Boston’s crucial non-emergency 311 system is present process a serious modernization effort to raised serve its greater than 670,000 residents.
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 cellphone, web site or app.
The purpose of the mission is to exchange outdated know-how with a brand new constituent relationship administration (CRM) system and asset administration system to ship a greater expertise for its customers: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 way of 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 turn out to be troublesome to keep up. The system advanced to handle resident requests, and for the work executed by the town staff 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 keep up and improve, and hold creating,” Garces stated.
The present overhaul marks the second effort to replace the system. Town unsuccessfully tried to exchange the system beneath Mayor Marty Walsh, Boston’s mayor from 2014 to 2021, based on Garces.
“The earlier try to get out of the CRM had been nearly 4 years, the place nothing went reside and at a value that was nearly 4 instances as excessive,” he shared.
This time round, Garces described the trouble as extra organized and strategic. The method started with creating a request for proposal (RFP).
“We wanted a CRM that was going to be actually versatile, very highly effective, helpful for the operators within the 311 name middle [and] would orchestrate plenty of data transferring throughout completely different techniques,” Garces stated.
Santiago Garces, CIO for the Metropolis of Boston. [Source: The City of Boston]
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 crew additionally acknowledged there was plenty of variance relating to digital enablement throughout the varied metropolis departments.
“We knew that there have been some items of the operation that had 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 stated.
CRM and workflow platform Creatio and its associate Keen360 wasn’t instantly on the town’s radar, nevertheless it emerged as the seller of selection. Creatio presents no-code, cloud-based and AI-driven software program that the town anticipates will streamline the 311 expertise for constituents and metropolis staff. Keen360 helps implementation.
“We initially didn’t suppose that we had been going to go for a platform that was so closely low-code, no-code answer, partially as a result of we thought that we had been going to should have a separate low-code, no-code answer to piece collectively,” Garces stated.
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 stated.
Boston finalized the contract with Creatio in 2024.
Implementation of the CRM system
Garces stated firstly of the implementation course of, he knew the town would wish an agile supply method. He and his crew broke the mission down into milestones with the purpose of studying the right way to shortly construct within the Creatio platform.
The primary milestone centered on informational circumstances, cases when folks reached out for data that did not match right into a structured case. Beforehand, these calls and emails weren’t tracked within the CRM. Garces stated he and his crew needed a straightforward means for the town to know who contacted 311 about what going ahead.
“Over 50% of the amount of calls had been these sorts of informational inquiries, and in lower than three months, we had that in manufacturing,” Garces stated.
Town continued to maneuver by way of the mission’s milestones with the purpose of finishing the complete overhaul of the 311 system by mid-2026. Garces described the mission 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 stated. “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 crew receives that data.
Whereas a mission like this requires important planning, execution requires a level of flexibility. The climate, for one, influences the sort of metropolis providers folks want. Garces and his crew shifted the timeline for the streets and highways components of the mission till after winter and bumped up the timeline for the parks division earlier than spring, when these metropolis staff 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 fitting place,” Garces stated.
Within the midst of the mission, the town bumped into one other concern it finally solved by leveraging Creatio. Through the 2024 presidential election, a few of the metropolis’s polling areas had an inadequate variety of ballots, drawing the eye of Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin.
Town wanted a brand new system to trace points throughout election days, and it was in a position to make use of the Creatio platform to construct it.
“That was a aspect mission in the course of this large mission. However it’s as a result of we had a software. … We had the help construction. We had nice companions,” Garces stated.
Ongoing enhancements
The 311 mission is predicted to be full later this yr, however Garces stated he would not anticipate the work to cease.
Town is exploring ways in which AI may allow higher experiences for 311 customers. Garces and his crew additionally wish to allow multilingual capabilities and interactions on the platform. “We’re making the Metropolis of Boston behave the identical means that a few of the finest, most subtle corporations within the personal sector are working,” Garces stated.
