The award, announced May 1 with a ceremony this summer, doesn’t bring a cash prize, city CIO Andrew “Pete” Peterson told Techwire. But it’s confirmation that Oakland’s new OAK APPS portal, a point of origin for as many as a dozen apps to date, is attracting national notice and achieving results in moving off paper and digitizing the people’s business. IDG connects tech buyers globally; the CIO 100 Awards acknowledge 100 organizations annually that use IT innovatively. Among the takeaways:
• OAK APPS, officially announced May 18, 2018, is founded on the OutSystems platform, with which Peterson had had previous experience in the private sector. Through it, Oakland has been able to aggregate city services and present them digitally on its portal through apps, supplementing its website. The city isn’t entirely off paper, and not every department is represented on the portal yet. But Oakland is closer to its goal of doing more to connect with residents.
“One of the reasons that I came to the city was trying to meet the resident where they are," said Peterson, previously CIO and an investor at Up Communications LLC. "This was a good opportunity to make good on that promise or make good on that effort. It’s more up to the departments that have these apps built to do the advertising and let the residents of Oakland know that it exists and they can do these things from their smartphones or from the comfort of their homes or whatnot.”
• The new portal offers single sign-on capability to residents, and a digital mailbox that lets them send and receive email to city departments through the portal. Texting capability is in the works, with delivery likely this year. Key external service offerings include an app for the Rent Adjustment Program, which lets residents file and search petitions about rent issues as well as health, safety and code violations; and a Community Police Review Agency app, where people can file complaints against the Oakland Police Department. Internal solutions include an enterprisewide training app that shows employees what courses are available, and a new app ready to deploy that tracks fire department apparatus and its maintenance.
• Other external-facing services in the works include a housing case management app aimed at simplifying housing assistance and placement; the city hopes to roll it out within a couple of months, Peterson said. IT officials are working with the Human Services Department on a homeless services app that would offer a GPS locator; collect and display services available; and connect in vetted and approved external service providers. It’s expected sometime this calendar year. Also in the works is a resident database capability designed to provide some analytics and suggestion around services residents use and might need.
• Exact financial benefits are hard to quantify, but Peterson estimated reduced up-front costs and being able to build exactly what’s needed — and not pay for baked-in features that go unused — contributed to more than $2 million in savings.
“These things are very specific and they’re informed by the subject matter expert; they cover a particular business process. Therefore, it’s quicker for us to build us, and to the point; and now we’re utilizing a common platform that the entire city pays for versus going out and buying one-off stuff per department,” Peterson said.
