Posted Fri, Aug 25, 2006

No easy solution for tech trouble

STAFFING, TRAINING HAMPER FIXES TO PHONE, COMPUTER, ONLINE GLITCHES
                    By Javier C. Hernandez
                       Mercury News



San Jose's struggle to fix its public-access computers appears to
be the result of a thinly stretched information technology
department that is encountering problems with equipment the city
purchased in the wake of a bidding scandal last year.

The city has yet to isolate the exact cause of the problems
afflicting the systems, which provide public access to millions
of documents, including safety inspections and hazardous material
reports.

But city officials overseeing the self-service workstations said
the systems have failed in part because of network and fire-wall
problems -- components that were purchased under a $5.6 million
contract with Toronto-based Nortel Networks last year.


Nortel was awarded the contract after it was revealed that city
officials had botched an $8 million deal that would have allowed
the city to continue using Cisco Systems products in the new City
Hall network.

Earlier this month, the city approved a $1.1 million deal to
renew the operations and maintenance contract with Nortel after
it became clear that the city's employees -- many of whom were
trained on Cisco systems in old City Hall -- could not yet assume
full management of the Nortel network.

The city's interim chief information officer, Randall Murphy,
said that recent reductions in IT staff have compounded his
department's inability to solve the problems.

``When you have a desire to keep our budgets down and our
operating expenses down, in some occasions we find some problems
that we can't get fixed,'' he said.

Murphy said that he hopes to have the city's IT staff fully
trained by June 30, 2007, so that another renewal of Nortel
support will not be necessary.

Murphy said that the city's IT staff is assuming more
responsibility for managing the network as a result of the latest
contract, although he could not name which Nortel services have
been reduced.

While the problems of the self-service systems and its sister Web
site (www. sjpermits.org) affect only a small part of the city's
main network

and do not reflect widespread failures in the Nortel system, they
are the public's only link to 2.4 million documents from six
major city departments.

Councilman Chuck Reed, a mayoral candidate, condemned the
``unacceptable service level,'' but said that the city would
continue to pay Nortel for support until city employees are
sufficiently trained in the new system.

``We're certainly not going to switch responsibility until we're
100 percent capable of handling it in-house,'' he said.

In recent weeks, council members have also received complaints
about another system partially built by Nortel.

Callers to the city's 24-hour help hotline over the past month
have frequently faced hold times approaching 30 minutes.

Waiting times appear to be reduced now that the city has brought
in temporary workers to help deal with the backlogged calls that
resulted after the city consolidated two call centers last month.

But a major Nortel component of the call center that helps reduce
the number of callers placed on hold appears to be failing.

After receiving several complaints from residents, the Mercury
News performed eight tests of the Nortel voice recognition system
over the past several days using different phones and different
voices. The system failed to work properly in each trial.

Murphy, who said he has successfully used the system, said the
issue has been brought to Nortel's attention and that the city
plans to tune the system over the next few weeks.

The voice-recognition system is a key component of the call
center's planned expansion to provide self-service utility
account access to customers.

Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez, who began receiving complaints about the
phone system shortly after it made its debut last month,
criticized the city's customer service failures.

``People should be able to call City Hall and get the support
they need immediately,'' said Chavez, also a mayoral candidate.

The glitches involving the City Hall self-service computer and
online systems have stumped technicians since the new City Hall
opened last year. The city began tracking service requests in
January, Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez, who began receiving complaints
about the phone system shortly after it made its debut last
month, criticized the city's customer service failures.

``People should be able to call City Hall and get the support
they need immediately,'' said Chavez, also a mayoral candidate.

The glitches involving the City Hall self-service computer and
online systems have stumped technicians since the new City Hall
opened last year. The city began tracking service requests in
January, and since that time officials have received 51
complaints about the systems.

Over the next few weeks, the city is hoping to identify the
network issues at play by running server tests, according to
Steve Turner, who oversees the systems.

In the meantime, the city is spending about $15,000 to replace
the hardware on some of the six self-service computers. A recent
test of an upgraded system, however, returned errors. The city's
online document retrieval Web site (www.sjpermits.org) also
showed similar errors in tests this week.

Murphy said he has not been informed of any problems regarding
the site, but he acknowledged that he does not log onto the
city's home page very often. He suggested that customers who
encounter difficulties e-mail the Web master at
web.master@ci.sj.ca.us.