On December 12, the Department of Digital Service and Open Government held their monthly all-hands meeting.
Highlights
How do we communicate as a team?
During our last All Hands meetings we talked about our various types of communication platforms (i.e. email, Teams, Trello), whether or not we were using them appropriately, or even at all, and decided to set some intention around how we communicate as a team. A working doc was created to outline which platform or platforms will we use to communicate internally. Now we just have to stick to it. Sean took us through Teams and all it’s functionality, covering notifications, the Teams app, tagging individuals and channels, when to create channel, and so MUCH MORE.
Budget Update: There’s no more money in the banana stand!
Christine gave us a brief overview of Digital’s budget and what the remaining end of this fiscal year looks like for us. While we are generally on track with our spending, there is no room for new projects. We are actively working on ways to save by auditing our accounts and consolidating services where we can.
Xantrion Tech Support Update: Month One with Xantion
Xantrion has been with the City for just over a month now, so Marlon joined the meeting to let us know how things have been going.
- Cool things they’ve completed that some of us never think about:
- Monitoring Installation – When a system or a service goes down they’re be able to instantly tell, giving them the ability to remedy the situation before anyone notices.
- Backups – Backups are now in place so in the event of an emergency, natural disaster, you name it, all our “stuff” is safe and recoverable, yay!
- Documentation – Xantrion spent the better half of their first month documenting the City’s policies, procedures, and historical knowledge that’s been trapped in some our heads! This has helped them get a grasp on all the systems and services we have, and more importantly, how many of us do our jobs.
- Antivirus, and Patching – Xantrion has upgraded our antivirus system which will detect and prevent more threats.
- Stats
- Opened Tickets = 248
- Average Acknowledge Time: 7.22 minutes
- Average Resolution Time: 10.4 hours
- Median Resolution Time: 2.47 hours
- Upcoming:
- Web Filtering to provide additional security on the servers at City Hall as well as each of our computers.
- Security Awareness Training
- Encryption for all endpoints to protect the information on our computers in the event they are lost or stolen.
Employee Engagement Survey
We reviewed the results of this year’s City employee engagement survey and talked about the opportunities and challenges in our team and in our organization. As a team that’s gone through a lot of change over the past year, we talked about how we can help model embracing change. We also talked about the importance of positivity in the workplace and doing all we can to share the joy we have for our jobs with others.