Georgia Enterprise Technology Services (GETS) update, Vol. 3, Issue 11 (Nov. 4, 2011)

Georgia Enterprise Technology Services (GETS) Update

Volume 3, Issue No. 11

November 4, 2011

In This Issue

Service delivery lead times aid in planning

Service Desk ratings remain strong

Executive survey results are in, second business manager
survey in progress

Briefly...

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National, customer perspectives on GETS shared at Digital Government Summit
"The journey is not always comfortable, but you have to keep moving."
Cathilea Robinett, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Government, used those words to encourage us toward continued progress with the GETS program when she addressed the Georgia Digital Government Summit this week. She reminded us that state and local government CIOs named consolidation, virtualization and shared services among their top IT priorities for 2012 and noted that Georgia is well on its way, even setting some of the trends for the nation. Cathilea pointed out that every state that has consolidated IT has faced its share of problems before reaping benefits. In Michigan, for example, the

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process spanned several years, but the state now has many shared services.
I don't know anyone who would disagree that our path toward IT transformation has been difficult. Change has been more profound and painful than most of us anticipated. As Terry Wolf, CIO of the Office of Planning and Budget (OPB), said when he spoke at the summit, "We are all trying to learn lessons and make the path smoother."
Three years into our initiative - likely the largest and most complex in the public or private sectors today - we have a better grasp on meeting agencies' varying needs and allowing our governing process to mature with greater agency involvement in decision making. Agencies such as OPB who have been among the first to undergo transformation - "crash test dummies" as Terry calls them have contributed immeasurably to advancing the process for the entire IT enterprise. Terry recalls just three and a half years ago when his agency's applications were housed in a converted closet, with no redundancy and prone to outages caused by air conditioning failures, water leaks and other issues. He doesn't have those environmental problems now, since most of OPB's applications are hosted in the state's North Atlanta Data Center (NADC). His agency has an upgraded wide area network too, with plenty of bandwidth and none of the limitations of the old MPLS system it replaced.
OPB's transition, which is still under way, hasn't been easy. Service interruptions due to the pace and frequency of ongoing changes in the data center are far too frequent at this point. Terry will tell you that absolute deadlines are hard to meet, and the necessary data gathering and documentation require incredible diligence on the part of agencies and providers alike: "We were familiar with our environment, but in transitioning everything to service providers in a more complex enterprise environment, it's easy to lose sight of nuances." Winning over end users has also proved challenging. Terry's coworkers at OPB were used to having IT technicians on staff who could be at their desk within minutes if a problem occurred. He said they have "at best begrudgingly accepted" not having the high-touch, personal service they had been used to. "At the end of the day, when our systems and network are protected and reliable," Terry said, "I think that's a fair trade-off."
I appreciate Terry's candor about his GETS experience and the work agencies and service providers are doing every day to bring about IT transformation in Georgia. We have a lot of road in front of us, but together we will keep moving

forward as Cathilea urged us to do.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Calvin Rhodes State Chief Information Officer GTA Executive Director
Service delivery lead times aid in planning
To help customers plan ahead when considering their IT and telecom-related service needs, IBM and AT&T have prepared general guidelines on service delivery lead times for some of the most frequently requested services. Estimated times are listed in business days.
Infrastructure Services
Create Time Sharing Option (TSO) userIDs (mainframe access), 3-5 days Perform workstation break/fix, 2-4 days Create mappings to workstation printers or file systems (less than 9), 3-5 days Install new workstation software (after delivery of workstation), 3-5 days Install individual workstation (after delivery of workstation), 3-5 days Perform single workstation office move, 3-5 days Perform project (more than 9) workstation office move, 8-12 days* Implement simple firewall change, 10-15 days Implement complex firewall change, 15-20 days
Managed Network Services
Voice Centrex/Key system/PBX Analog for 1-9 lines, 7 days Centrex/Key system/PBX Analog for 10-19 lines, 10 days Centrex P-Phone for 1-9 lines, 10 days Centrex P-Phone for 10-19 lines, 15 days ISDN telephone for 1-5 lines, 15 days Feature changes on voice line, 5-7 days** Voicemail password reset (Unified Arts only), 3 days Voicemail change/add/delete to existing line, 5-7 days** Existing auto-attendant change (Unified Arts), 10 days

Toll-free service (simple), 5 days Audio and web conferencing, 5 days
Data VPN userID, 7 days Complex data software change, 30 days** Simple LAN port activate, 7 days Complex LAN port install (includes switch add and configuration), 45 days
Other
Call center seats - simple change, 15 days Call center seats - add CRM only, 15 days Circuit or transport order (such as T1, T3, T45, DSL, Metro E, PRI T1), 45 days** Requests for Solution (RFS), individual case basis
*Or as negotiated with requesting agency as part of move project plan **Depends on complexity of request
The lead times serve as a planning tool and are estimated from the time an order is accepted (when all requirements are verified by the customer and service provider). Typically, the more complex the requested service, the longer the necessary lead time. Factors affecting complexity include the number of lines or locations, the area being served, bandwidth required and quantity needed.
If you need more information, contact your GTA Service Delivery Consultant.
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Service Desk ratings remain strong

The Consolidated Service Desk continues to receive positive scores on point-ofservice surveys, with both IBM and AT&T earning a rating of "satisfied" from respondents during the third quarter of 2011 (July, August and September).
The survey asks respondents to answer questions by choosing from a range of answers:
q Very satisfied q Satisfied q Somewhat satisfied q Somewhat dissatisfied q Dissatisfied q Very dissatisfied
GTA is working to set service level agreement (SLA) expected and minimum values using data collected from January through September of this year. The response rate for the quarter is 27.4%, with a total of 1,333 surveys returned. The input helps to ensure that the Service Desk meets customers' needs.
The Consolidated Service Desk also receives feedback outside the surveys. Recently, a DHS employee wrote: "I was having Novell issues and I called the Service Desk this morning. Deborah Harmon was exceptionally pleasant, kind, polite, mindful of my personal time and extremely patient. I just had to let you know her service was exceptional."
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Executive survey results are in, second business manager survey in progress

Agency heads from 12 of the 14 full-service GETS agencies responded to a customer satisfaction survey in August. The annual survey was conducted by the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government.
Service providers AT&T and IBM each received a composite score on a 10-point scale, based on an algorithm that uses all of the survey response scores. The 2011 survey follows a 2010 survey and a 2009 baseline survey conducted prior to the transition of service delivery to IBM and AT&T:
IBM (Technology Infrastructure Services) 2011: 4.39 2010: 5.84 2009: 5.10
AT&T (Managed Network Services) 2011: 5.74 2010: 6.05 2009: 5.70
Earlier this week, 220 business managers from full-service GETS agencies also were asked to complete a customer satisfaction survey. Results will be available in January 2012. The semi-annual survey was sent to a different group of business managers in May.
Scores from the executive and business manager surveys will be used along with results from other surveys to calculate the annual service level agreement (SLA) for overall GETS customer satisfaction.
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Briefly...

AT&T held two focus group webinars last month with customers who receive managed network services through GETS. Participants from eight colleges and eight agencies and government entities suggested Service Catalog improvements and discussed support issues requiring AT&T's attention.
AT&T is reviewing several recommended Service Catalog improvements with IBM and the Service Catalog board, including:
q a "cheat sheet" to assist those who don't place orders often q a checklist of features for those who order voice ports q the capability to make multiple changes with a number rather than having
to select individual service lines q a listing of available handsets for standard Centrex lines
Several issues related to installation of services and completion of work by field technicians will be addressed with AT&T internal groups.
AT&T appreciates customers' participation in the sessions and plans to conduct more focus groups in 2012 for partial-service and full-service GETS customers.
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We welcome your comments about service delivery, the state's IT transformation and related topics.
You can submit comments online or call our toll-free number to leave a recorded message.