Background
In March of 2020 the San Francisco Assessor Recorder, like every else was hit with the task of transforming to a completely remote work force. We had over 200 staff and only a few dozen who had ever worked remote before. We also faced another challenge; we had projects in motion to upgrade our two main systems (Assessor and Recorder) as they were both over 20 years old and we had to stay on track. We thought this was a recipe for disaster.
The property tax assessment system is responsible for tracking the assessed value for all property in San Francisco (total transfer tax revenue in 2020 was $335M). The recorder system supports official record keeping (managing over 150,000 official records annually including deeds, marriage certificates etc.). Because we were: (1) losing revenue in other City agencies; and (2) money was being redirected to relief efforts it became imperative that our projects were a success. While all new IT projects were "on hold" we had to remain on schedule. San Francisco depended on the revenue being generated by our systems.
Challenges and Solution
Our first technical challenge was to get our remote workers access to their systems. Luckily, our leaders had thought of this a few weeks pre-pandemic so we had a few days to prepare for the demands we needed to meet.
Providing access to our legacy Assessor and Recorder systems required access to desktops within the walls in City Hall – we had was no remote access or virtualization as our systems were too old. We had to setup each employee with VPN accounts and teach them how to remote into their office computers. Not surprisingly, our user base consisted largely of long-term employees who were averse to changes in technology and had never worked from home. This required us to involve all groups within the Department including our PMO, HR, Administrative and Operations teams in the solution as well as support from the top - our Assessor fully supported our efforts. Despite the challenges we were up and running day 1 of the “shelter in place" work environment.
Our next challenge was how to communicate with our vendors who were working on our projects.
While the pandemic did create technical challenges it also created a great opportunity to become nimbler
Until March 2020, we operated as others did; when in design and implementation phases we sat in a room with PowerPoint running, a whiteboard and a handful of people on a conference call. We knew we needed to virtualize. At the same time this was happening, we were transitioning from Skype to Microsoft Teams. Within a month, and with the help of our PMO and HR groups, we had our virtual meetings running in Teams. We had some challenges up front (people seem less civil when they are not sitting in front of each other!) but we learned how to keep the teams together and moving forward.
After getting our staff and vendors communicating, we found another challenge in how to train staff remotely.
We were taking the quantum leap from green screens and flat files to web-based applications such as Salesforce. Like other government agencies pre-pandemic, we trained by having a trainer sit in a room running through the training program while the trainees sat in front of screens and followed along. We knew we could use Teams and perform the training but that required changing the curriculum and re-training the trainers. It is also more difficult to tell if a person being trained is involved/participating while remote. We learned to add frequent quizzes, force trainees to use their video (to see any confused faces!) and ‘plant’ some questions within the trainees to make sure the sessions were interactive, supportive, and successful. The modified training program(s) worked well and our staff was ready to go.
Ready for Launch!
In August 2020, we had our first “go live” with our new Recorder system. There was no traditional ‘war room’ - we were remote. There was no way to hand hold users if they struggled so we had to frequently asked users if they were able to work and if they had any questions. We successfully migrated millions of official records, dating back to the 1906 earthquake (as all City records were destroyed then). The launch was a success and the efficiencies forecasted were achieved (e.g., citizens can request and receive copies of official records online). Next came the larger launch– the property tax assessment system.
In January of 2021 we had the ‘go live’ with the property tax assessment system. Again, the launch was successful, on time and more upgrades are coming. The revenue managed in the new system is critical to the City- despite property sales dropping by 14 percent in 2020 we only saw a decrease of 9 percent in transfer tax dollars because of process efficiencies.
Conclusion
While the pandemic did create technical challenges it also created great an opportunity to become nimbler. Using a combination of older technology and newer technology allowed us to stay on schedule and keep revenue streams flowing. Having an open mind and support from the top of the organization were the keys to our success.
