's happening around our organizations."
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