PIMS and iPad
PIMS has the ability to run on an iPad. This allows the inspector to connect to PIMS in the field and update the application in real time. It is a lot less cumbersome than a laptop, it has a thin and light design, much easier to transport. Several cities have expressed interest in seeing a demonstration of running PIMS on an iPad; some are planning on purchasing an iPad to test in their city in the near future. If you would be interested in setting up a meeting, we would be happy to demo the PIMS application on an iPad.
Class Owners Group Slides and Handouts
The Account Management team of the Active Network (which develops the Class Park and Rec System) recently completed 15 Customer Owner Group (COG) meetings in cities across North America. Over 550 attendees attended the meetings to learn about updates from Active Network, meet with other regional users and discuss common issues.
Slides and handouts from the COG meetings can be found on the Active Network Customer Support Portal under Customer Events —> Customer Owner Group (COG) 2011. Don’t have a login for the Support Portal? Email ClassSupport@ActiveNetwork.com and one will be created for you right away. Any other COG questions can be directed to Paul Norton of LOGIS (pnorton@logis.org).
Network Services Update: 12/9/2011
LOGIS IP Telephony
City of New Hope to join IP Telephony service
In 2012, the City of New Hope will join the LOGIS IP Telephony service. We welcome the city and look forward to adding them onto the service!
IPCC Upgrade
In early December LOGIS upgraded the IPCC (Contact Center) to 8.5. This was a significant accomplishment as this upgrade is required in order to move forward with the Call Manager upgrade to version 8.x scheduled for January 2012.
Publications Feature LOGIS Collaborative Model
The JD Edwards support team at LOGIS garnered the attention of the Oracle marketing staff recently. The discussions on the unique LOGIS approach to serving its membership evolved into several meetings for the Oracle representatives to learn more about the overall LOGIS collaborative model.
The Oracle Public Sector newsletter just released features the LOGIS collaborative model. You can view the newsletter at: http://www.oracle.com/us/dm/h1fy11/100023736-index-oem-1357150.html. The LOGIS story is titled: “Report Finds Shared Services Help Cash-Strapped Agencies” http://www.oracle.com/us/dm/h1fy11/sharedservices-1357161.html.
Upcoming Implementations for PremierOne
The next implementation agencies for the PremierOne suite are Bloomington, Richfield and Minnetonka. These agencies will be utilizing CAD/Mobiles for police and fire and Records for police. A kick off meeting with this group will be held on November 30, 2011. Training begins a couple of weeks later in mid-December with select personnel learning how to configure the system. This is followed by Train the Trainer classes in February with a go live scheduled for the end of March 2012. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
Managed Services Announcements
Recently LOGIS has transitioned three of our pilot projects for Managed Services into full production. These pilot projects allowed our members to utilize the LOGIS facilities/systems by:
- Creating a redundant datacenter for our members by locating their backup SAN in the LOGIS data center and establishing replication of their data between sites.
- Setup of a redundant server network at LOGIS and utilizing the LOGIS data center to host their VM server environment for Active Directory and Exchange 2010 services.
- Replication of a member Compellent SAN to the LOGIS Compellent SANs to establish a backup environment.
All of these projects focused on establishing a member fault tolerant environment while greatly reducing their purchase and ongoing costs!
Active Network Offers Blog for Park and Rec Users
Now you can keep up with industry trends, news, and tips at the brand-new Active Network, Communities Blog! (Active Network is the developer of LOGIS’ Park and Rec System.) Each article has one goal—to help community leaders operate the best organizations around. Here are the top 5 reasons to check out the blog:
- It’s a place to learn: our experienced team will cover everything from best practices to success stories and community news.
- It’s full of great guest bloggers: knowledgeable recreation professionals will offer tips from the field.
- It’s easy to subscribe: sign up to receive the weekly posts by RSS feed without having to visit the site directly.
- It’s social: start discussions and share your favorite articles through social networks.
- It’s a community: connect with other community leaders to share ideas in a few great places like:
Here are some articles to start out with:
Feel free to comment with questions, answers and propose new ideas for articles. See you there!
Click here to visit the Active Network’s new blog!
Accepted Credit Card Types with ePermits
More and more cities are including other major credit cards to allow customers more flexibility when purchasing permits online. Since April 2003, the ePermits website only accepted Visa and MasterCard as a means of online payments. Currently, with the transformation of ePermits to PayPal’s Payflow Link product, cities can now select from a list of acceptable card types to offer their customers additional payment options.
UB Support Year-End Balancing and Reporting
With the end of the year fast approaching it’s time to start thinking about year-end balancing and reporting. Where do you begin? First, determine what your cut-off time for accepting payments, processing bills, and adjustments will be on December 30th. Update all open batches.
Year-end reports are similar to Month-end reports with the exception of date parameters. Two point-in-time reports you need to run are the Aged Arrears Listing, which tracks aging data, and the Multiple A/R Summary Listing, which displays the balance in each A/R Account. To identify the balance due on every account, you will need to run an Advanced Search from the Summary A/R Balance table. The Block Summary report shows billed consumption while the Land Use report displays actual consumption.
This is a good time to setup the new year and month. Be sure to not activate any month until the previous month is closed. If your city acknowledges Statutory Holidays, we recommend you set up all 2012 holidays on December 30th as well. Happy New Year Balancing and Reporting!
PremierOne “Train the Trainer” Sessions Held at LOGIS
Training for the next group to go live on the PremierOne system has been in high gear for the last month. In mid-September, both the records management and CAD group had training for trainers that was presented by Motorola. This is often referred to as train the trainer or TTT. The design of this training is to give knowledge of the system to those who will be responsible for end user training. Typically the training will cover all aspects of the applications including features that departments might choose not to use. This is so that the users are aware of features should they decided to utilize them at a later date.
Mobile TTT took place in early October for both police and fire. Twelve police mobile agencies were trained over the course of three days. The following week was fire mobile training for seven fire departments. Additionally, CAD and records users were taught report writing with Report Builder, from Sequel Server Reporting Services (SSRS).
