Marin County computer system debut delayed 18 months
Marin County’s new computer system won’t go fully live until the end of the year at the earliest, 18 months later than originally scheduled, Marin County supervisors learned this week.
Tim Flanagan, enterprise systems manager for the county’s Department of Information Services and Technology, told supervisors Tuesday that Dec. 16 has been set as the tentative go-live date.
“We are committed to getting this system live in 2018 if at all possible,” Flanagan said.
He added, however, that the go-live date could be delayed further and said he would report back to them again in October. On a more positive note, Flanagan said the project — dubbed “Administrative Technologies of Marin” or ATOM — remains under its $14 million budget.
About 10 years ago, the county installed a $30 million SAP computer and software system that became so problematic and expensive to maintain that officials abandoned it four years later. The county sued the vendors, alleging bribery and fraud, and spent $5 million on the litigation before settling the case for $3.9 million.
Marin Supervisors said, given the history, they are happy to see the county’s technology managers take their time to get it right.
“One of the most important lessons we learned from our prior experience,” said Supervisor Kate Sears, “is how critical it is to make sure we are focusing on the task and not on a date.”
Supervisor Judy Arnold said, “I really appreciate the caution that you have been exercising.”
This time the county’s software vendor is Tyler Technologies, based in Plano, Texas, which is being paid $8.2 million for its software and support.
The first phase of the new information technology system installation began in February 2015 with the design of new finance software. The finance software went live on schedule in July 2016.
Then, however, the county requested some system modifications in the human resources and payroll software that required Tyler to upgrade the finance software to the next version of its software. This has resulted in a number of problems with the finance software.
“We’ve had over 100 issues resolved since last October,” Flanagan said.
He said 30 more issues remain to be resolved.
Another source of the delay was Tyler’s acquisition of Executime, a third party vendor. The county’s contract with Tyler included a license with Executime for software that will allow county employees to fill out their time cards digitally. After Tyler acquired Executime in the summer of 2016, the Executime software had to be integrated with Tyler’s existing systems.
The reason why the project is still operating under budget is that the county signed a “not-to-exceed” contract, not a “time and materials contract” with Tyler, Flanagan said.
Eric Arvayo, Tyler’s manager for this project, told supervisors Tuesday, “We are continuing to work with the county to ensure that everything is functional.”
The county has also minimized costs by using county employees whenever possible to do the installation work. Department managers have found a way to allocate the staff time without incurring backfill costs.
Flanagan said between now and September tech employees will be running a series of tests on the payroll and human resources software. If the tests go well, then employee trainings sessions using the software will take place from October to December. Following the go-live date, groups of county employees will begin using the new software to fill out their time cards digitally.
“There will be a large body of people who will be using the system in a very robust way,” Flanagan said, “so we are expecting there will be some challenges.”
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