Committee discusses city plan for 311 service and Tyler ERP to centralize citizen service requests

The Citizen Government Review Committee discussed a city memo noting gaps in follow-up on studies and recommendations and outlining plans to implement a Tyler enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and a 311 customer-service line to consolidate online and phone service requests.

Committee members raised the distinction between SeeClickFix, an online-only reporting tool, and a 311 phone routing system that would allow staff to merge telephone reports with online submissions. One member summarized the difference: SeeClickFix is "online only," while a 311 service is intended to bring online and phone workflows together.

Dave Garrett, director of communications for the city, explained the goal: "The hope with the 311 number is to assist people that may not be tech savvy and would rather just call a number and talk to someone on the phone. So hopefully that clears that. Exactly." Garrett and other staff said the city hopes the Tyler ERP will serve as a single back-end system to track assignments and follow-up across departments, and that SeeClickFix entries and 311 calls would be managed in one public-facing workflow.

Committee members noted it is not yet clear whether the new system would be expanded to track follow-up on policy studies and governing-body requests, which has been a separate concern raised in committee issue papers. Member Brian said the committee could reference the city manager's memo in its follow-up procedures recommendation and ask whether the proposed systems would meet the committee's needs.

No formal decision was made; the committee asked staff to consider whether the proposed toolset could support the follow-up and tracking the committee recommended.