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2018-142 Engage Denton UpdateDate: September 28, 2018 Report No. 2018-142 1 INFORMAL STAFF REPORT TO MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL SUBJECT: Provide an update on the first three months of the Engage Denton citizen request application including metrics and recent improvements. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The City of Denton launched the Engage Denton citizen request application on June 18, 2018. In the three months since the launch, the City has received 1,283 requests with an average time to close of 5.2 days. Recent modifications have been made to the structure of request types to be more user-friendly and add the ability to submit street/sidewalk issues. Also, a waste reminder feature has been added that will allow individuals to request an email or text message as a reminder on their trash day. Staff has received favorable comments from citizens regarding the application and continues to monitor the requests to ensure that we are being responsive and addressing issues with the application. Information on the application will be provided in the upcoming October/November Resident Update newsletter and DTV has created a promotional video to increase awareness of the application city-wide. BACKGROUND: In the 2016-2017 Strategic Plan, an interim citizen request solution was identified as a key action item to allow citizens to submit requests electronically. An online form-based system was implemented during the website update in January 2017. Although an interim solution to allow requests to be submitted online, it was a manual process that resulted in service delivery delays for customers and lacked automatic routing, reporting, and escalation levels. A supplemental request was approved in the fiscal year 2017-2018 budget for the purchase of a software solution. This type of software provides citizens with a user-friendly solution and central place to request services from their government. After a purchasing process, and with direction by the Committee on Citizen Engagement (COCE), CitySourced was selected to be the City’s software provider in March 2018. On June 5, 2018 staff presented information on the Engage Denton application to the COCE and provided a preview of the application. Staff worked with the initial user departments (Community Improvement Services, Animal Services, Customer Service, Solid Waste, and Traffic Operations) utilizing the software during the soft launch phase to test the request routing functionality and ensure that software and processes are working effectively. RECENT MODIFICATIONS: Since the initial launch, there have been a number of modifications made improve the Engage Denton application. These modifications were made based on feedback from council members, citizens, and staff. Below is a list of the recent improvements that have been made:  The backend software has been improved for better automated responses to citizens and more accurate routing to departments due to issues that arose with requests routing to Date: September 28, 2018 Report No. 2018-142 2 incorrect departments. Automatic responses are more general now stating requests will be referred to appropriate staff which allows requests to be reroute when submitted under the incorrect request type without alerting the user.  Escalation levels are now setup to notify the user and supervisor if requests have not received an initial response within two business days or have not been closed within five business days to ensure staff is being responsive to requests.  Automatic responses were modified to dissuade users from entering requests requiring an immediate response and to instead call either the utilities dispatch or police non-emergency phone number and staff is working with the vendor to add this as a pop-up prior to the submission of the request.  The request types have been expanded and reorganized for a better user experience including condensing property maintenance requests under one category. New request types that have been added for Capital Projects and Development Services have been listed below: Street/Sidewalk Issues (Dropdown List)  Pothole  Guardrail Damage  Sidewalk Repair  Curb Repair  Debris in the Street  Road Striping Zoning Enforcement Issues (Dropdown List)  Too Many Unrelated Occupants  Work Without a Permit  Illegal Home Occupation  Storage Container Placement Without a Permit NEXT STEPS: Trash Reminders – Beginning next week, citizens will be able to sign up to receive either text messages or email notifications in the evening prior or morning of their collection day, which will automatically adjust with holiday schedules. Trash reminder sign up and FAQs will be on the homepage of the mobile application. Staff will be sharing this information by email to the current users of the application including information on how to sign up for notifications through Engage Denton. The City had a separate My-Waste mobile application that sends reminders about trash collection and has a frequently asked question feature for trash and recycling related questions. Solid Waste, Sustainability, and Public Affairs staff have worked together and in an effort to consolidate functions and standardize to a single platform, the City will be moving away from the My-Waste app and using Engage Denton to provide these features. Promotion – Staff will be promoting the application community-wide in the coming months through the Resident Update, City website, DTV and social media. Additionally, promotional material will be developed for City events such as the State of the City. Date: September 28, 2018 Report No. 2018-142 3 DISCUSSION: Figure 1 describes the biweekly totals of requests that have been received since the launch on June 18. There has been a steady increase in the number of requests received. Other than an initial social media post and an article in the Denton Record Chronicle, staff has not actively promoted the application during the first three months to ensure any issues were corrected prior. Figure 1. Biweekly Request Count Table 1 describes the number of requests and percentage of total requests received by department. The majority of requests were processed by Community Improvement Services (CIS). CIS experiences higher request volumes because they had the largest percent of available request types. The Public Affairs department has the second highest requests due to the department coordinating all “Other Requests” submissions which continue to be manually routed to departments with coordination by Public Affairs employees. A majority of these requests were sent to either Capital Projects or Development Services, so staff expects a reduction in “Other Requests” with the addition of new request types which are automatically routed to those departments. Department Request Count Percentage Community Improvement Services 842 66% Public Affairs 234 18% Police Department 74 6% Capital Projects 46 4% Animal Services 46 4% Customer Service 20 2% Traffic Ops 15 1% Development Services 5 0% Solid Waste 1 0% Grand Total 1283 100% Table 1. Request Count and Percent Total by Department Figure 2 is the app download information for Engage Denton divided between the Apple and Android mobile platforms. Currently, there are a total of 580 downloads. 110 175 160 182 221 248 327 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 6/18/2018 - 7/1/2018 7/2/2018 - 7/15/2018 7/16/2018 - 7/29/2018 7/30/2018 - 8/12/2018 8/13/2018 - 8/26/2018 8/27/2018 - 9/9/2018 9/10/2018 - 9/24/2018 Request Count Date: September 28, 2018 Report No. 2018-142 4 Figure 2. Mobile App Downloads The application does allow users to submit requests anonymously without creating an account. Anonymous requests are also entered by City staff that receive calls reporting information that is entered in the system. As shown in Table 2, approximately 44 percent of requests are submitted anonymously. Additionally, there are 110 users that have entered multiple requests in the application accounting for 411 total requests or approximately 3.7 requests per user. 304 requests were entered from one-time users of the application. User Type # of Users Request Count Anonymous - 568 Repeat User 110 411 One-time User 304 304 Grand Total 428 1283 Table 2. Requests by User Type Attachment 1 provides greater detail on the metrics of the application with information by request type including the average time to close and percentage of total requests by request type. Staff is continuing to work with user departments to provide training on how to update the status of a request, reroute requests if necessary, and communicate and close requests. With the addition of the escalations feature setup through the soft launch period, staff expects the average time to close a request to decrease as some requests had been responded to, but staff did not close out in the system in a timely manner. Request types have been dispersed geographically across the City. Attachment 2 is a heat map of the requests that have been received in the first three months showing where each request was made in the City. 99 103 116 123 126 131 138 150 158 162 169 175 177 190 182 207 229 248 258 264 284 309 334 346 361 372 379 390 App Downloads Android IOS Date: September 28, 2018 Report No. 2018-142 5 ATTACHMENT(S): Attachment 1 - Engage Denton Metrics Attachment 2 - Engage Denton Heat Map STAFF CONTACT: Sarah Kuechler Director of Public Affairs (940) 349-8356 Sarah.Kuechler@cityofdenton.com Requests by Type Requests by Status Service Request Metrics: All Recent Requests Statistics Average Days to Close per Request Type Powered by Total Reports Created 1283 Total Reports Open 3 Total Reports Closed 1280 Average Reports Created per Day 13.796 Average Reports Closed per Day 13.753 Average Time to Close 5.201 Days 0RVW&RPPRQ5HTXHVW7\SH Other Requests Least Common Request Type Vehicle in Yard or over sidewalk 28.9% Other Requests 25.8% High Grass/Weeds over 12 inches 18.1% Trash and Debris 9.3% Vehicle Complaints 3.7% Animal Issues 3.4% Trash/Recycling Container Placement 2.3% Rental Unit Complaints 2.1% Outside Storage of Objects 1.9% Tree Issues 1.5% Power Outage 1.0% Street Sign Repairs 0.9% Stagnant Water 0.6% Bulk Item Pickup 0.3% Fence Issues 0.2% Water Related Emergency 0.1% Household Chemical Collection 0.1% Vehicle in Yard or over sidewalk 97.7% Closed 1.1% Duplicate 0.4% Could Not Verify 0.3% Cancelled 0.2% In Process 0.2% Not An Issue 0.1% Received Other Requests High Grass/Weeds over 12 inches Trash and Debris Vehicle Complaints Animal Issues Trash/Recycling Container Placement Rental Unit Complaints Outside Storage of Objects Tree Issues Power Outage Street Sign Repairs Stagnant Water Bulk Item Pickup Fence Issues Water Related Emergency Household Chemical Collection Vehicle in Yard or over sidewalk 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 Closed Duplicate Could Not Verify Cancelled Not An Issue In Process Received 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 High Grass/Weeds over 12 inches Trash and Debris Vehicle Complaints Other Requests Outside Storage of Objects Water Related Emergency Stagnant Water Power Outage Street Sign Repairs Trash/Recycling Container Placement Animal Issues Tree Issues Fence Issues Rental Unit Complaints Bulk Item Pickup Vehicle in Yard or over sidewalk Household Chemical Collection 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Requests by Type Requests by StatusService Request Metrics: All Recent RequestsStatistics Average Days to Close per Request Type Powered by Total Reports Created 1283Total Reports Open 3Total Reports Closed 1280Average Reports Created per Day 13.796Average Reports Closed per Day 13.753Average Time to Close 5.201 Days0RVW&RPPRQ5HTXHVW7\SH Other RequestsLeast Common Request Type Vehicle in Yard or over sidewalk28.9% Other Requests25.8% High Grass/Weeds over 12 inches18.1% Trash and Debris9.3% Vehicle Complaints3.7% Animal Issues3.4% Trash/Recycling Container Placement2.3% Rental Unit Complaints2.1% Outside Storage of Objects1.9% Tree Issues1.5% Power Outage1.0% Street Sign Repairs0.9% Stagnant Water0.6% Bulk Item Pickup0.3% Fence Issues0.2% Water Related Emergency0.1% Household Chemical Collection0.1% Vehicle in Yard or over sidewalk 97.7% Closed1.1% Duplicate0.4% Could Not Verify0.3% Cancelled0.2% In Process0.2% Not An Issue0.1% Received Other Requests High Grass/Weeds over 12 inches Trash and Debris Vehicle Complaints Animal Issues Trash/Recycling Container Placement Rental Unit Complaints Outside Storage of Objects Tree Issues Power Outage Street Sign Repairs Stagnant Water Bulk Item Pickup Fence Issues Water Related Emergency Household Chemical Collection Vehicle in Yard or over sidewalk 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 Closed Duplicate Could Not Verify Cancelled Not An Issue In Process Received 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 High Grass/Weeds over 12 inches Trash and Debris Vehicle Complaints Other Requests Outside Storage of Objects Water Related Emergency Stagnant Water Power Outage Street Sign Repairs Trash/Recycling Container Placement Animal Issues Tree Issues Fence Issues Rental Unit Complaints Bulk Item Pickup Vehicle in Yard or over sidewalk Household Chemical Collection 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Engage Denton Heat Map