July 2020 Newsletter

Costs lowered for PM services

A poorly run project can not only cost more money because of delays, it can also ultimately lead to failure. You’ll need an experienced project manager with proven tools and techniques to ensure your projects hit milestones and stay on budget.

The Project Success Center can help you achieve your goals. Through efficiencies, and to meet the budget constraints of customers, rates have now been lowered.

Starting July 1, cost for standard project management services with the PSC is $90 (from $110) an hour; $125 per hour (from $135) for consulting and setup services for MS Project Online implementations.

Compared to other service providers, our fees include MS Project Pro licenses to ensure successful tracking and management of each project.

Why use the PSC over a hired contractor?

If you hire a contractor, you have to make sure you have enough work for 40 hours per week, whereas the PSC only bills for the hours the project manager works for the agency’s project.

“We assess each project during the intake process and depending on the duration and complexity of the project, we can give you a cost estimate for our PM services," PSC Director Diane Kelly said. "The Project Success Center's goal is to deliver a successful, on time, on budget and high-quality project that meets or exceeds expectations."

Please contact Diane Kelly (dkelly@iot.IN.gov) or any team member in the IOT PSC for more information.

Getting started: Request an IOT project here. Once this form is submitted, a representative from the IOT Project Success Center (PSC) will contact you within two business days to discuss your project.

End of the (fiscal) year success

At the end of every fiscal year, the state needs to balance all of its figurative books. While balancing a family checkbook can be daunting enough, imagine doing this for a budget for the size of state government.

Closing the state’s fiscal year requires teamwork from the Auditor of State, Treasurer of State, State Budget Agency, the Department of Administration and IOT’s GMIS team.  Due to historically identified improvement opportunities and efficiencies, what used to take days to complete, was accomplished in fewer than 14 hours this year.

While ending the fiscal year is not something that most notice, without it being done properly, the state would not be able to spend any money to provide needed services. Credit to all the teams who were able to complete the project in a short period of time, even though ALL participants were working remotely.

“Each year we review and refine our process to make it run more effectively and efficiently," IOT Deputy CAO-GMIS Scarlette Harden said. "Finishing this year’s process in 14 hours is a testament to the hard work and commitment to each of the agency participants and to the IOT/GMIS team."

The implemented changes have made what was a very long and tedious process into one that is shorter and much more efficient. This ultimately improves all state operations.

Supporting Indiana Digital Government

What is it? The IN.gov Program, a division of IOT, is responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of more than 300 State websites and 125 online services. As part of its services, IN.gov makes available at typically no cost many tools that can assist with your agency’s digital marketing efforts.

Why it matters: Digital government tools from IN.gov can better help you serve your customers. Explore the offered services - www.in.gov/inwp/infographic.

Tools and Services:

• Training
• Calendar and Event management system
• GovDelivery
• Faqs.in.gov
• Search.in.gov
• Analytics.in.gov
• SiteImprove Quality Assurance
• Formstack
• Mapbox
• BrowseAloud
• Chatbots
• AppEngine & payment processing
• Custom projects
• Design / Branding
• Consulting
• WebCMS - web content across the IN.gov site is created and maintained by Webmasters and others responsible for maintaining agency website pages.
• Ticket support

Dive Deeper: Check out the IN.gov infographic for more information about everything the program offers.

Interested in working with the team? You can submit a project request today at webmasters.in.gov.

GIS Day cancelled for 2020

The 2020 GIS Day at the State has been cancelled. As with many other conferences, the safety of attendees, partners and staff comes first.

As an alternative for this year, Indiana Geographic Information Officer Megan Compton is hosting a number of virtual "Town Hall Meetings" on topics including:

• Indiana Imagery Program
• Data Sharing
• Indiana GIS Data Standards

Learn More: To get more information about GIS and these upcoming meetings, subscribe to their emails here.

Every year since 2010, attendees have had the opportunity to explore the innovative ways GIS is used to improve government operations at this event.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become an integral tool in state agencies and local governments where they are used to support decision making in the public interest. GIS also benefits Non-governmental organizations, universities, and for-profit corporations as well.

GIS has the unique capability to help explain large amounts of information via maps and graphics using location information. Cross-agency applications appear seamless when data is merged into a GIS.

Indiana Virtual Digital Government Summit Reminder

It’s time to mark your calendar for this year’s Digital Government Summit! The conference is being held in a virtual format, over the course of two partial days: Thursday, Oct. 8, 9-11 a.m. and Friday, Oct. 9, 9-11 a.m.

What will it look like? The event will be like a normal summit, except broken across two mornings. Guest speakers include professionals in IT, Digital Government and Communications. Discussions will include responding to the global pandemic, confronting new challenges in IT and what lies ahead.

Please join us for a powerful series of sessions that provide inspiration, participation, education, and thought-provocation once again.

Get Involved: Stay tuned for more details as we get closer. Register now!

Block your calendar – Add the Digital Government Summit to your Outlook calendar.

Oct. 8 - Download the .ics file.

Oct. 9 - Download the .ics file. 

Webinar recordings available for new CMS

What’s happening: IN.gov is currently making the switch to a new content management system- Matrix from Squiz. This change brings a more modern, efficient and intuitive system.

IN.gov will be taking your exact website and picking up the content and pages and bringing them into the new CMS. There is not a new agency website design.

There were two webinars recorded that details the new system. They can be found here:

The first webinar was held on June 23, 2020.

• https://www.in.gov/core/files/cms/ingov-squiz-webinar-062320.mp4

The second webinar was held on Tuesday, July 14.

• https://www.in.gov/core/files/cms/ingov-squiz-webinar-062320.mp4

What is needed from you for the conversion?

• Nothing is needed right now. A project manager from Indiana Interactive will reach out when it is time to begin preparing for migration. You will have an opportunity to designate your desired date and move into the new CMS in 2020 or 2021.
• The pilot migrations have begun and full roll-outs will proceed through December 2021.
• Standard agency templates (marketing and information) will be migrated first, and custom templates will be migrated after, likely in 2021.
• Training for Matrix is going to be completed when your agency is closer to migrating to the new tool.