OUR MISSION: To provide our customers with high-quality, efficient and reliable water, power and sewer services in a manner that values environmental and community interests and sustains the resources entrusted to our care.
525 Golden Gate Avenue, 13th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
T 415.554.3155
F 415.554.3161
TTY 415.554.3488
Date: January 21, 2022
To: Commissioner Anson Moran, President
Commissioner Newsha Ajami, Vice President
Commissioner Sophie Maxwell
Commissioner Tim Paulson
Through: Dennis J. Herrera, General Manager
From: Ronald P Flynn, Acting AGM Business Services
Subject: FY2023 and 2024 Information Technology projects and the 2022 Technology Report
The SFPUC Technology Policy requires a utility technology update for each enterprise as part of the budget process. Below is a brief summary of the policy itself as well as a series of 13 reports in the attached Excel spreadsheet describing the state-of-the-art technology investigations, pilots and implementations undertaken by the SFPUC enterprises and bureaus.
SFPUC Technology Policy Background
This Commission adopted the SFPUC Technology Policy in 2012 and approved an update to the Policy in 2017. The overriding theme of the Policy is that: "Beneficial Technologies are identified, researched, and analyzed, prior to proposals for full-scale implementation, such that ratepayer benefit is demonstrated, along with consistency with our Triple Bottom Line principles."
The Policy states that SFPUC should evaluate technologies with respect to five key principles:
• Economic Principles & Criteria
• Environmental Principles & Criteria
• Information Security and Continuity of Operations Principles & Criteria
• Leadership Principles and Transparency Criteria Technology Update
• Social Principles & Workforce Development Criteria
Technology Report
The reports are intended to provide the Commission an idea of the scope, some detail of important utility technology initiatives across the SFPUC and to demonstrate areas of compliance with the principles of the Policy. Each report identifies the enterprise or bureau responsible for the initiative, a description of the initiative, the type of initiative (investigation, pilot or implementation), and the project manager. Each report also contains a discussion of the background and need for the project, the potential business impact, alternative, financial considerations, and schedule.
Title Enterprise
Division
Bureau
Analysis Type Project
Manager
Business
Sponsor
Background Business Impact Alternatives Financial Considerations Schedule Report Audience Insights, Journey
Maps and Branding
External
Affairs
Pilot Kesinee Yip,
Cindy Chu
External Affairs In order to develop a brand strategy
and identity for the SFPUC that
differentiates it from the competition
while supporting all enterprises,
bureaus, and programs, we need to
develop strategic and analytical tools
to help us gain insights about our
internal and external audiences. This
process will involve development of
personas and customer journey
maps. This will also require
identification of additional data that
may be needed. This body of work
may partially depend upon
integration of SFPUC databases
recommended by the Foundation for
Customer Insights – Audit and
Recommendations of Customer Data
Systems work.
A robust marketing insights program
will help differentiate the SFPUC
from the competition, support
customer awareness and
engagement of the SFPUCs offerings
and benefits to the community, and
provide much-needed data to inform
communications strategy and
messages as well as marketing and
outreach strategies for various
customers and stakeholders. A
strong brand also supports recruiting
and retention. In short, the work will
generate a roadmap to support the
SFPUC in its journey to become a
“Utility of the Future.”
Not known at this time beyond
potentially dedicating new or
additional staff resources.
Short-term, this work is designed to
deliver tools and processes to help
the SFPUC become more data-
informed in how it reaches out to
stakeholders and customers (For
example, if we know that a customer
participates in Adopt a Drain and has
requested help to use water more
efficiently, what does that tell us
about how likely they would be to
sign on as a CleanPowerSF customer
if they are the billpayer in the
household? What is the best way to
reach them and convince them to
upgrade first to CleanPowerSF and
then to SuperGreen? When is the
best time to do so? Why?) and to
develop a strong, resilient SFPUC
brand that will benefit all enterprises
and bureaus. Another goal is to
better understand how to staff this
function to work with data and
analytics in the future. Longer-term,
the goal of this work is to save the
SFPUC money by optimizing how we
work, making it more efficient.
Implementation costs at this time are
The project is estimated to take one
year. However, our deadline to work
with qualified vendors is July 2022,
when the qualified vendor list
expires. We also understand from
the Contract Administration Bureau
that contracting vehicle PRO.0142
could also expire around the same
time so it is imperative that the work
begins as soon as possible. Note that
the work was originally advertised
and requests for proposals
distributed in summer of 2021.
Not Applicable at this time.
Customer Relationship
Management
External
Affairs
Implementation Emily Alt External Affairs These funds are dedicated for a contract within the tech marketplace
to retain services of a consultant to
customize and maintain PUC's
existing Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) platform. These
funds will be used to pay annual
licensing fees as well as a consultant
to improve the current system in
order to have better communication
with external stakeholders, reduce
duplication of efforts across teams,
and automate processes.
CRM (Salesforce) is updated to meet
current SFPUC business needs
including corrected bug errors such
as contact duplication, making the
mandatory transition to Lightening,
and researching outlook-integration
resolutions. Improve the PUC’s
contracting tracking and reporting
capabilities by connecting Salesforce
to SOLIS and PeopleSoft so that all
information is stored within one
master CRM. Enable Salesforce to
meet new function of tracking
External Affairs’ engagement with
community-based organizations
through new contact tags and
updated user permissions.
The project team has flexibility on
timeline and refining scope, however
there isn't an alternative CRM
platform in mind at this time.
The project team is estimating
$100,000 will be needed to
implement the scope of work,
licenses, and project management
support.
The project team will develop a
timeline and prioritization of
deliverables once we have an
estimate number of hours and cost
attached to each item.
No applicable at this time; project
has not started
Title Enterprise
Division
Bureau
Analysis Type Project
Manager
Business
Sponsor
Background Business Impact Alternatives Financial Considerations Schedule Report Customer Service Bureau
(CSB) Support Technology
Business
Services
Implementation Alan Marshall Marge Vizcarra This project will transform the Customer Service experience at the
SFPUC. It will modernize our
technology and enable us to optimize
business processes to align with
current and future Customer Service
needs and bring increased
operational effectiveness.
Will provide residents, rate-payers
and consumers of our water, greater
access to their data. A lack of
modern, flexible technology here at
PUC is making it impossible to
improve Customer Service business
process, and restricts how customers
access their data. This project will
increase customer satisfaction,
reduce staff and customer
frustration, and improve the
experience of our staff. The project
is aligned with the PUC’s cloud first
policy and meets Security, Business
Continuity and DR guidelines.
Not completing this project puts the
PUC at risk as it will fall further
behind in its technology and what
customers expect from a modern
utility. Customer's now demand
modern access (txt, mobile, chat etc)
to their billing and usage
information, and this project will
improve the customer experience,
engagement and overall satisfaction.
Not completing this work will
increase customer frustrations,
making it challenging to retain staff,
and could impact our ability to
collect revenue in a timely manner.
$16.1M over 4 years.
FY'22/23 = $1,900,000
FY'23/24 = $2,600,000
FY'24/25 = $5,800,000
FY'25/26 = $5,800,000
Request includes critical off budget
FTE to manage sizeable
transformation effort, consulting and
licensing fees. No impact on
operating costs during the 4-year
implementation. Maintenance and
licensing costs will be needed under
the operating budget post-
implementation.
Project duration spans FY'22/23 to
FY'25/26
Not Applicable at this time.
Cyber Security Business
Services
Implementation Ramsey
Williams
Eric
Sandler/Ron
Flynn
Continue to build upon our existing
Cyber Security investments through
capability maturity to ensure
consistent Cyber Security protections
enterprise-wide; while leveraging a
Risk-based approach to focus Cyber
Security efforts.
Cyber Security protections require
constant vigilance. Align with our
Mayor’s Executive Directive 21-02 –
Cybersecurity, the SFPUC will
continue to build on the existing
Cyber Security program and
capabilities.
Consequences of not doing this
project results in increased Cyber
Security risk
$778k in software & services and 1
new FTEs over 2 years.
FY'22/23 = $329,088, 1 new FTE
(1054)
FY'23/24 = $449,000
Project duration spans FY'22/23 to
FY'23/24
Not Applicable at this time.
Data Maturity Assessment Business
Services
Investigation 0923 Project
Manager to be
hired following
budget
approval. In the
interim, project
sponsors will lay
the ground
work.
Tricia Yang,
Lawrence
Chew
The SFPUC is seeking an assessment
of its data and business intelligence
approach to enable more robust and
data-informed decision making. The
agency seeks to increase our
awareness of available data, define
gaps and enhance our capacity for
business intelligence. This Data
Maturity Assessment will review
existing data sources and reporting
functionalities across the SFPUC,
define business priorities and
requirements across SFPUC
stakeholders, identify resources,
level-of-effort and implementation
road map to modernize SFPUC data
and business intelligence
approaches.
More robust, data-informed decision
making. Greater access to real time
data across the agency.
Not pursing this initiative prolongs
fragmented and shallow
understanding and utilizing data in
decision making. Data and access is
limited to a few and not necessarily
understood holistically.
0923 and 1053 positions have been
requested to run the assessment, in
addition to $500,000 in professional
services funding. An additional 1043
and $250,000 (software and/or
professional services) has been
requested to kick off the
implementation, but the full
implementation and long term
maintenance costs will be clarified
following the assessment.
FY'22/23 = 2 new FTEs (0923, 1053),
$500,000 professional services
FY'23/24 = 1 new FTEs (1043),
$250,000 software and/or
professional services
FY22-23 - Data Maturity Assessment
(may potentially run through FY23-24
if the professional services contract
and / or resources are delayed)
FY23-24 - Kick off implementation
Not applicable at this time - project
not started.
Title Enterprise
Division
Bureau
Analysis Type Project
Manager
Business
Sponsor
Background Business Impact Alternatives Financial Considerations Schedule Report Foundation for Customer
Insights – Audit and
Recommendations of
Customer Data Systems
External
Affairs
Investigation Kesinee Yip External Affairs The audit and analysis of the systems, services, staffing, and
support models to provide a
foundation for growing and
operating an effective data analytics
and insights function to support
outreach and communications. Such
work in the short term should enable
the SFPUC to gather customer/rate-
payer data, perform
customer/audience segmentation,
and analyze a variety of data
including customer journey data,
data from polls, focus groups, social
media, and other sources.
This project will increase the
organization’s effectiveness and
thereby reduce costs by providing a
data and system architecture and
roadmap of systems that need to be
integrated, migrated or “sunset.”
Not known at this time beyond
potentially dedicating new or
additional staff resources.
Implementation costs to be
determined with the assistance of
the vendor.
This work is planned concurrently
with Audience Insights, Journey
Maps, and Branding (described
above) so any implementation of
new systems or upgrades need
should minimize any disruption to
that body of work. Ultimately, this
work is dedicated to the
enhancement of SFPUC's employee
and customer experience. Activities
may include but are not limited to
interviews/focus groups/surveys, the
audit of existing communication
channels, reviewing existing sources
of data and analytic tools, and
exploration of tools and technologies
to measure effective two-way
communication and outreach. Key to
this effort is the development of
tools and dashboards to strategically
target audiences and increase
engagement.
Not Applicable at this time.
Live EO software for Wildfire
Mitigation
Water
Enterprise
Implementation Joy Mellera Adam
Mazurkiewicz
LiveEO is a Germany based company
that analyzes satellite data for
vegetation encroachments for
electric utility facilities. Many
utilities are beginning to alternate
LiDAR with satellite analysis due to
its reduced cost and faster
turnaround times. The deliverable
will include a high-resolution image
of our ROW along the electric
system. The data we will receive is
compatible with ESRI ArcGIS and the
Collector App for easy field
verification. This analysis will help
us: identify areas with vegetation
encroachment, prioritize spans
based on vegetation distance from
conductor and provide high-level
images for pre-patrol awareness.
This software will help Hetch Hetchy
Water achieve goals in its Wildfire
Mitigation Plan.
The modeling data that is produced
by the LiveEO and Technosylva
products will assist the SFPUC in
targeting areas where additional
vegetation and/or tree removal
projects would be most beneficial for
mitigating wildfires and protecting
SFPUC assets. Areas with the
potential for large fire spread that
are near communities may become
priority projects. Modeling data will
also help in making determinations
on when and where overhead lines
should be de-energized for safety.
The SFPUC has assets on land that is
owned by various entities, including
federal (USFS/BLM) and state owned
lands (CAL FIRE as the agency having
jurisdiction), the SFPUC would
collaborate with these various
entities to ensure the project meets
the agencies goals and is mutually
beneficial. Data on fire spread
potential may also be beneficial to
the Southwest Interface Team
(SWIFT) partners, a group comprised
of a variety of government and
Currently, HHW uses costly
helicopter flights to inspect the lines
and right-of-way. This technology
will allow us to reduce the number of
flights needed, as well as provide
additional information for making
informed choices on wildfire
mitigation management.
The cost will be roughly equivalent to
what is spend on helicopter flights,
but data is provided on a quarterly
basis.
The goal is to have the service in
place by the end of the calendar
year.
Not applicable at this time.
Title Enterprise
Division
Bureau
Analysis Type Project
Manager
Business
Sponsor
Background Business Impact Alternatives Financial Considerations Schedule Report Mandatory water reduction
functionality for retail water
service customers in CC&B
Water
Enterprise
Implementation Fan, Lau Steve, Ritchie The SFPUC needs to have the ability to enact mandatory water cuts on
customers in times of severe water
shortages due to drought or other
disasters if calls for voluntary
conservation don't achieve enough
water savings. Right now, the CC&B
billing system does not have the
functionality to enable this within
two to three months of the SFPUC
declaring the need to enact
mandatory reductions. While the
Water Enterprise will always seek to
achieve the maximum water
reductions possible through
voluntary means, we have to be
prepared for potential future water
shortage situations so dire that
enforcing cuts on customers would
be the only way to stretch remaining
supplies. During the 2014-2017
drought, the SFPUC enacted
mandatory reductions on irrigation
account customers (approximately
1,500) and that was done outside of
CC&B due to the complexity and time
it would have taken to build the
Spending the time and effort now to
build mandatory reduction into CC&B
and an online appeals process will
save the SFPUC staff and consultant
time and money compared to doing
it on a rushed and emergency bases
when we are at the point of a critical
water shortage where it is needed.
Building it now will also ensure high
quality and more thorough testing
and reduction of potential glitches
than doing it in a rushed way, and
will also reduce staff stress and
overload.
The main alternative is one the
SFPUC already follows, which is to
seek as much water reductions from
customers through voluntary means
as possible. But if the water supply
situation is severe enough, voluntary
efforts would not achieve enough
savings. For small customer sectors
like irrigation accounts, the
mandatory reduction program can
be done outside of CC&B. But doing
all customer sectors outside of CC&B
would not be efficient and would
likely be as much or more work to
establish and test without the long-
term benefit of having the
information contained in the billing
system.
It depends how much of the work
can be done in-house by ITS staff
versus by consultants. If all or most
of the work would be done by
consultants, roughly estimate the
cost at $250,000 to $500,000 but ITS
needs to provide a specific estimate
and determine how much can be
done in house.
Work to establish the business
requirements is already in progress.
Schedule is to complete that, and
have ITS provide a thorough cost
estimate and confirmation of
resources needed to do the work in
February 2022 and then begin
implementation by March 2022 with
completion by July 2022.
Not Applicable at this time.
ServiceNow HR Case
Management
Human
Resources
Bureau
Implementation Connie Chau Rachel
Gardunio
The San Francisco Public Utilities
Commission’s Human Resource
Services (HRS) strives to be a leader
in innovative HR practices that
improve the efficiency and accuracy
of business operations while
impacting the entire organization in a
meaningful way. This vision aligns
specifically with the Effective
Workforce goals and objectives of
PUC’s 2020 Strategic Plan, which
provides a roadmap to ensure
alignment across all enterprises, to
be efficient with resources and
focusing them on the best outcome
for our customers, and to prepare for
changes in the future. Since the
release of the Racial Equity Action
Plan in 2021, HRS has focused on
prioritizing key action items in Fiscal
Year 2021-22 to address our goals of
racial equity, diversity, and inclusion.
One key RE initiative is the ability to
identify and address inequities in our
discipline and separation practices.
Last fiscal year (FY2021), we were
able to secure funding to purchase
ServiceNow Case Management
capability includes
• Enhance efficiency - being able to
manage, prioritize, and route all
inquires and requests through a
single workspace
• Improve service delivery - gaining
visibility into the volume and types of
ELR cases being generated
• Simple dashboards - ability to
report on, understand, and improve
HR service and workloads to make
most of existing resources
• Ability to track disciplinary action s
and analyze subsequent
disaggregated data (RE Action Item
3.1.1)
Other case management solutions
considered include LaborSoft, i-Sight,
Micropact, and Navex Global.
The one time implementation cost
for ELR Case Management is
$128,900. The yearly licensing cost is
about $148,000.
Implementation targeted to begin
end of January 2022 and expected to
last for 17 weeks
Not applicable at this time.
Title Enterprise
Division
Bureau
Analysis Type Project
Manager
Business
Sponsor
Background Business Impact Alternatives Financial Considerations Schedule Report Technosylva Wildfire Analyst
Enterprise Web Solution
Water
Enterprise
Implementation Ethan
Billigmeier
Adam
Mazurkiewicz
SFPUC approved the 2019 Wildfire
Mitigation Plan (WMP) to establish
methods and procedures to
construct, maintain, and operate
SFPUC electrical lines to minimize the
risk of catastrophic wildfires caused
by SFPUC-owned overhead electrical
lines and equipment, and also to
address the requirements set forth in
various State regulations. Wildfire
Analyst™ is advanced state-of-the-art
wildfire behavior and spread
simulation service, delivering real-
time modeling capabilities in
minutes. The software integrates
real-time weather acquisition with
advanced modeling to calculate
where a fire is going, when it is going
to reach critical locations, and what
potential impacts there may be.
The software, which is available 24-7
and has unlimited logins, aggregates
all weather information for specific
locations, such as those with HHW
electrical facilities, providing
projections for how quickly and how
far fire can spread based on
geographic and weather conditions.
It also shows potential impact to
residential communities. Based on
the data provided, HHW can perform
enhanced vegetation management in
prioritized areas, as well as
potentially choose to underground
utilities where necessary.
This is a unique program currently
successfully used in Southern
California by SoCal Edison. HHW is
piloting a less expensive version with
slightly reduced features, since our
facilities are more limited than
PG&E's and SoCal Edison's.
Implementation costs are close to
100K, but WS&T will also use the
program to a lesser extend and will
provide 10% of the funding.
The goal is to have the program in
place by the by end of the calendar
year.
Not applicable at this time.
Update Digital Display Boards
and move to Enplug Software
Water
Enterprise
Implementation Leslie Mikan &
Micah Joncich
Margaret
Hannaford
Hetch Hetchy Water has
approximately 19 digital display
boards hung throughout its facilities
with one located at the Warnerville
office, one at the Early Intake
bunkhouse, O'Shaughnessy
watershed keeper's cottage. Five of
the boards no longer work. The
technology in the is close to 10 years
old and the system can no longer be
updated. Additionally, the monitors
are failing and the players are no
longer supported.
Digital display boards allow quick
dissemination of information,
especially in remote locations. The
new technology is Enplug which is
currently used successfully by PUC
HQ. The boards can provide
emergency notifications; weather
reports and regular updates about
what is going on at HHW, such as
trainings, interactive maps, critical
infrastructure information, and
forecast outage info. The new
technology requires less
maintenance and fewer support
staff.
Emailing information, but many field
staff do not have email accounts. Or
via Sharepoint, but not all field staff
have computer access.
The cost for the update is in the
current budget.
The goal is to purchase and install
the digital display boards by the end
of the fiscal year 2023.
Not applicable at this time. HHW is
beginning the process of gather the
needed information to order the new
equipment.
Title Enterprise
Division
Bureau
Analysis Type Project
Manager
Business
Sponsor
Background Business Impact Alternatives Financial Considerations Schedule Report Visier Human
Resources
Bureau
Pilot Connie Chau Rachel
Gardunio
The San Francisco Public Utilities
Commission’s Human Resource
Services (HRS) strives to be a leader
in innovative HR practices that
improve the efficiency and accuracy
of business operations while
impacting the entire organization in a
meaningful way. This vision aligns
specifically with the Effective
Workforce goals and objectives of
PUC’s 2020 Strategic Plan, which
provides a roadmap to ensure
alignment across all enterprises, to
be efficient with resources and
focusing them on the best outcome
for our customers, and to prepare for
changes in the future.The benefits of
data analytics in the HR industry are
being widely acknowledged and has
been confirmed by attendance at
various HR conferences. In the past
four years, HRS has been actively
researching workforce intelligence
solutions to determine the best fit
and value for the organization. Last
fiscal year, we were able to secure
funding to purchase Visier People
Visier People's capability includes
providing answers to hundreds of
pre-built, best practice questions,
across a range of HR and business
topics while empowering HR staff,
managers and leaders with insights
on-demand, and scale across the
department.With this workforce
intelligence solution, we will be able
to conduct multi-dimensional
workforce analyses and trends
including, but not limited to:•
Understanding the
demographics/composition of the
workforce in more dynamic way•
Understanding the trends of
turnover to determine if we are
retaining the right people•
Evaluating career path of key groups
to determine movement and areas of
concern/focus• Evaluating the
composition of new hires (diversity,
gender, etc.)• Evaluating the
retention of new hires with less than
1 year or those with 5-year
tenureWe will also be able to
improve the effectiveness of HRS by
Other analytic solutions that were in
consideration included: Tableau and
Excel Add-Ons: Power Query and
Power Pivot. The common issue
discovered for these alternatives
involved requiring the end user to
have background knowledge in
analytics in order to be able to
compile the data from multiple
sources and be able to create the
respective charts/graphs. Visier
People was the only solution that
offered the benefits of analytics
beyond analysts— to all HR users
and business leaders.
The solution costs $201,000 per year
for a three year subscription.
FY2021 Q3 - Go Live
- Pilot members were identified in
FY2021 Q2
- Training curriculum was sent to
pilot members to complete
- Pilot members were to develop
research questions that they would
utilize Visier to develop an analysis
- Pilot members presented final
analysis to the project team so that it
could be used to gauge their
knowledge in using and
understanding the application
Pilot was not successful as
anticipated;
Members had been identified by
their supervisors as "having interest
in analytics"; however, post
evaluation, it appeared that staffs'
existing background knowledge of
analytics was very limited which
impacted their ability to absorb
concepts and functionalities
presented in the Visier training.
There was also a lack of motivation
by pilot members to continue
learning about the tool and using it
to enhance their day-to-day work.
Due to the pandemic, HRS
experienced staffing attrition within
the pilot group and project team.
Therefore, no additional activities
have been scheduled to deploy
access to additional users. This will
remain status quo until vacancies in
the project team have been filled.
WSTD Remote Monitoring
Program - East Bay
Water
Enterprise
Implementation Richard Harwell Annie Li The WSTD Remote Monitoring Program will employ survey
automation to capture seismic
displacement and deformation
during the lifetime of the facility or
asset being monitored. The
information captured would allow
the SFPUC to better evaluate the
health and behaviors of the assets,
including those after a seismic event.
The first phase of this Program will
address the principle assets located
in the East Bay and include Calaveras
and Turner Dams as well as the
Articulating Joint located at Bay
Division Pipeline No. 3 at the
Hayward crossing. At Turner Dam, 7
GPS units will be deployed along the
crest of the dam and would be
supplemented by 3 high-precision
GPS units installed at various sub-
stations located in the East and
South Bay. At Calaveras Dam, 2 GPS
units and a high precision Total
Station will be installed to provide
real-time displacement monitoring
with millimeter accuracy. For the
The projected impact would be the
accelerated acquisition of survey
data after a seismic event. Currently,
the survey methods employed for
Turner Dam would take 1 week to
generate a report, and the methods
to survey Calaveras Dam would take
3 months or longer. This program
will be able to generate a report
within minutes after an event.
The alternatives currently employed
are the only ones available at this
time.
Currently, the implementation cost
are 585,000 not including
construction cost.
This phase is expected to be
completed by September of 2022
Not Applicable at this time.