< PreviousFeatured Columns-Tribal Membership TechnologiesPawel Majkowski, Enterprise Architect, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi IndiansAfter a leisurely summer the leaves start to fall, days get shorter, nights colder, and students begin to grasp the reality of returning to their studies. College applications, classes, and finals creep back into their memories, pairing perfectly with plenty of paperwork. The Pokagon Band students aren’t the only ones feeling the building onslaught of paperwork. The Department of Education also waits in anticipation. Letters and applications will soon mount an assault on the desks, cubbies, and file cabinets of the department’s associates. Thankfully, this fall there is an IT solution making service processing a lot less hectic, burdensome, and time consuming. Thus, the Pokagon Band Citizen Portal is born. Wrought from the fires of high availability and highly on-demand solutions, then inlaid with automation, the citizen self-service portal offers relief from taxing, tumultuous paper processing throughout the year. Students and staff feel the weight lift. The Citizen Portal is an externally facing, e-government solution positioned to provide tribal citizens with highly available application processing, accessible anywhere and at any time. The unique portal’s purpose was to address pain points centered on previous low availability, inefficiencies of a paper-based system, lacking communication of progress during application processing, and burdensome application submission.Like interacting with the private sector, our citizens seek minimal pain points with solutions that are on-demand. The expectation of 24-hour service offerings is a reality across many industries, and tribal governments are not immune. Citizens approach their service departments with the same hopes as booking a flight online or processing a delivery order from their phones. Citizen self-service is strongly shaping the interaction our citizens seek with tribal service offerings. Our governments cannot fall behind the trend when citizens are expecting services to be quick, highly accessible, and effortlessly usable. Portals provide a centralized environment to fulfill these citizen expectations. Portals have no business hours, and time zones are no longer relevant. Students no longer wonder about progress of applications since integration into line of business applications provides real-time feedback during processing of requests. Internally at the government, no resources are wasted on paper processing, stamps, couriers, staff’s time to open mailed applications, and best of all, paper filing. The staff enjoys a solution that is integrated in their current standard operating procedures and familiar IT tools. Consistent enterprise architecture practices create a highly system-integrated portal, leading to advantages in authentication and data processing. In the nature of building one centralized architecture, the concentration falls on a citizen record, then the solution is built outward. This congruency provides a seamless data path that is vastly scalable, yet easy to integrate with data that is easy to manage. With all citizens in a tribal CRM, there is a distinct advantage of utilizing Personal Identifying Information (PII) of our citizens. Authentication with the portal can rely on this PII, allowing access for the citizens to interact with the portal. Furthermore, our Student Management System (XRM build out, directly related to centralized citizen records) fully integrates into the portal, presenting historic school/education data to The Tribal Citizen Portal is BornPawel MajkowskiEnterprise Architect Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians“In the nature of building one centralized architecture, the concentration falls on a citizen record, then the solution is built outward.” 30TribalNetFeatured Columns-Tribal Membership Technologiesthe citizen upon login. Once in the portal, the citizen can selectively read, write, and update certain pieces of data back into the Student Management System, taking the burden of record management partially off the staff. A process of record co-management between the student and staff affords the Department of Education the luxury of renouncing paper applications for students seeking services. The PII is sufficient for authentication, and thus is sufficient for application submission sans signature, and that pesky process of rewriting your address seven times across all your applications. The roles of education associates change substantially when a paper based system becomes automated. When the citizen passes data through the portal, their data is seamlessly moved to a Student Management System, easing data entry duties on the staff. The associates take on the new role of moderators, as their primary job is now responsible for data oversight. This transition of job duties bodes well for governments in need of scalable solutions. Scalability becomes a pivotal project requirement when design-ing systems for tribes that have oncoming population booms. A mark of efficiency for a system will be seen when consistent numbers of associates can take on a population boom without more effort in their job duties or without addition of staff.If the automation affords the ability to steer citizen’s data into line of business applications, then data entry by staff can be alleviated. Furthermore, if the automation solutions accounts for digital document submission from the citizen, those digital documents can be stored and recalled for future needs by the department, or presented to others in the government, creating cohesion and synergy. We chose the education department to spearhead the project. Students were the prefect tech-savvy early adopters. Already familiar with portal processes like federal financial aid filings, our team knew students would be our best demographic for adoption. Their comfort with technology also meant successful trails and application completions through the processes. Students are the front-runners, but our portal ambitions will not stop with them. Our team is dedicated to creating solutions for many government service offerings, and has great plans for a modularized, life-events centric portal offering in the future. Because at the end of the day, a job well done is a job that gives our citizens the edge to succeed. Spring 2016CREATIVE COMMUNICATIONS OFFERS A WIDE VARIETY OF WIRELESS PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS: • TWO-WAY RADIO COMMUNICATIONS AND ACCESSORIES• DIGITAL RADIO TECHNOLOGY• AUDIO ACCESSORIES• WIRELESS SYSTEMS• INVENTORY / ASSET MANAGEMENT• RENTAL EQUIPMENT• WLAN• IN-BUILDING SIGNAL AMPLIFICATION• CALL BOXES• PROFESSIONAL SERVICES• FCC LICENSING• LARGEST INVENTORY• DELIVERY & PICK-UP• VEHICLE UPFITTING SERVICES (EMERGENCY / COMMERCIAL)• RUGGED COMPUTERS / TABLETS• MOTOROLA AUTHORIZED SERVICE CENTER1-800-767-8405www.creativecom.comPawel G. Majkowski is the Enterprise Architect for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. He holds a Master of Science from Ball State University. His career continually affords him opportunities to work across government agencies. Recently, Pawel has been bringing external-facing IT solutions to the Pokagon Band citizens.TribalNetPh: 269-459-9890 • info@tribalnetonline.com • www.tribalnetonline.comOn May 10th we’ll post our first Discount Code for you to use any way you want-Membership, Conference Registration, All Access Pass - connect with us now so you don’t miss out!Top 5 Reasons to follow us onSocial Mediascan the code to connect!Product SpotlightGridstore all-flash HyperConverged Infrastructure (HCI) is a data center game changer. Virtual machines (VMs) cost less, run faster and consume less space, power and cooling compared to traditional and converged infrastructures. Gridstore all-flash HCI does for infrastructure what virtualization did for servers.Gridstore’s unique architecture does not replicate the full infrastructure stack three times like other hyper-converged platforms. Instead, Gridstore uses erasure coding that offers the same fault tolerance and usable capacity but uses 50% less infrastructure to achieve this. This is a direct savings of 50% capital cost and 50% ongoing operating costs.Gridstore’s HCI supports Windows Azure Pack, enabling deployment of Private-Cloud-in-a-Box easily and cost-effectively. Azure Pack provides a multi-tenant, self-service private cloud interface that works with Windows Server and System Center, to deliver self-service provisioning, easy movement of workloads to the cloud, and infrastructure management. Additionally, Gridstore’s integration with System Center includes VMM for policy-based provisioning and orchestration of compute and storage resources at VM-level granularity. Value to Native American market:Gridstore is able to provide our tribal customers with the ability to easily deploy a private cloud that is well suited to supporting the administrative needs of running reservation infrastructure. This includes workloads typical to municipality needs, like Microsoft Exchange, SQL databases, file servers, and Sharepoint. The Gridstore solution can start small and expand as needed to support growth and incremental demands on the IT infrastructure of the tribe.Who We Are: Gridstore® is the leader in hyper-converged all-flash infrastructure purpose-built to support the Microsoft technology ecosystem.Gridstore’s award winning HyperConverged Infrastructure, is delivered as an appliance that offers market leading price/performance, efficient scaling, and scale-to-fit design. The Gridstore HCI is easy and fast to deploy while reducing management time and effort. Leveraging its patented software, a Gridstore HCI delivers 75% less physical infrastructure and a 65% lower price-per-VM than traditional solutions. The Gridstore HyperConverged Appliance is an ideal platform for infrastructure refreshes and specific workloads such as VDI, SQL Server, Dev/Test, Private Cloud and ROBO.Gridstore is a Microsoft Gold OEM and Gold Data Center Partner, a member of the Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Alliance and Certified in the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track Program.References of Where Installed: Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican IndiansYavapai-Prescott Indian TribeConfederated Tribes of Grand Ronde OregonCompanyGridstoreSales Contact North American Salessales@gridstore.com 650-316-5515 HyperConverged Infrastructurewww.gridstore.com““Gridstore’s all-flash solution erased all of our issues and beat the competition on performance, fault tolerance, and prices. As far as I’m concerned, Gridstore’s HCA is perfect for everybody.—Chad Dixson, IT Manager - Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe33Spring 2016IT Leaders Q & A - CasinoHo-Chunk Nation & CasinosQ & A with IT Director, Lael HallWe oversee all government and gaming areas for the Ho-Chunk Nation. We have six gaming sites; Wisconsin Dells is our flagship property with close to 2000 slots. The ongoing conversion to SBX gaming and the marketing trends of smaller slot banks really aim toward giving our customers a better gaming experience. We have an IT Supervisor at the government level as well as four IT Supervisors to cover the six gaming sites. Currently our team is cohesive although divided into job roles of; supervisors, engineers, admins and techs. We are always striving towards a more team oriented approach for this year and beyond. As technology changes, our department has to as well. Right now, we are finding ways to evolve our current positions and respond to the changing times. With bigger projects coming up and staff members that are bringing in new skills and new ideas, we are looking to enhance our capabilities and the way we manage projects.As the IT Director, what can you tell us about your IT department?34TribalNetWe invested in several projects last year focused on gaming, this year a lot of our focus areas are on back of house systems and more administrative functions and work processes. One of the biggest projects we are in the trenches of right now is our implementation of Infor/Lawson for our ERP solution. There is really two levels of managing change in this project. First at the user level, mostly on training, new capabilities and processes of the system. Second is managing the change at the IT level of support- how do we support this new system and what are the new roles of people who previously were focused on our old ERP solution. Change can be scary but is a positive thing. The move to Infor/Lawson has many benefits and luckily we have the backing and initial interest of the key stakeholders of this project in the finance divisions. Which is critical in this size of a project. Improved functionality and automation were the big pushes to change over to the new solution. We are rolling this out in phases and we hope that in a year we will be fully functional and live in all areas across the entire nation and enterprises.We are always looking at ways to improve, but two areas that are probably the most notable to mention are the changes we are evaluating for our internal policies and procedures and the change of our help-desk processes and system. It’s important to continuously keep our policies and procedures up to date and sometimes hard to keep up with the pace of the industry. This is something we need to put attention on even down to the details of the exact right wording so we can differentiate policies vs. tribal law. We also have recently tested a help-desk system after one of our supervisors, Bobby Bird went to TribalNet and networked with other IT leaders and discovered a solution that we evaluated and is now preparing to go into full deployment. It will improve our ability to link across all sites and extend our service further with less resources. Our escalation process for service calls will be streamlined and we have an improved response time to support calls. There are metrics we can use that we never had before which will allow us to identify areas for improvement and highlight where we are doing things well.What is the most impactful project your team is working on currently?What are some projects you are working on to improve the IT department?IT Leaders Q & A - CasinoWe would like to thank Lael for taking the time to meet with us for this interview. He welcomes your questions and comments and can be reached at: Lael.Hall@ho-chunk.comWe have some in-house systems that we hope will make improvements on how our developers create programs. We are looking to structure the process to more of a team approach as it pertains to writing code which will translate into better customization for improved functionality. We’ve also been connecting with other tribal nations to share what some of each of our best practices are. Through this process we are looking at various ways to improve service for tribal members with technology and document management solutions. In the security arena, we are taking a closer look at EMV and identifying what else we need to do for compliance. In the telecom spectrum, we are finishing up a WAN upgrade. With our geographic challenge of being spread out all over the state of Wisconsin, being connected can be a challenge. With the upgrade, that will be greatly improved. I know a lot of other tribes have the same geographic obstacles. Our telecom team does a lot to provide excellent service and has done several fiber projects in some critical areas, eliminating the need for circuits, and so, monthly circuit fees. We always have upgrades and smaller day to day projects going on, too many to count or mention- there is never a dull moment!We are fortunate to have a program in place that tribal members can be involved with, which takes them through different levels (1-5) of education and certifications. Even people that start with zero experience can move on to get the training they need to receive certifications and education that puts them into the market for hire in the technology industry. And for those staff who haven’t gone through this program and come to us already well trained in the technical field, we evaluate their training needs on an individual basis. Our organization is very supportive of training and development, for tribal and non-tribal employees, which is key for IT. Use your IT peers that you meet at TribalNet or other events and see other Nations perspectives. You can GET great advice and you can GIVE great advice. It’s important to have a realization of where you are at in comparison to the rest of the industry, where you can improve and where you are doing great. Don’t be afraid to give and take knowledge and use your peers as resources!What other things is your IT department juggling in the day-to-day?What kind of training or development programs do you have in place for your team?What is your advice to your peers in the industry? 35Spring 2016Core TechnologyDesktops/Workstations - HP Enrollment - TDR - ProgenyInfrastructure - Cisco & EMC Slots Management - IGT AdvantageTelecom - Mitel Point of Sale - Agilysys - InfoGenesisHotel - Teradata Accounting/ERP - Infor/Lawson (in progress)Help-Desk - SpiceworksRichard Rader, Chief Technology officer for UIDC, Cow Creek Band of Umpqua IndiansIntroduction to Gaming Resort Hospitality Systems for a new IT Director (Part 3)In the last article, we discussed data collection and access to the information from the marketing departments and gaming operations. Players are savvy to an expected return on their investment in your operation. A high level player is expecting to get a certain amount of compensation in free meals, free play, or some free item or event. The data collected allows the operation to effectively rate the players and provide a standard guidance on which player is gaming in your facility and which ones need to be rewarded the most. This also supports the fact that marketing uses the information to validate their promotions to see if their investment has returned a profit back to the operation.Gaming systems are the lifeblood of a casino op-eration, and a good partner and system will provide an exceptional level of value back to the operation. In part 1 we discussed a basic casino management system; in part 2 we discussed player rewards and loyalty; in part 3 we will discuss the other interfaces that are important to an operation, as well as how to support the products your vendors have provided to you.Other products de-pend on the operation such as a point of sale (POS) for outlets and restaurants or a property management system (PMS) for hospitality like hotel rooms and RV parks. Finally, there are other specialized applications that are used for golf courses, spas, and event centers. In our operation, we have chosen to use the Micros Suite of products for our hotel, RV park, and restaurants. We have decided to use a single supplier to reduce the complexity of the interfaces to the systems. A person staying in the hotel often wants to charge their meals to their room. This can be done with multiple products, but for a reduced total cost of ownership, we have chosen to use a single supplier and let them support and manage the interface without a need for custom code. The interface of a company like Micros for the gaming system, already created and published, allows consumption of points and rewards in the system at the venues. This was very appealing to our operation to reduce the complexity and have a single partner we can work with.A great gaming system can go a long way, but for a complete operation it is important that you consider all the potential touch points of the data and use vendors who will partner with you to make a great so-lution. We recently upgraded to Micros Symphony II, and there were a significant number of problems on the initial rollout that were caused by both our imple-mentation and the product. Our local Value Added Reseller was exceptional in their response to make the solution work very well. Our guests feel that ev-erything is connected, reducing their wait times and allowing them to use more of the amenities. The area that I have the most heart burn over is the Payment Card Industry (PCI) and payment card methods. We have a single processor, and all of the products are funneled through that gateway. PCI is a huge potential cost of an operation and for the new IT director that can either make or break your opera-tion. An exploit or unauthorized release of credit card data can destroy reputations and put a burden on the operation to pay for ongoing expenses to af-fected guests.Richard RaderChief Technology officer for UIDCCow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians“A great gaming system can go a long way, but for a complete operation it is important that you consider all the potential touch points of the data and use vendors who will partner with you to make a great solution.”Featured Columns - Gaming & Hospitality Systems36TribalNetFeatured Columns - Gaming & Hospitality SystemsWhat I recommend is to get three distinct quotes from different products, and in the evaluation ask for recommendations and try to do a site visit to a similar operation the vendor has recommended. Other operations are often going to give you a real worldview of the good and the bad of the operation and the product. We have been looking at product replacements for the past couple of years, and I can honestly say the properties we have visited in the different product evaluations have been open and honest with us, and we have built great relationships with them.Okay, on to support for the existing products you have purchased. It is important to have a tracking system for the help desk and workload. One thing we have done here is to create a systems definition document on every product installed to help the IT team respond to issues and concerns. The system definition documents have been instrumental in reducing frustration by the IT staff and IT manage-ment. We now have a starting point for support on every product. Here are the main sections of this document:The information above is vital for a starting point for the operation. The system definitions give you a heads up overview. The standardized format allows us to combine them into a single document each month that is searchable and indexed for all IT Team members to use. 37Spring 2016System Definition Document• System Description: Business purpose of the application• System Support Matrix: Who to call and the escalation order• System Diagram: Simple stick diagram showing interfaces and connectivity to different systems• Data Flow Diagram: Simple diagram showing how information flows into or out of the system• Connection Information: Instructions on how to connect to the system and check connectivity• Problem Characterization: This is a definition of what the severity, response, and notifications should be• Troubleshooting and Diagnostic Tools: Anything special needed to read log files or find log files to see what is occurring• Top 5 Reported Issues with the System: This is a matrix with Description, Symptom, Solution, and Priority”Ticket resolution is the key to success, and a good knowledge base (KB) system and ticket system is an aide that will pay off to the new IT director. One thing I have tried to do is reward good behavior by having competitions between the different shifts to create some fun at work. Creating KB’s is an expecta-tion of the department; if you have learned some-thing new, please share with your fellow teammate, not by a verbal conversation but by a KB so the entire team can gain knowledge and skills.If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me, and I can provide assistance when and where I can.Featured Columns - Gaming & Hospitality SystemsRichard Rader, Chief Technology officer for UIDC, Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians/Seven FeathersMy organization provides all IT support to the businesses inside the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians. In 2012 the IT organization was restructured from just the casino and some businesses to overseeing all IT operations for the tribe. I have a staff of 20 Technologists over two different geographical locations supporting over 1,200 employees in the various businesses and government along with a tribal membership of over 1,300. The tribal history of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians is quite impressive and shows the resilience of the people and their culture moving forward. The story is located on the website at: http://www.cowcreek.com/tribalgovernment/tribal-story. A good resource of information showing how the tribe was forced to disband and collectively were able to reinstate their rights and work as a cooperative partner with the community.Gaming and Hospitality Leaders Choose ForeScout.ForeScout understands the complex security needs of hotels and casinos—from securing Internet of Things (IoT) devices and critical business systems to providing guest access. Here are three reasons why entertainment companies choose ForeScout solutions: See. Identify, profile and assess users, devices, systems and applications the moment they access your network—without software agents or prior device knowledge. Control. Allow deny or limit network access based on device posture to enforce your security policies and comply with industry mandates and regulations.Orchestrate. Share information and automate workflows with more than 70 network, security, mobility and IT management products* for higher return on investment and far better security. Learn how at www.forescout.com© 2016. ForeScout Technologies, Inc. is a privately held Delaware corporation. ForeScout, the ForeScout logo, ControlFabric, CounterACT Edge, ActiveResponse and CounterACT are trademarks or registered trademarks of ForeScout. Other names mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners.* As of January 2016Agency Updates - ATNIThe Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) are committed to closing the broadband gap in rural Indian Country, below are updates on program and policy actions that will support tribal broadband development. Tribal Technology Training (T3) Overview:The committee passed a resolution of support for T3, but due to huge gaps in Internet coverage for many rural tribes, the committee had to address policy and funding issues that have redlined our community. We focused on an intertribal policy change strategy to leverage funds to develop, implement, and sustain the T3 program. Below is the T3 overview. Tribal Technology Training (T3), is a tribally-led program developed to increase workforce opportunities for the native community and to address the lack of broadband and technology access to tribal communities and tribal governments. One of the main T3 goals is the development of a native-led pilot program that will provide technology training tailored to the unique needs of native people. This high impact program will have a long-term effect on the communities we serve, as they will be better equipped for employment in higher wage occupations upon graduation.T3 Sponsored Meetings and Trainings: • January 27 - 28, 2015 – USDA RUS Broadband Workshop held in Olympia, Washington, and Funding Tour to Olympic Peninsula Tribes including Quinault, Quileute, Makah and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribes. • May 2015 – ATNI Spring Conference in Warm Springs – USDA RUS training & site visit hosted by Warm Springs Telecommunications Company, Sal Sahme, and Jose Matanane. • August 12, 2015 – ATNI Energy, Technology, and Economic Summit, Portland, Oregon ATNI Energy Program & Technology Committee partnered with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Northwest Region), Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, OneNet WA, and the Federal Communications Commission to hold the first ATNI Energy, Technology, and Economic Summit. The summit brought together tribal, energy, non-profit, and government partners to work on strategies for advancing tribal energy and technology issues. • November 17 - 18, 2015 – E-Rate Tribal Training The new Tribal E Rate Program provides funds to connect Tribal Schools and Libraries to broadband services. • March 21, 2016 – ATNI presents at the “Digital Northwest, a Regional Broadband USA Summit” hosted by NTIA in Seattle to ensure tribal and rural needs are highlighted. Going forward: • Implement T3 to help build tech skills for northwest tribal members to support future career development. • Gain support to pass the “Tribal Resources Economic Growth Act of 2016” (TREGA) authored by Robert Martin, (Makah) Tribal Attorney • Build on resolution of support for FirstNet for Funding for the Washington OneNet, FirstNet in Oregon, and Idaho First Responder Act to ensure local input in the development of the nation’s national first responder communications system. • Push for the “National Tribal Broadband Summit” as suggested in the Broadband Opportunity Council report. Affiliated Tribes of Northwest IndiansAndrea Alexander, (Makah) Tribal Outreach for OneNet WA ATNI Energy & Telecommunications Committee Co-Chair Aalexander795@gmail.com 425-501-004239Spring 2016Next >