Customer Stories > Hosted Solution Provides Peace of Mind

Hosted Solution Provides Peace of Mind

If you were to shadow the finance staff of the Town of Lincoln in 2004, you would not have seen the easy to use program screens, wizards and clickable menus typical of the software of the time. Instead, you would have witnessed the staff struggling to manage the city finances by keying in complex UNIX expressions and applying a number of arbitrary F-function keys. With critical data stored on an aging UNIX server, maintained by a succession of co-op students, even a non-expert could tell that that the system posed not only a burden to staff, but risk to the city.

“We didn’t have much flexibility with getting data and there was a steep learning curve with the software’s dated operation,” stated Angela Cifani, Assistant Director of Finance. “We knew we needed to either update or move onto to a more current system.”

But purchasing the updated version from their existing software vendor meant purchasing and installing a new UNIX server, a system that would need to be serviced and supported in-house and still offer little improvement in terms of ease of use.

At the time, Lincoln’s IT resource was limited to one ongoing co-op student. While they have since acquired a full time IT resource, this person’s time is easily filled.

“With projects, the fire hall and other services and departments, maintaining the financial software and a UNIX server was just too much.”

Lincoln concluded that it was time to see what other options were available in the marketplace.

Data Security and Ease of Use Drive Decision
Lincoln reviewed proposals and watched demonstrations from a number of software vendors. Critical to their decision was ease of use, data security and a low maintenance.

Of the vendors they reviewed, Vadim’s iCity Software offered what they were looking for. Not only was iCity easy to use, Vadim’s unique hosted environment provided the data security while also reducing the work required by their IT staff.

In Vadim’s hosted environment, the software and data reside on an offsite server owned and maintained by SaskTel. Because information systems are their core business, SaskTel maintains and supports a server system well beyond the scope of most municipalities. They have IT resources available to immediately troubleshoot any problems with the server. They also perform the necessary data backups and ensure the data is secure. As well, Vadim performs all the updates to the software and help files. With the hosted environment, the load on Lincoln’s IT staff is minimal.

Low Maintenance System
By opting for a hosted solution, Lincoln saved the cost of maintaining an additional server in-house, and reduced the workload for their single IT resource. SaskTel and Vadim perform maintenance tasks usually done by an in-house resource.

“If we have a server or software issue, we can call Vadim instead of calling in our own IT person, who may be offsite supporting the fire hall or other critical service.”

Moving to a hosted environment also prompted Lincoln to subscribe to a high-speed internet connection, which they saw as inevitable to keep up with technology and improve internet services like email.

In addition to the benefits of the hosted environment, the Town of Lincoln also made gains by switching to Vadim’s iCity modules.

“iCity has standardized screens and menus, and a Windows look and feel. Staff learns how to use it relatively quickly, unlike the software we had before.”
 
“With reports that are flexible and configurable, we also spend less time parsing and cleaning data for specialized reporting.”

If you were to visit the Lincoln’s finance department today, you would no longer find an aging server running dated software. With data secure and easy to use software staff can focus now on analysing the data, rather than figuring out how to output it. The City’s critical financial data is no longer at risk by system failure, and their single IT resource has one less department to worry about.

According to Angela Cifani, “We would not look at moving back internally. We like the security of knowing the data is safe and the back-ups are being done regularly. The savings on staff time are worth it and we like the process of working with Vadim.”

Quick Facts

City: Town of Lincoln, ON
Website: www.lincoln.ca
Population: 22,000
Staff: 80 Full-time
Vadim Users: 9
Solution: iCity software hosted on SaskTel Server
iCity Modules: GL, AP, AR, BR, CR, HR, PA, PT, UB
Time to implement all applications: 6 months
How it works: Staff click a Vadim icon on their desktop. This takes them to the server desktop over a secure, high speed network. Once logged on, they access their iCity applications.