Utah Technology Services News

Utah.gov Launches Responsive Web Design

2011-07-12T14:11:00.001-07:00

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Within minutes of launching the redesigned Utah.Gov, tweets began posting from around the world. Users were commenting, blogging, and critiquing the new design. The response was overwhelming; the world loved the new design. More importantly, they were providing instant feedback regarding navigation and accessibility. For the first time, users are able to instantly respond and Utah.Gov listened. While over four years of analytics were utilized to shape the redesign, continual feedback from citizens and users is an important part of the process. Since launched several aspects of the site have been modified. While they may seem minimal to the average user, the changes illustrate Utah’s commitment to not only listening to user feedback, but also utilizing it. Modifications based on user feedback gathered from social media outlets include:

Several enhancements were made to Utah.Gov within the first week of launch to improve accessibility.
Per citizen recommendation, the Near You section was expanded to allow citizens to add their own local schools, libraries and parks in their area, in addition to the current display of existing locations of record.
Additional language and instructions were added to Collaborate.Utah.Gov to clarify any confusion citizens might have once they submit material to Utah.Gov.
Website components were adjusted, and within an hour of being notified, page load speed increased by 75%.
Customer support was integrated to identify what citizens are really looking for. The 24/7 Support page was updated to include the most requested business and citizen agencies based on user feedback.
Search results were modified to be even more precise. Analytics were used to determine what searches didn’t yield results and tailored accordingly.

“It is always exciting to launch a re-designed Utah.Gov to Utah citizens, as well as our international audience,” said David Fletcher, Utah Chief Technology Officer. “With the internet always available at their fingertips, citizens now are able to instantly provide feedback and suggestions. Citizen involvement play an integral role in our improvement process, continually enhancing Utah.Gov as we incorporate valuable citizen response.”

In the first 48 hours of launching, over 800 tweets were posted about the new Utah.Gov design reaching an estimated 2.2 million people. Open dialogue that networks such as Twitterprovide allow for continual discussion as well as an opportunity to listens and act on user feedback. Utah.Gov practices responsive web design and it is important that citizen feedback is a key component of that process.

2010 Utah Egov Awards

2011-03-09T06:43:00.000-08:00

The 2010 Utah E-government Awards were presented today at the Utah Product Management Council. This is the first year of what is expected to become an annual awards presentation. In 2010, awards were presented in five categories: best online video, best new website, best new online service, social media, and most improved.

Best Online Video

UDOT - Mountain View Corridor

USTAR - USTAR 2010/2011

Best New Website
Lt. Governor / Elections Office - Vote.Utah.gov

The Vote.Utah.gov website was the centerpiece of a successful initiative by the Lt. Governor's Office to encourage voters to register and vote in the 2010 election. The site also featured personalized information for individual voters within their geographic area, such as finding their poll locations and the platforms and information packets that corresponded to their individual precinct.

Social Media

UDOT - UDOT Blog, Twitter, and Youtube

UDOT's social media campaign was designed to provide better information to citizens about transportation issues. @UtahDOT provides regular Twitter updates on road construction, traffic conditions, and travel-related weather, while UDOT's new blog gives citizens an inside look at the Department and the issues it is dealing with.

Best New Service

Commerce - Licensing Continuing Education Service

This new service provides an administrative console to providers of continuing education services so that they can manage information about the courses they provide as well as information they provide to the Department of Commerce. Licensees are able to easily locate potential courses that will help them maintain their valid license status.

Public Safety - Driver License Appointment Scheduler

When faced with the requirement to physically verify information on every driver license renewal for the next five years, the Driver License Division was faced with a huge challenge of keep lines down in its offices and customers satisfied. The implementation of the online scheduler provided a way to maintain a more manageable flow of citizens through the renewal process.

Most Improved

DAS State Archives - Public Notice Website

The newly designed site, unveiled in October 2010, provides a more useable interface for thousands of public meetings for all state and local government entities. The advanced browse and search capabilities make it very easy to find any public meeting in the state.

Census Data Delivered to Utah

2011-02-24T16:18:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Census Bureau today released more detailed 2010 Census population totals and demographic characteristics to the governor and leadership of the state legislature in Utah. These data provide the first look at population counts for small areas and race, Hispanic origin, voting age and housing unit data released from the 2010 Census.

The official 2010 Census Redistricting Data Summary File can be used to redraw federal, state and local legislative districts under Public Law 94-171. The census data are used by state officials to realign congressional and state legislative districts in their states, taking into account population shifts since the 2000 Census.

Data for Utah show that the five most populous incorporated places and their 2010 Census counts are Salt Lake City, 186,440; West Valley City, 129,480; Provo, 112,488; West Jordan, 103,712; and Orem, 88,328. Salt Lake City grew by 2.6 percent since the 2000 Census. West Valley City grew by 18.9 percent, Provo grew by 7.0 percent, West Jordan grew by 51.8 percent, and Orem grew by 4.7 percent.

The largest county is Salt Lake, with a population of 1,029,655. Its population grew by 14.6 percent since 2000. The other counties in the top five include Utah, with a population of 516,564 (increase of 40.2 percent); Davis, 306,479 (increase of 28.2 percent); Weber, 231,236 (increase of 17.7 percent); and Washington, 138,115 (increase of 52.9 percent).

The redistricting file consists of five detailed tables: the first shows the population by race, including six single race groups and 57 multiple race groups (63 total race categories); the second shows the Hispanic or Latino population as well as the non-Hispanic or Latino population cross-tabulated by the 63 race categories. These tabulations are repeated in the third and fourth tables for the population 18 years and over and are for the resident population of the United States. The fifth table provides counts of housing units and their occupancy status.

Visitors to Utah.gov

2011-02-24T16:11:00.000-08:00

DTS carefully tracks visitors to Utah.gov to identify trends and develop strategies for improving the utility of Utah web resources for Utah government and its citizens. In 2010, over 1 million unique visitors visited the domain every month except July and the overal tracking is in line with the state's digital government goals.

Utah Launches New Broadband Website

2011-02-02T13:28:00.000-08:00

Today, the Utah Broadband Project announced the launch of the State of Utah’s broadband website, now available online at http://broadband.utah.gov. Last year, Utah kicked off a project to expand broadband mapping and planning efforts within the state and has worked to provide a comprehensive resource to help determine broadband availability and facilitate broadband planning. The Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) in conjunction with Utah.Gov, the Utah Automated Geographic Referencing Center (AGRC), and the Utah Public Service Commission (PSC) launched the interactive website featuring the State’s first broadband map.

“Broadband today presents us with the same challenges electricity did in the past century,” said Governor Gary R. Herbert. “Fostering economic development through business expansion in Utah is a top priority. The interactive map is an important tool that will help increase opportunities and access to information in both rural and urban parts of the state.”

The website has several features including an interactive broadband map, a broadband connection speed test and a reporting tool for areas in Utah without broadband service. The interactive site also has information about broadband impacts, and is targeted to state and local decision-makers, consumers, the business community, and broadband providers partnering on the project. The interactive broadband map clearly illustrates providers, speeds, and availability within the entire State.

“This Project has strengthened our relationships with Utah’s broadband providers and has enabled the successful launch of this innovative map and website,” said Spencer Eccles, executive director of GOED. “Utah’s broadband landscape is strong today because of the partnerships, investment and hard work that our providers have dedicated to deploying and maintaining their state-of-the-art networks in all corners of Utah.”

The National Broadband Map is scheduled for release by the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on February 17, 2011. Utah is pleased to release its broadband website and Utah map ahead of the national benchmark.

With continued participation and support from the Governors Office, broadband providers and state and federal officials, the Project will continue serving as an important tool in determining and developing business opportunities in Utah.

Find out more information about the Utah Broadband Project through:

Website: http://broadband.utah.gov

Twitter: https://twitter.com/utahbroadband

Find out more information about Utah.gov through:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UtahGov

Facebook: http://www.utah.gov/facebook/

RSS feeds: http://www.utah.gov/connect/feeds.html

Utah blogs: http://www.utah.gov/blogs/

DTS Monitoring Service Ensures Reliability

2010-12-22T09:53:00.000-08:00

The Utah Department of Technology Services has implemented a new monitoring services that helps DTS proactively respond to system slowdowns or outages. The service makes extensive use of open source and cloud tools that are capable of monitoring state information systems on a very granular level while also providing high level views that make it possible to spot potential problems very quickly. DTS has developed service level agreements with every state agency so it is critical to have automated tools such as the new monitoring dashboard to ensure that all of these service levels are met. The SLAs are built into the dashboard in a way that triggers alerts when service levels are in danger. The DTS monitoring dashboard is live at RMS.dts.utah.gov.

Utah Agencies Find Ways to Leverage Social Media

2010-12-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

Increasingly, state agencies are using social media to interact with Utah citizens and businesses in ways that enhance their mission. One of the best examples has been the use of Twitter to provide immediate communications during emergencies. On December 21, 2010, as floods threatened homes and property in Rockville and other southern Utah communities, emergency responders used Twitter to let people know of evacuation orders, endangered areas, even how to evacuate pets and other animals. The Washington County Sheriff, St. George Police, Utah Division of Homeland Security and others were able to get the word out quickly. Twitter also provides ways to access updates using SMS on any cell phone, further adding to its utility during emergency situations. Users can also use other tools like the example of Flipboard on the iPad (example shown above) to aggregate content from Twitter lists based on need and interest.

Agencies are also using other social media tools, including Slideshare, Facebook, and Issue for online publishing, community building, etc. as an increasingly larger share of Utah's population tune into these services on a daily basis for information. Many Utah agencies have started using weblogs to communicate content that is not easily conveyed in the short 140-character messages allowed on Twitter.

Multimedia content is added to the mix through sites like YouTube. The State's YouTube site features hundreds of useful videos organized into over 15 separate channels.

Public Meeting Website Features Enhanced Browse, Share Capabilities

2010-12-07T10:08:00.000-08:00

Utah's Public Meeting Notice website was recently updated with a new look and functionality. The website, which was originally released in 2008 and has won a variety of national awards now prominently features the ability to create your own public meeting widget. With hundreds of state and local agencies using the website, these entities can now feature their own meetings on any website with simple embed code that is provided by the widget. The site, which is developed and supported through a partnership between the Utah State Archives, the Department of Technology Services and Utah Interactive, also now uses advanced browse functionality which helps the user easily locate meetings by any specific agency at the city, county, or state level.

Utah Releases RFP for Hosted Email Services

2010-12-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

The State of Utah has released its RFP for hosted email services. Following an extensive business analysis, the state determined that it would look at opportunities to update its email and collaboration platform. For the past 20 years, Utah employees have utilized GroupWise email hosted and managed locally by the state. The RFP requests bids from vendors that will provide additional functionality and be hosted at a vendor-operated facility. The RFP development process was overseen by a team of members selected by the cabinet. Details on the bid can be found on the Department of Purchasing website. Bids are due to the State on January 18, 2011.

Data Center Consolidation Completed

2010-08-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

The end of the Data Center Consolidation Project has arrived. It's been eighteen months since the beginning of the project. Many DTS technicians, managers, applica- tion developers, and DBA’s worked long nights and many weekends on the Consolidation Project. Most have passed up vacations and time off to stay dedicated to completing the Consolidation effort. There were certainly ups and downs but amazingly everyone held it together and stayed the course to the end.

An ambitious goal 18 months ago was realized in the final week with the comple- tion of the GenTax servers as well as a few virtualizations that occurred on June 29th. In the end a 100% completion was accomplished.

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DTS Publishes New Strategic Plan for 2010-2013

2010-08-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

The Strategic Plan for The Department of Technology Services (DTS) outlines our approach to achieving the goals and objectives we have set to optimize IT services for the State of Utah. The primary objective of the Strategic Plan is to establish and maintain a clear alignment of the State’s IT resources to its business needs while ensuring an optimal return on investment.

The Plan outlines the need for a systemic approach to assess continuing IT developments and lists major IT initiatives throughout the enterprise. Furthermore, we are partnering with agencies to assist in achieving business objectives as outlined in the State of Utah Emerging Issues and Strategies document, as well as the IT Plans.

Since the inception of our strategic plan, DTS has been able to achieve many improvements in operations through consolidation and optimization. The recent economic downturn has created many challenges for DTS and our partners across state government. Through our optimization efforts, DTS is positioned well to assist agencies in achieving the demands of providing more services with fewer resources, using automation to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of state programs.

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