Website Redesign Vendor SelectionTHE CITY OF DUBUQUE
Masterpiece on the Mississippi
Dubuque
All-American City
2007
TO: The Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
FROM: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
SUBJECT: Website Redesign Vendor Recommendation
DATE: May 28, 2008
The City of Dubuque's current website is its original website and its design and
functionality has not changed significantly since it was created in 2001. The function of
and applications available for municipal websites, have greatly increased since that
time. Additionally, the number of visitors to the City's site, as well as their expectations
and level of technological comfort, has grown steadily. In spite of the increase in
number of hits to the site, the number of sessions (a series of clicks on your site by an
individual visitor during a specific period of time) has not changed significantly over the
past 12 months. This statistic indicates that the same numbers of users are visiting the
site and the site is not attracting new users. In addition, the time an individual user
spends at the site is relatively long, indicating a difficulty in locating items on the site.
The existing website was designed to disseminate information, not as a two-way
communication tool. The current website provider created a custom interface for City
staff to update and maintain the site's content when the website was launched in 2001.
As a custom product, it has presented challenges for upgrades and offers limited
flexibility for the addition of graphics or design modifications. Additionally, the text editor
application is third-party software not maintained by the current provider so they are
unable to modify when problems arise.
A 10-member advisory committee of City staff has been meeting over the course of the
past year to identify the appropriate applications needed to provide the functionality that
residents and visitors expect from a municipal website.
THE Committee chose to issue a Request for Proposals for the following improvements
to the website:
I. Website System Design and Support: Provide a new look and "feel" for the
City's website that is dynamic, appealing, informative and easy to navigate;
II. E-Government ~ E-Commerce: To give citizens and business users of billable
City services an easy to use and secure method for on-line bill and fee payment
and review of account information;
III. Mapping Portal: To provide citizens, developers and other interested partner
organizations an easy to use interactive web-based mapping portal utilizing the
City's Geographic Information System;
IV. On-line Incident Management System: To provide citizens an easy to use portal
for the purpose of reporting incidents and complaints;
V. Public Engagement: To increase local government's communication with
constituents through the electronic acceptance of input and feedback;
VI. Interface for Public Documents Database: To increase public access to
documents, public records and other local government information;
VII. Streaming Video: To increase constituents' access to local government meetings
and programs by providing the ability to view live and archived local government
meetings and programs.
Fourteen proposals were received. The Committee invited five vendors to make a
presentation: CivicPlus, Community Incorporated (Dubuque365), eGov Strategies,
Mission Creative, and GovQA.
Based on their evaluations of the proposals and presentations, the committee
unanimously agreed that the City's needs for this project would be best-met through a
multi-vendor solution which is:
FUNCTION RECOMMENDED VENDOR
Website Desi n & Su ort CivicPlus
E-Government & E-Commerce GovQA
Mapping Portal ArcGIS through ESRI (Portal provided by
CivicPlus
On-line Incident Mana ement S stem GovQA
Public En a ement GovQA
Interface for Public Documents
Database LaserFiche (Portal provided by CivicPlus)
Streamin Video Granicus Portal rovided b CivicPlus
This recommendation will use $134,221.50 (including video streaming and mapping) of
the City budget's $136,678.50 allocation. Fiscal Year 2010 and beyond will require
$27,990 per year in software maintenance and support, an increase from the current
annual budget of $2,520.
I concur with the recommendation and respectfully request Mayor and City Council
approval.
MM ael C. Van Milligen ,°
MCVM/jh
Attachment
cc: Barry Lindahl, City Attorney
Cindy Steinhauser, Assistant City Manager
Randy Gehl, Public Information Officer
THE CITY OF DUBUQUE
Masterpiece on the Mississippi
Dubuque
All-American City
2007
TO: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
FROM: Randy Gehl, Public Information Officer
SUBJECT: Website Redesign Vendor Recommendation
DATE: May 26, 2008
BACKGROUND
The City of Dubuque's current website is its original website and its design and functionality has
not changed significantly since it was created in 2001. The function of and applications
available for municipal websites, have greatly increased since that time. Additionally, the
number of visitors to the City's site, as well as their expectations and level of technological
comfort, has grown steadily. In spite of the increase in number of hits to the site, the number of
sessions (a series of clicks on the site by an individual visitor during a specific period of time)
has not changed significantly over the past 12 months. This statistic indicates that the same
numbers of users are visiting the site and the site is not attracting new users. In addition, the
time an individual user spends at the site is relatively long, indicating a difficulty in locating items
on the site.
The existing website was designed to disseminate information, not as a two-way communication
tool. The current website provider created a custom interface for City staff to update and
maintain the site's content when the website was launched in 2001. As a custom product, it has
presented challenges for upgrades and offers limited flexibility for the addition of graphics or
design modifications. Additionally, the text editor application is third-party software not.
maintained by the current provider so they are unable to modify when problems arise.
The FY 2007 budget included a CIP for $101,580 for the redesign of the City's website and the
addition of the following enhancements: e-commerce capabilities for online payment of City bills,
online incident submission by citizens, live web-streaming of public meetings and online
archiving of City council meeting videos, and interactive mapping abilities which utilize the City's
geographic information system (GIS).
A 10-member advisory committee of City staff has been meeting over the course of the past
year to identify the appropriate applications needed to provide the functionality that residents
and visitors expect from a municipal website. Committee members were chosen for their
expertise and background related to the new components of the website that were identified as
critical in order to stay competitive. Committee members include: Chris Kohlmann, Information
Services Manager; Cindy Steinhauser, Assistant City Manager; Rick Till, Financial Analyst; Nikki
Breitsprecker, GIS Coordinator/Analyst; Kelly Larson, Human Rights Director; Cory Burbach,
Management Intern; Pat Prevenas, Recreation Division Manager; Craig Nowack, Cable TV
Coordinator; and Jason Burds, Information Technology staff member at the Carnegie-Stout
Public Library. After reviewing the City's current website and the user interface provided by the
current hosting service, and exploring the services and applications available from other
vendors and providers, the committee chose to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the
following improvements to the City website:
Website System Design and Support: Provide a new look and "feel" for the City's
website that is dynamic, appealing, informative and easy to navigate;
II. E-Government ~ E-Commerce: To give citizens and business users of billable City
services an easy to use and secure method for on-line bill and fee payment and review of
account information;
III. Mapping Portal: To provide citizens, developers and other interested partner
organizations an easy to use interactive web-based mapping portal utilizing the City's
Geographic Information System;
IV. On-line Incident Management System: To provide citizens an easy to use portal for the
purpose of reporting incidents and complaints;
V. Public Engagement: To increase local government's communication with constituents
through the electronic acceptance of input and feedback;
VI. Interface for Public Documents Database: To increase public access to documents,
public records and other local government information;
VII. Streaming Video: To increase constituents' access to local government meetings and
programs by providing the ability to view live and archived local government meetings and
programs.
The RFP was issued on March 4, 2008, and 14 proposals were received by the deadline of April
4. The committee reviewed each application and first determined that the streaming video,
public documents interface, and mapping portal functions were so specialized that they should
be considered separately from the other functions. After reviewing the relevant proposals, the
committee determined that the streaming video function should be provided by Granicus, the
public documents interface be integrated with the City's existing LaserFiche document
management system, and the mapping portal be developed with the City's in-house geographic
information system (GIS).
The committee then developed ashort-list of vendors who were invited to give one-hour
presentations on their proposals to the committee: CivicPlus, Community Incorporated
(Dubuque365), eGov Strategies, Mission Creative, and GovQA. All five accepted the invitation
and gave in-person presentations.
DISCUSSION
Based on their evaluations of the proposals and presentations, the committee unanimously
agreed that the City's needs for this project would be best-met through amulti-vendor solution
which is:
FUNCTION RECOMMENDED VENDOR
Website Desi n & Su ort CivicPlus
E-Government & E-Commerce GovQA
Ma in Portal ArcGIS throu h ESRI Portal rovided b CivicPlus
On-line Incident Mana ement S stem GovQA
Public En a ement GovQA
Interface for Public Documents Database LaserFiche Portal rovided b CivicPlus
Streamin Video Granicus Portal rovided b CivicPlus
Both CivicPlus and GovQA have substantial experience with municipal websites, which was
critical in the committee's decision. Both vendors have dealt with similar cities with similar
objectives for their websites. Their applications were developed specifically for local
governments and they have been tested across the country. CivicPlus currently serves more
than 350 local government organizations and more municipalities use GovQA than any other
citizen-response management (CRM) platform.
Some comments from committee members on the strengths of the CivicPlus proposal included:
• Custom development and design, not a "cookie cutter" approach
• They have 8 graphic designers on staff to work with us on a unique look and feel
• Official Granicus partner
• User interface looked good -easy to navigate
• Solid security
The committee was impressed by Civic Plus's approach to the training City staff on the new
website content management system (CMS) and the design and function of the interface.
Because of the number of staff who are responsible for creating and maintaining their
department or division's website content, and their varied level of technical comfort, this was a
major consideration throughout the process.
Additionally, CivicPlus' designers and programmers automatically implement all the features
necessary to ensure our site is ADA-compliant with the specifications within Section 508.
Committee members' comments on the GovQA proposal included:
• Great tools for finding information
• On-line payment looked good
• Strong development tools
• Citizen Relationship Management (CRM) is similar to our current Incident Tracking
• Lots of hands-on planning
The GovQA CRM system handles all aspects of support by logging all incoming and outgoing
citizen interaction and keeping it centrally controlled and managed. It can be tailored for each
department and division, but can also provide centralized reporting to anyone who needs to
oversee the status of all citizen interaction. GovQA's "Service Desk" for Incident Management
and CRM is used to route, manage and GIS-map citizen requests for service; GovQA's
"Message Center" for Public Engagement sends alerts/newsletters, issues surveys, displays city
calendars and allows document downloads; and GovQA's "Payment Portal" manages, tracks
and displays all citizen e-Commerce. Around these technologies, GovQA automates answers
and workflow to save staff time while letting citizens and staff view the status of any request they
made at any time. GovQA also makes available a dynamic knowledgebase to auto-handle all
requests for information relating to Incidents, Public Engagement, e-Commerce, Documents or
Video. Finally, GovQA offer custom GIS mapping capabilities which can be integrated with our
GIS.
GovQA's system is a hosted system that can be tailored to any navigation or design. There is no
hardware or software to buy or administer. City staff would only need to connect to GovQA
through a web browser to manage all requests for information and service 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.
RECOMMENDATION
The committee recommends awarding the Website Design and Support portion of the project
to CivicPlus for the proposed amount of $68,700, which includes consulting, design,
programming, set-up, training, and the migration of 500 pages of current content. The annual
maintenance fee is $8,400, which includes hosting, upgrades, and support.
The committee recommends awarding the E-Government ~ E-Commerce, Online Incident
Management System, and Public Engagement portions of the project to GovQA for the
proposed amount of $11,500. These functions will also require monthly management costs of
$1,500, or $18,000 annually. Finance Director Ken TeKippe will work with GovQA as the
project progresses to finalize decisions on administrative fees and selection of a payment
processor.
The committee recommends awarding the Video Streaming portion of the project to Granicus
for the proposed amount of $16,102.50. This service will also require a monthly
management/hosting fee of $1,088.41. These costs for were approved in an improvement
package in the FY2009 Cable TV operating budget.
The committee recommends contracting with ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute,
the City's current vendor for GIS applications) to develop aweb-based interface for the City's
GIS, or Mapping Portal, which will soon utilize ESRI's ArcGIS Server product. Funds have
been budgeted for this through an FY2008 GIC CIP of $18,996. These costs are expected to
include approximately $12,000 for a server to host the application with the remainder for
installation and training. Annual maintenance costs for this application will be covered under the
Enterprise License Agreement for all GIS software. CivicPlus will create a portal to access this
module.
The committee recommends awarding the Public Documents Database Interface portion of
the project to Laserfiche, from whom the City currently purchases document management
services. A public interface module called Laserfiche Weblink would be purchased from
PaperFree Technologies who maintain the State Contract for Laserfiche purchases for a cost of
$8,923 with on-going annual maintenance of $1,590. A server and database software to host
the Laserfiche Weblink application will need to be purchased for $10,000. CivicPlus will create a
portal to access this module.
The recommended timeline for this project is as follows:
Event Date
Issue Proposal March 4, 2008
Vendor- Pre-proposal Meeting (required) March 11, 2008 1:30 pm Conference
Room A Cit Hall
Last Da for vendors to submit uestions Aril 1, 2008
Last Da for Addendums to be issued March 28, 2008
Proposal Due (no allowances or
exceptions will be made for late roposals) April 4, 2008
Onsite Interviews of Short-listed Vendors April 30, 2008
Recommendation to Dubuque City Council June 2, 2008
Contract Legal Review Completed and
Si ned June 6, 2008
Implementation, Conversion and Training June 9 -Oct 3, 2008
Specific Implementation, Conversion
and Trainin Milestones
Website Desi n June 9 -June 27
Content Development and
Conversion June 30 -Oct 3
Trainin multi- hased Au 18 - Se 12
Go Live October 2008
Additional Project Considerations
In order for the website project to be most successful and effective, it is recommended the City
have a project manager designated who is devoted to the website project during the design,
development and implementation phases of the project. It is proposed that this position be 25
hours per week for 25 weeks at a rate of $25 per hour. The costs ($17,765.63 including FICA
and IPERS) for this position could be covered by the funds (approximately $11,000) budgeted
for the Communications Assistant position, which is funded beginning July 1, but is not
scheduled to begin until January 1, 2009, and savings from an unfilled position in the
Information Services Department. The responsibilities of the project manager would be:
• To be the liaison with selected vendors and department stakeholders insuring
project goals are met and deadlines adhered to; specifically graphic design,
training, navigation, and collecting feedback on beta designs
• To insure project deliverables are completed as specified and the scope of the
project does not extend beyond what was contracted;
• To work with the selected vendors and the website committee on establishing
design standards and clarifying functionality requirements;
• To serve as a liaison between City departments and the selected vendors to
insure City staff are completing assigned work within established schedules
and attending training for the website updating interface;
After the "go live" date for the website, it is also recommended the project manager work with a
committee made up of one representative from each department to assist with the follow-up
after the implementation to insure the website is accurate, functioning and up-to-date. The
website committee should serve as the on-going committee that will meet quarterly to monitor
any changes needed, identify and coordinate training needs.
BUDGET IMPACT
As mentioned, a CIP of $101,580 is budgeted for the capital costs associated with this project.
Based on the committee's recommendations, up-front capital costs for Website Design and
Support, E-Government & E-Commerce, Online Incident Management System, and Public
Engagement and Public Documents Database Interface are recommended to be paid through
this CIP totaling $99,123. Ongoing maintenance costs of $27,990 will be partially funded
through budgets for web hosting and support budgeted for $2,520 for FY 2009. The Video
Streaming application ($16,102.50 initial cost and a monthly management/hosting fee of
$1,088.41) will be funded through an FY2009 Cable TV improvement package and the Mapping
portal will be funded through an FY2008 GIS CIP which has a balance of $18,996.
The implementation of these added functions will increase the annual operating/management
costs for the website from $2,520 (this includes hosting the site and up to three hours of support
per month) to $27,990. This increase was not funded in the FY2009 budget but also can be
covered by savings from an unfilled position in the Information Services Department. This large
increase is due to the significant expansion in services offered through the website. In addition
to hosting the site, maintenance fees include software upgrades, unlimited technical support,
monthly management fees for online bill payment, asubscription-based automatic a-mail
notification system, and the internal and external citizen response management system.
ACTION STEP
I respectfully request City Council approval to award the project contracts and proceed with this
project.
CC: Chris Kohlmann, Information Services Manager
Cindy Steinhauser, Assistant City Manager
Rich Till, Financial Analyst
Nikki Breitsprecker, GIS Coordinator/Analyst
Kelly Larson, Human Rights Director
Cory Burbach, Management Intern
Pat Prevenas, Recreation Division Manager
Craig Nowack, Cable TV Coordinator
Jason Burds, Library
Jenny Larson, Budget Director
Ken TeKippe, Finance Director