Investing in Operational Improvements

Industry: Municipal
Location: Rancho Mirage, California
Number of Employees: 100
Poplulation: 18,300
Tyler Client Since: 2017
Tyler Products Used: Munis, EnerGov, Tyler Cashiering, Tyler Content Manager

Challenges

Prior to 2017, the city of Rancho Mirage, California, was operating on software that was 20 years old — a system that was slowing down its productivity instead of helping it to become more efficient. Every department was forced to use paper-based processing alongside the legacy software system. Data could not be viewed in dashboards or exported to Microsoft^® Excel, so reporting was extremely difficult.

The purchasing department experienced long delays on approvals for requisitions: each requisition was initiated on a paper form, which then had to be personally routed to several staff members for sign-off. From start to finish, getting approval on a purchase took three weeks.

The human resources and payroll departments were struggling with inefficiencies, as well. Paper-based timesheets made the payroll process slow and prone to inaccuracy. The payroll team had to interpret what employees hand-wrote on their timecards and then key the data into the timekeeping system. Without an electronic view of employees’ leave time, keeping track of accrual balances was also a manual, time-consuming process that often left employees and human resources chasing after the most up-to-date information.

City staff knew they needed a change and made the case to invest in a new software system that would help them better serve their residents, save time, and operate more efficiently.

Solution

City of Rancho Mirage implemented Munis^® in 2017 after city decision makers, including Jason Jaurigue, director of information services, made several site visits to existing Tyler clients to see Munis in action. “Seeing the product, the interface, and the reporting features first-hand was very helpful, and different than seeing Munis in the demo. Watching other users and seeing how they set up role-based permissions and workflow to make their jobs more efficient was really what made us choose Munis,” said Jaurigue. The city kicked-off its Munis implementation with a cross-departmental, all hands meeting where it set clear project expectations in partnership with Tyler’s implementation team. Tyler’s project manager covered the timeline, process, scope of work, and project plan.

“We set up a dedicated meeting room for our implementation and ongoing training,” said Jaurigue. “We’d recommend other sites do the same; it’s really useful to have dedicated space to meet on the project and maintain focus during discussions and trainings.”

Results

Since implementing Munis, the city’s finance, human resources, payroll, and IT departments have all experienced operational improvements. “The approval process on a requisition is now digital and takes about a week to turn around — best yet, it can happen from anywhere, desktop or mobile. We’ve shaved two weeks off the time it takes to create a purchase order,” said Jaurigue.

The city has also moved to Munis Employee Self Service^™ (ESS) for timesheets, making the entire time and attendance process digital, faster, and less prone to error. All employees now use ESS to monitor and request leave time, ensuring everyone is on the same page when monitoring accrual balances, time requested, and time taken.

Reporting has become much easier for the city, as well. Every department benefits from role-specific, real-time dashboards, and the output to Excel functionality that is available throughout Munis.

The operational improvements in finance, HR, and IT are so encouraging that the city is implementing EnerGov^™, which will provide similar efficiencies and advantages in the areas of code enforcement, business licenses, permitting, and inspections.