Indianapolis IT board hears updates on cyber recovery vault, AI pilot, PeopleSoft cloud migration and GIS upgrade

The Information Technology Board for Indianapolis and Marion County on June 24 received project and operational updates from Collin Hill, chief information officer and director of the Information Services Agency (ISA), covering cyber recovery, identity, cloud migration, AI pilots and enterprise GIS work.

Hill told the board ISA had “successfully implemented our our cyber recovery vault, and [is] working to put the backups in there. It will hold up to 5 weeks of data, in a in a in a way that is, immutable,” and said the vault completes a storage modernization project begun in 2021.

The update matters because the vault is intended to isolate key backup systems in case of ransomware or other cyber events, which Hill said would allow continuity for operations such as payroll and vendor payments.

Hill outlined other enterprise projects and near-term timelines. ISA is testing passwordless authentication, with an October 1 target tied to compliance work and a broader Windows 11 rollout. “Roughly 42% of the enterprise has been upgraded to Windows 11,” Hill said, noting the city is coordinating upgrades with major agencies including the fire and police departments to control timing and training.

On telephony, Hill said about 24 of 46 agencies have migrated to Webex calling and that ISA migrated roughly 900 phones in a single weekend. For the city’s payroll and human resources application, Hill said ISA is running a qualifications process to select a partner to migrate PeopleSoft to the cloud; the project is listed for completion near year-end but “we've looked to add a 4 to 5 months window” and the original goal to finish before open enrollment is now unlikely.

The board also heard an update on artificial intelligence efforts. Hill said ISA has hosted two workshops with vendor IDC that drew “roughly 45 people at each workshop,” and has required data-classification and InnovateUs training as prerequisites for a Copilot for M365 pilot. He said ISA is testing Copilot but has run into deployment and compatibility issues: “For example, our Outlook… Copilot for M365 requires that it be on a monthly update schedule, which means that we have to uninstall Outlook and reinstall Outlook on everybody's computer.” Hill said the rollout has a “long tail” and may extend toward the end of the year.

Hill spoke to likely uses and limits of generative AI in government work: “Eventually, I think AI is gonna impact every position within the city county to some extent,” but he emphasized benefits will likely accrue first to staff who spend much of their time creating documents and spreadsheets and cautioned about reliance on generated text and the need for review.

On spatial data, Hill reported the enterprise GIS upgrade is in phase 4 and that some applications are running in both the old and new environments as ISA migrates services. Capital projects noted included networking for a DPW solid-waste garage, removal of Grassy Creek Family Center from ISA’s active project list after completion, and progress on IFD32 and IFD20 fire station projects.

Operational metrics Hill reported: most service-level agreements were met for March–May; a core switch upgrade in April affected several SLAs and ISA is in discussions with the vendor Bell about forgiving those credits; and customer-satisfaction scores remained near 98%.

Board members asked clarifying questions during the update about timelines and staffing impacts for AI and cloud projects; Hill and other ISA staff provided details on training, vendor selection steps, and sequencing of upgrades. The board did not take formal action on any of the project updates at the meeting.

A copy of Hill’s remarks and supporting slides were entered into the meeting record.

Looking ahead, Hill said ISA will continue testing Copilot, work through passwordless options, finish the Windows 11 rollout, and complete the PeopleSoft vendor selection and migration planning toward year-end.