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September 16, 2021

Solano County leans into digital-first government transformation with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams

Located between San Francisco and Sacramento, Solano County’s attractive location, multifaceted economy, and quality of life make the award-winning California community an appealing place to live, learn, work, and play. The county’s government organizations use technology to enhance programs and services for residents and promote creative collaboration among staff. In response to COVID-19, the Department of Information Technology standardized around Microsoft solutions, enabling more secure hybrid workplaces for government employees with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams. As a result, the county enhanced its commitment to digital-first government by using intentional, modern IT solutions to solve problems, improve employee productivity, and modernize government collaboration.

County of Solano

“Solano County and Microsoft have spent years building a strong and collaborative partnership. When the pandemic crisis hit, we were both ready to rapidly deploy Microsoft digital communication tools- centered around Teams- to help our staff deliver high quality services to our residents. Microsoft has been an amazing partner and has helped us succeed in one of the most disruptive periods of our generation.”

Tim Flanagan, Chief Information Officer and Registrar of Voters, Solano County

Enhancing digital government continuity

Tim Flanagan, Chief Information Officer for Department of Information Technology and Registrar of Voters for Solano County, recalls the incomplete Microsoft 365 implementation his team inherited. Employees still used an on-premises SharePoint server, relied on their desktops, and had yet to adopt Teams. More than 50 simultaneous users would cause the existing virtual desktop infrastructure to fail. “It was digitally enabled in name only and not in practice,” says Flanagan.

“We wanted to modernize our technology and environment, so working from anywhere, on any device, in a secure collaborative space became a familiar concept for government,” he says. Before COVID-19 shutdowns, very few Solano County employees were authorized for remote work. But as employees had to quickly pivot to working from home, the county accelerated its digital transformation. It decided to fully embrace the Microsoft 365 tools that would serve as a foundation for modern digital government and more secure hybrid workplaces.

The IT department moved employees to OneDrive and SharePoint to enable better disaster recovery, help secure workplace collaboration from anywhere, and reduce the need for risky VPN connections. It deployed Teams for unified communication and collaboration. And it rolled out Azure Virtual Desktop to deliver highly secure remote work experiences.

With the rapid deployment of Teams and Azure Virtual Desktop ahead of COVID-19 safety guidelines, the department successfully enabled thousands of government employees to work remotely or in hybrid workplaces in three weeks. Previously, the department would have needed more than six months to execute this level of change, laboring over documentation and organizational change management, coaching and training people—the typical slow, incremental department-by-department government rollout.

“We’re leaning into digital government right now,” says Flanagan. And it’s paid off. Using Microsoft 365 tools, departments across the county have worked together to build more agile hybrid workplaces, ensure election continuity, and transform public assistance operations. The IT department has also noticed a cultural shift emerge from better cross-agency collaboration across the county. The team received recognition and appreciation for its efforts to rapidly deploy Teams to help the Health and Social Services department preserve patient care capabilities during the pandemic. And employees, in turn, feel empowered to share ideas about transforming digital government with IT solutions.

Transforming election operations and civic engagement

COVID-19 challenged Solano County to get creative and innovate election operations and ballot processing. The Solano County Registrar of Voters department oversees election operations and voter registration for 270,000 registered voters at four locations across the county. The department cannot work remotely because they manage private data and documentation like voter registration forms and ballots. Processing ballots requires a two-person system to verify voter eligibility and authenticate voter signatures. Before the pandemic, two members of the election staff would sit together at a computer. IT recognized the need for the department to have a reliable, secure communication solution for collaboration and operational continuity.

The county found success with Teams. Election staff adhered to social distance guidelines by keeping a webcam pointed down at ballots from separate workstations and sharing screens in Teams to validate ballots with coworkers. This highly secure collaboration was empowered by IT’s foresight and rapid deployment of Teams using flexible, extremely secure cloud infrastructure. “Microsoft Azure platform has rigorous security and compliance standards, which contributed to our ability to adopt Microsoft cloud technologies at a rapid pace within our organization,” says Aaron Barak, Chief Technology Officer for Solano County. Using Azure Government environments and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, the county has a robust set of capabilities that meet US regulatory controls and help the county adhere to federal, state, and local government cybersecurity standards.

“Security is at the forefront of our decision making, so we don’t elevate our risk in unacceptable ways,” says Flanagan. “We don’t have to think about security when it comes to deploying a tool like Teams because we know it’s covered. Microsoft handles the difficult topics so we can focus on streamlining processes and enhancing resident services.”

Now, election and ballot processing operations broadcast to the public using Teams, so residents can observe and listen remotely. That outcome helped convert the department from its initial skepticism about the change to a Teams environment. Before deploying Teams, the department used public safety radio channels and radios borrowed from the sheriff’s office to communicate across county election operations. Communication and collaboration between election experts and the frontline staff were clunky and unreliable. Now, they can’t imagine operating elections without Teams.

IT helped the department stand up an “always-on” Teams meeting with all four offices. Staff members work in front of 60-inch-screen TVs connected to a Teams workstation with live streaming as election officials work. As a result, the department keeps employees and residents engaged on election night and manages problems in real time—and eliminates travel between locations, which is huge for a large California county with traffic congestion.

“Teams meetings allow us to stand up calls, share screens and video, and collaborate to solve problems before they escalate,” says John Gardner, Assistant Registrar of Voters for Solano County. “It’s revolutionary. I can connect with my distributed staff on mobile devices, see what they see from across the county, and manage problems. I walk in front of the camera when I hear, ‘Hey John, we need you.’ I’m in multiple places at once with Teams.”

Election staff use Teams in the field, too. “We have traveling, roving election technicians. Using their Teams live feed, we can more securely manage location-by-location challenges at election time,” says Gardner. “For example, we have folks in our office that speak multiple languages, and we can provide translation assistance to voters and help them. You would never be able to provide that service just over a radio. Seeing them speak and interact live makes a world of difference.”

Moving forward, the department sees more creative solutions using Microsoft 365 and Teams, like deploying mobile devices and the Teams mobile app to serve as electronic poll stations to check in registered voters. With Teams capabilities, election officials can interact with the public and deescalate voter issues in real time—and they’re grateful for the new capabilities. “The team went from ‘why do this’ to ‘thank you, this is crazy helpful,’” says Flanagan. “It’s a tactical use of Teams, and that’s the point. Take things that used to be hard and make them easy.”

Improving public service productivity

The Employment and Eligibility Division of Solano County Health and Social Services administers various federal, state, and local government public assistance programs for eligible low-income residents. In 2019, the department served more than 160,000 applicants and their families in person at department offices. About 80 percent of the department’s 400 employees are eligibility workers whose primary role is to interview program applicants and determine public assistance qualifications. Pandemic safety guidelines challenged the department to partner with IT and reduce the number of people coming to the office for public assistance as eligibility caseloads increased due to government shutdowns.

“People come to us when they cannot meet their own needs—they can’t feed themselves, they have no access to healthcare, they’re homeless, and they have no money to purchase food for their children. They are destitute, in poverty, and in crisis,” says Marla Stuart, Deputy Director of Employment and Eligibility Services. “Eligibility workers sometimes conduct seven or more interviews a day, where people share their stories and tell us why they don’t have any resources.”

To help staff maintain public service continuity, IT deployed 350 laptops to support new remote work arrangements and created hybrid workplaces for eligibility workers using Microsoft 365 and Teams. Phone calls for public assistance interviews were routed through Teams. Eligibility leadership stood up their own “always-on” Teams meeting to maintain real-time collaboration and help staff navigate workflows and manage the ever-changing dynamics of public assistance programs. As a result, the department increased staff productivity while implementing new hybrid workplace arrangements for staff and reduced the number of overdue public assistance cases despite rapidly rising caseloads. The department tracks and reviews performance with a dashboard built in Excel at staff meetings hosted through Teams live events, using audio and presentation controls to maximize the time for more than 200 attendees.

Using Microsoft 365 and Teams, the department achieved a flexible hybrid workplace and culture focused on employee and client wellbeing, and improved productivity. Now, 75 percent of department staff have hybrid work agreements and work remotely up to three days a week. As an added benefit, the department can better compete with the private sector’s rapid adoption of hybrid work arrangements and digital tools to attract and recruit qualified employees capable of highly demanding, but immensely gratifying, public assistance work.

“The ability to reduce commute time is essential to our staff, and many tell us they’re much more efficient working at home with Teams,” says Stuart. “Employee wellbeing is my number one priority. A well-situated employee can do the work that meets the needs of our community, and we value providing service in a kind and compassionate manner.”

Strengthening employee training and engagement with Teams live events

Eligibility workers are required by law to complete a comprehensive six-month public assistance training. Before COVID-19 safety guidelines, the Employment and Eligibility Division hosted quarterly in-person, onsite training sessions for new hires at county offices. While many California counties suspended in-person induction training due to the pandemic, Solano County’s investment in standardized, modern IT environments enabled the department to quickly pivot and preserve its training pipeline. It hosted the first virtual induction training using Teams live events just two weeks after pandemic protocols hit.

At first, eligibility trainers experienced challenges with the new virtual training environment. The trainees were not asking questions and engaging like the team was accustomed to during in-person induction classes. According to Stuart, if people aren’t asking questions about these topics, they’re probably not learning. “Making eligibility decisions is complex because regulations are complex and constantly changing,” says Stuart. “A lot of our day-to-day employee experience is a real-time collaboration with lead eligibility workers and supervisors to manage complex programs.“

The eligibility development team adapted to the new training environment by using Teams video conferencing and chat to encourage new hire engagement online. The trainers successfully modeled an active chat and collaboration culture that trainees used to learn complex material and engage with each other. “I’m really proud of our staff development team,” says Stuart. “They created engaging training for our remote trainees with the help of Teams live events.”

Building a foundation for digital governance

Solano County will continue to innovate with digital government solutions, building on its hybrid workplace strategy to benefit employees and residents alike. The IT department plans to use Microsoft Power Apps and Teams interoperability for future forays in engineering new custom applications, rebuilding existing applications, and retiring others over time. It also plans to discuss community-driven internal development projects like a mobile app that allows residents to snap and share the location and severity of potholes on county roads, and online technology to support crucial community services like marriage ceremonies and death certificates. 

“Everything is realigned and reimagined, that’s the priority for our roadmap,” says Barak. “By enabling an innovative IT shop around Microsoft solutions, we can expand to developing mobile apps and moving government services online.” 

The county’s approach to digital-first government services that enhance cross-agency collaboration is the foundation for agile and resilient local government. “We’re modernizing our IT organization, building a foundation for Solano County with standardized Microsoft solutions so we can regularly invest in innovation and digital government,” says Flanagan.

“Everything is realigned and reimagined, that’s the priority for our roadmap. By enabling an innovative IT shop around Microsoft solutions, we can expand to developing mobile apps and moving government services online.”

Aaron Barak, Chief Technology Officer, Solano County

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