Boston’s important non-emergency 311 system is present process a serious modernization effort to higher serve its greater than 670,000 residents.
The town is changing the system’s legacy software program, which lets residents submit service requests or entry a variety of metropolis providers by way of telephone, web site or app.
The aim of the undertaking is to exchange outdated expertise with a brand new constituent relationship administration (CRM) system and asset administration system to ship a greater expertise for its customers: each residents and the town groups who reply to the greater than 1,000 requests made by Boston 311.
Santiago Garces, the town’s present CIO, is an engineer by coaching who began his profession in South Bend, Ind., when politician Pete Buttigieg served as mayor. Garces finally grew to become South Bend’s chief innovation officer, later served because the CIO of the Metropolis of Pittsburgh and has been Boston’s CIO for almost 4 years.
Garces spoke with InformationWeek concerning the present overhaul of Boston 311, the challenges of the legacy system, progress the town has made and the way he hopes to proceed enhancing the expertise for residents of Boston.
The legacy system
Boston’s present 311 system dates again to 2008 and has grow to be troublesome to take care of. The system advanced to handle resident requests, and for the work accomplished by the town workers responding to these requests.
“It was beginning to serve so many alternative functions. It was beginning to lose the architectural readability that will make it simpler for us to take care of and improve, and hold growing,” Garces mentioned.
The present overhaul marks the second effort to replace the system. The town unsuccessfully tried to exchange the system below Mayor Marty Walsh, Boston’s mayor from 2014 to 2021, in accordance with Garces.
“The earlier try to get out of the CRM had been nearly 4 years, the place nothing went dwell and at a price that was nearly 4 occasions as excessive,” he shared.
This time round, Garces described the trouble as extra organized and strategic. The method started with growing a request for proposal (RFP).
“We would have liked a CRM that was going to be actually versatile, very highly effective, helpful for the operators within the 311 name middle [and] would orchestrate lots of info shifting throughout completely different techniques,” Garces mentioned.
Santiago Garces, CIO for the Metropolis of Boston. [Source: The City of Boston]
The town wanted that CRM to combine with a piece order and asset administration system; the town makes use of Cartegraph to handle its bodily property. Garces and his group additionally acknowledged there was lots of variance concerning digital enablement throughout the assorted metropolis departments.
“We knew that there have been some items of the operation that have been extremely digitized, like folks in streets and highways, road lighting, after which there have been different departments that had not had the extent of funding and help earlier than,” he mentioned.
CRM and workflow platform Creatio and its associate Keen360 wasn’t instantly on the town’s radar, however it emerged as the seller of selection. Creatio gives no-code, cloud-based and AI-driven software program that the town anticipates will streamline the 311 expertise for constituents and metropolis workers. Keen360 helps implementation.
“We initially didn’t assume that we have been going to go for a platform that was so closely low-code, no-code resolution, partially as a result of we thought that we have been going to should have a separate low-code, no-code resolution to piece collectively,” Garces mentioned.
Being an area firm — Creatio is headquartered in Boston — labored in its favor. “We knew that if there was somebody who’s going to care concerning the roads not being plowed correctly or trash collected, they [have] pores and skin within the recreation,” Garces mentioned.
Boston finalized the contract with Creatio in 2024.
Implementation of the CRM system
Garces mentioned originally of the implementation course of, he knew the town would want an agile supply strategy. He and his group broke the undertaking down into milestones with the aim of studying learn how to shortly construct within the Creatio platform.
The primary milestone targeted on informational instances, situations when folks reached out for info that did not match right into a structured case. Beforehand, these calls and emails weren’t tracked within the CRM. Garces mentioned he and his group needed a simple method for the town to know who contacted 311 about what going ahead.
“Over 50% of the amount of calls have been these sorts of informational inquiries, and in lower than three months, we had that in manufacturing,” Garces mentioned.
The town continued to maneuver by the undertaking’s milestones with the aim of finishing the complete overhaul of the 311 system by mid-2026. Garces described the undertaking as on monitor, estimating that between 40% and 60% of the system’s performance is in manufacturing.
“It is nearly like open-heart surgical procedure. We’re changing these core techniques that basically run the town,” Garces mentioned. “We’re rerouting issues that historically had gone to the legacy system to go to Creatio, and making it appear from a constituent standpoint that nothing has modified.” Behind the scenes, the whole lot is altering about how the data is processed and which group receives that info.
Whereas a undertaking like this requires important planning, execution requires a level of flexibility. The climate, for one, influences the type of metropolis providers folks want. Garces and his group shifted the timeline for the streets and highways components of the undertaking till after winter and bumped up the timeline for the parks division earlier than spring, when these metropolis workers are busiest.
“Our groups and my colleagues in public works and streets do an unbelievable job. They’re like magicians. They make the whole lot go in the proper place,” Garces mentioned.
Within the midst of the undertaking, the town bumped into one other problem it in the end solved by leveraging Creatio. In the course of the 2024 presidential election, a number of the metropolis’s polling places had an inadequate variety of ballots, drawing the eye of Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin.
The town wanted a brand new system to trace points throughout election days, and it was ready to make use of the Creatio platform to construct it.
“That was a facet undertaking in the midst of this large undertaking. However it’s as a result of we had a instrument. … We had the help construction. We had nice companions,” Garces mentioned.
Ongoing enhancements
The 311 undertaking is anticipated to be full later this 12 months, however Garces mentioned he would not count on the work to cease.
The town is exploring ways in which AI might allow higher experiences for 311 customers. Garces and his group additionally need to allow multilingual capabilities and interactions on the platform. “We’re making the Metropolis of Boston behave the identical method that a number of the finest, most refined corporations within the personal sector are working,” Garces mentioned.
