{"id":344371,"date":"2020-06-03T06:35:53","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T13:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=344371"},"modified":"2025-05-08T17:02:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T00:02:02","slug":"sacrament-311-system-spatial-integration","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/sacrament-311-system-spatial-integration","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s Capital City Launches New Smart 311 System Amid COVID-19 Pandemic"},"author":1632,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[401],"tags":[454361,160522,454351,454371,454381],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[491702,478482],"esri_blog_department":[478192],"class_list":["post-344371","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","tag-454361","tag-health","tag-public-service","tag-system-integration","tag-work-from-home","esri-blog-category-health","esri-blog-category-services","esri_blog_department-gis-for-good"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"The new City of Sacramento 311 Customer Service Help Center website and mobile app integrate back-end systems to better serve citizens.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"Sacramento revamped its 311 service despite the disruption of the pandemic, to tightly integrate systems and allow call center personnel to work remotely.\r\n\r\nKey Takeaways\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Adding the spatial component to the 311 system helps citizens make sense of complex data.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Sacramento created a tightly integrated 311 system that aids citizens and connects departments.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Tight integration with Salesforce helps Sacramento improve efficiency and better serve citizens.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"When California Governor Gavin Newsom issued the state\u2019s first stay-at-home order in March, Maria MacGunigal faced a dilemma. MacGunigal, chief information officer for the City of Sacramento, had spent months leading an overhaul of the local 311 customer service system. She and her team were just adding finishing touches.\r\n\r\nIn response to COVID-19, MacGunigal had to decide whether to postpone the re-launch until everybody involved was back in the office or attempt the delicate task of making the shift while everybody was sheltering in their respective places.\r\n\r\nOverhauling a city government program\u2014especially one designed to connect residents with municipal services\u2014is an intricate proposition in the best of times. In the middle of a pandemic, the success of that transition is crucial.\r\n<h3><strong>An Ambitious Approach to 311<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nSacramento is primarily known for being the home of California\u2019s statehouse. Those who live in the capital city know it as a thriving community in its own right. Located in the agriculturally rich Central Valley, Sacramento is a quintessentially American crossroads\u2014the country\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/news\/local\/article226876944.html\">fourth most ethnically diverse city<\/a>, by one recent reckoning.\r\n\r\nSacramento\u2019s 311 system, first launched in 2008, logs around 500,000 interactions each year\u2014or one for every Sacramento resident, a high level of engagement."},{"acf_fc_layout":"quote","image":344401,"text":"I came back to the public sector because it\u2019s where the most work is needed. It\u2019s where you can solve the most important problems.","author_name":"Maria MacGunigal","author_profession_organization":"CIO, City of Sacramento"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Soon after MacGunigal took the CIO job in 2013, 311 came under her purview. \u201cThat isn\u2019t typical for a city\u2019s IT department,\u201d she says. \u201cBut the 311 system was struggling under heavy demand. So the whole unit was assigned to me to revamp the call center from an operational standpoint, and also to provide it with appropriate technology.\u201d\r\n\r\nMuch of the challenge involved the unusually ambitious scope of Sacramento\u2019s 311. Although most major cities have a 311 service where people can call or go online to report problems or learn how to contact municipal agencies, the majority structure 311 as an adjunct city service. In most models, 311 has a primarily ombudsman role.\r\n\r\nSacramento\u2019s 311 is more like a connective tissue\u2014\"the front door to Sacramento,\u201d as MacGunigal puts it, \u201cthe highest touchpoint for all the interactions the city has with the community.\u201d\r\n\r\nBesides linking Sacramento residents with city services, 311 also serves as an internal hub linking many city departments. If somebody uses Sacramento\u2019s 311 to report a stray dog, for instance, 311 logs the call and routes it through a system that sends a notification for animal control officers in the area. It also generates a ticket that provides automatic updates on the status of the problem.\r\n\r\n\u201cMost cities don\u2019t have that kind of back-end integration through all those business lines,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have nearly as much of an impact on the community if we\u2019re just taking notes and handing off the requests.\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>A Geographic Framework for 311<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nMacGunigal grew up in Southern California\u2019s Riverside County, at the midway point between Los Angeles and Palm Desert, California. While attending college in Sacramento, she worked as an intern at the city\u2019s Department of Information Technology, which she now leads. With a few brief detours into the private sector, MacGunigal has spent most of her career in that department.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m a super-corny nerdy kind of person,\u201d she says. \u201cI believe fundamentally in public service. I came back to the public sector because it\u2019s where the most work is needed. It\u2019s where you can solve the most important problems. To impact more than a thousand people in a city in one day is very gratifying.\u201d\r\n\r\nMacGunigal studied geography in college, fascinated by how the subject touched on nearly every other discipline. It led her to become adept at geographic information systems (GIS), software that gathers, processes, and displays <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/arcgis\/products\/spatial-analytics-data-science\/overview\">spatial data<\/a> on digital maps."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":344411,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":"https:\/\/www.cityofsacramento.org\/Information-Technology\/311\/Incident-Maps"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"When she was tasked with leading Sacramento\u2019s 311 overhaul effort, MacGunigal had two major objectives. She wanted to broaden the program\u2019s scope even further, to eventually become \u201ca foundation upon which we can build all other portal access to the public.\u201d And, she wanted to use GIS to improve the system\u2019s real-time interface.\r\n\r\n\u201cGeography\u2014the spatial relationships between things\u2014is the easiest way to convey these kinds of complex data to people,\u201d she says. \u201cHaving GIS embedded in 311 is really important to improve the average citizen\u2019s experience.\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>Building on the Past<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n\u201cFrom a technical perspective, 311 has always had a strong integration with GIS in Sacramento,\u201d says Dara O'Beirne, Sacramento\u2019s GIS developer. In the past, he explains, GIS was mainly used as part of the 311 system\u2019s backend, rather than its user interface.\r\n\r\nThe new City of Sacramento 311 Customer Service Help Center website and mobile app setup accomplishes both objectives. Salesforce customer relationship management software (CRM) connects to a server running ArcGIS, the GIS software platform engineered by Esri.\r\n\r\nWhen a community member submits a 311 ticket, the GIS component first verifies the user\u2019s issue pertains to an address within the Sacramento city limits. It then situates the location relative to 35 different map layers. \u201cLike, for example, what council district is it in?\u201d O\u2019Beirne says. \u201cWhat\u2019s the animal control district, or the police district, or even the police beat? All these values get pulled in from just one address entered into the system.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":344461,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"For the 311 site, Salesforce integrates with GIS maps provided by Esri\u2019s cloud-based software. \u201cWe now have data from GIS maps and layers, and we take the Salesforce data and start building dashboards around it,\u201d explains Ivan Castellanos, Sacramento\u2019s 311 manager. \u201cThere\u2019s even more value in the data now because it can be used to help various City departments drive their strategies and make data-driven decisions.\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>Bringing 311 Online from Elsewhere<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nAs MacGunigal and her colleagues absorbed the reality of sheltering in place, the issue of full 311 implementation loomed large. With something as public-facing as 311, initial impressions are key. After all the work they\u2019d put in, was the effort to push the project over the finish line while the team was scattered worth jeopardizing it?\r\n\r\nAfter some hectic video-conference meetings, the team decided to forge ahead. Sacramento\u2019s new 311 debuted April 15, a mere month behind schedule. All feedback suggested any hiccups, inevitable in this kind of launch, were minor.\r\n\r\nThe changeover also required surmounting a new hurdle. Operators trained to answer calls in the 311 call center were among city employees who had been sent home. In addition to launching the new system remotely, the team also had to figure out how to make the 311 call center function remotely.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s not unheard of in the private sector to have call centers that have a lot of distributed locations, whether that\u2019s at people\u2019s homes or just multiple locations for call-taking, but we\u2019re one of the first public agencies to have a mostly remote call center,\u201d MacGunigal says. \u201cEveryone was remote\u2014the development team, the GIS team, the infrastructure team\u2014and we pulled it off without a hitch. So that was pretty awesome.\u201d\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nDiscover the many ways that cities use GIS to <a href=\"https:\/\/solutions.arcgis.com\/#Local%20Government\">improve local government operations and enhance public services<\/a>."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>California\u2019s Capital City Launches New Smart 311 System Amid COVID-19 Pandemic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The new Sacramento 311 website and mobile app integrates back-end sytems through a spatial lens to better serves citizens.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/sacrament-311-system-spatial-integration\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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