DeForest is a small village located in Dane County, about 15 miles northeast of Madison, and is home to about 11,000 residents. The local government of DeForest is attempting to transition its software to newer, more updated technology, which has led to challenges for both the community and staff. These challenges include tedious processes for staff, a difficult website and navigation for residents, and differing levels of technological competency amongst all users. Our team has been tasked with proposing potential solutions to these challenges to improve the lives of all DeForest staff and residents; thus, the name Technology Inventory and Needs Study.
To address these challenges, our team held numerous meetings with the Village of DeForest Director of Public Services and Deputy Administrator Judd Blau, along with Community Ambassador Stacey Harmon. In these meetings, Judd and Stacy discussed the primary technologies causing issues that they would like to be resolved. The first main issue is with their cloud file storage service, Dropbox. Staff are often forced to manually delete files and content using this service. Next, the DeForest team would like to utilize a more easily accessible livestream platform that allows for live commenting. The final issue involves their online content management service, OnBase, which poses issues when creating government-related workflows. Our team will dive further into the details of each of these challenges and our potential solutions throughout this report.
Contact: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu