< PreviousFeatured Columns - Business IntelligenceJesse Seymour, business intelligence developer, Forest County Potawatomi CommunityThe year was 2014. Our IT team consisted of about 27 people, with five managers and one administrative assistant. The rest of the staff were technical staff of various levels ranging from help desk technicians to systems administrators. Our customer satisfaction was low, and business units would rather run their own IT than engage the IT department. Even worse, we had no clue why users were attempting to circumvent us in the software and hardware procurement processes. Our decisions were made based on gut feelings and intuition rather than measured data compared against baseline performance. The customers that got the most attention were the customers that caused us the most pain. Essentially, we were fighting fires and holding the line. Flash forward to today. Now at 29 members with four managers, the IT team is driving the vision that the rest of the organization is trying to achieve. So what changed? The answer is two midsized words: business intelligence. And no, that’s not an oxymoron. Business intelligence has allowed us to baseline our performance, establish challenging goals, and moni-tor our progress toward those goals.How exactly did business intelligence enable this huge turnaround? In order to answer that question, we need to first visit what life was like prior to implementing business intelligence. In those dark ages, service managers had to run and review several canned reports if they wanted to make an informed decision. The effort to run those reports, aggregate the results manually in Excel, and then analyze what the data was telling you, took way longer than making a decision based on what you directly observed in your day to day routines. As you can imagine, not very many service managers took the time to aggregate the reports, let alone analyze that data correctly. Service Level Agreement (SLA) rate was particularly cumbersome to measure because someone had to manually count each ticket that was resolved prior to its deadline. Needless to say, this was not done very often.Business intelligence automates this entire process. In fact, we have a square for each technical team that changes color based on the rate of tickets resolved outside of service level windows. When less than 20% of the total tickets are closed outside of service levels, the square is green. The square is yellow when the rate is between 20% and 25%, and if it climbs to over 25%, the square goes red. Managers know at a glance if their teams are meeting their service levels, and they don’t even have to run one single report. In fact, they can get this data at their desk on their PC or at their favorite coffee shop via their mobile phone. Implementing business intelligence also didn’t incur any additional licensing costs because we already owned Microsoft SQL Server. Once we had the foundation in place, we were able to build key performance indicators, dashboards, and reports that aggregated and analyzed the data for us. We were able to see that our technicians did well on resolving tickets that came in that same day, but once a ticket made it past the first day it typically lingered for quite a while. We were also able to see at a glance which of our technical teams was falling behind their service levels. In fact, in 2014 our SLA rate, or the percent of tickets that were closed at or before deadline, was 66%. With the baseline 2014 measurements, we were able to justify restructuring our IT team. Today, it’s 81%, which is a 15% increase from where we started prior to implementing business intelligence. Move Over – Time for Data to Take the WheelJesse Seymourbusiness intelligence developerForest County Potawatomi Community “Wouldn’t you rather be able to see that you are the best and your managers are making the best decisions possible because they are well informed?”50TribalNetFeatured Columns - Business IntelligenceH. James Harrington has a great quote on the subject of measuring performance: “Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement.” Prior to business intelligence, the only measures we looked at were how many tickets were being closed and how many were left open in each technician’s queue. We didn’t care which tickets were closed, just as long as we could point and say “Look at how busy we are, we closed 150 tickets today!” Never mind that we also opened 160 tickets, and that our team was management heavy. By changing our measurement to the percentage of tickets closed outside of SLA, we became much better at delivering quality customer service. Without business intelligence, we never would have been able to effectively measure this metric.Now I bet you are thinking to yourself that colors, numbers, and pretty graphs can’t drive business changes, and that it certainly can’t drive process improvement. Or perhaps you are in the same boat as our managers were prior to business intelligence, and don’t even know that your processes need to be improved. Both of these things are certainly possible. It’s also certainly possible that you are already operating at the peak of your capa-bilities because you have dedicated managers who spend hours aggregating and analyzing data. It is certainly possible…But wouldn’t you rather know with 100% certainty that you are the best you can be? Wouldn’t you rather be able to see that you are the best and your managers are making the best decisions possible because they are well informed? If you answered to yes to either question, you need business intelligence. Business intelligence will provide you with the data you need so that when you say you are the best, no one can argue with you. No one can say you are wrong because you are speaking from facts, not just from your gut.So now that you see how data can improve your organization, you might be wondering just how to get started. The first step is to identify your most important business process. It should be the business process that impacts your organization the most. For us, that was our help desk service delivery process. Once you identify your most valuable process, you can then warehouse that data and start generating analytics.Jesse Seymour is a business intelligence developer who has been developing business solutions for Forest County Potawatomi Community since 2013. He earned his MBA from the University of Phoenix in May, 2015. Jesse currently resides in Antigo, WI and blogs at www.jesseseymour.com. 51Spring 2016Q & A - Industry Award RecipientsQ & A - 2015 Tribalnet Industry Award RecipientsQ: What are your secrets to success in getting the most out of the resources and tools you have? Q: What do you think are the most important things to consider when taking a concept/idea to a reality and executing? Q: How does the diversity of systems and pace of the industry impact your existing and long-term vision for your department?Q: What does the word innovation mean to you?First, it starts with what we work on. We work with the business leaders to ensure that we are working on the right projects that align with the strategic priorities of the enterprises. We do this through an IT portfolio management process that prioritizes the list of active and requested projects and allows us to communicate that to the business. This ensures alignment. It also ensures that we not only focus on the right projects, but communicates what we explicitly are not going to work on. Second, is how we do our work. We have implemented a rigorous project management process to ensure the project outcomes that benefit the business are met and done so in a timely and cost-effective manner. Third, and most important, is the IT team who does the actual work. We ensure the IT staff have the appropriate level of leadership guidance and mentoring, training, and tools to increase the likelihood of successful project delivery.If you are trying something new, something different for either you or the organization, you’ll need the following traits/characteristics. Perseverance because there will be many times when you hit a dead end, financial crisis or times when you question the validity of your project. You need to be able to continue on realizing this is but a bump in a very long road. Keep goals based in reality. As mentioned above, there will be days when you think nothing will work and there will be others where your ego has you believing your idea/product will be a smash hit. One needs to keep their emotions in check with reality. Very few ideas become instant hits and keep the negative thoughts at bay by listening to your advisors, etc. Finally, enjoy the moment. You’re doing something that most don’t do. You have a new idea and you are pushing it to fruition. Enjoy and learn from the experience.One of the primary aspects of the vision for our department is to not only continue to meet the on-going operational needs of the businesses we support in the timeframe they demand, but also to enable them to grow and transform. As we strive to meet the speed-to-market needs of the varied businesses throughout the enterprise, we’ve structured our department so that certain resources are focused primarily on the government entities and others are focused on the gaming/hospitality entities. This improves the ability for these resources to align with and more fully understand the respective business lines and technology needs. We also have organized other resources whose skills apply universally to be leveraged across the entire enterprise. To ensure that the speed of IT matches the pace required by the business, we’ve developed standard, repeatable processes which improve our time of delivery. This includes mature project management tools and processes, standardized technology platforms, streamlined vendor/solution evaluation processes, and others. Even contract reviews have become standardized with certain required language incorporated depending on the type of application configuration. We continually look for internal process improvements. This initiative is an on-going means of delivering more effectively. In terms of supporting the growth and transformation of the enterprises’ businesses, our vision includes being partners with the key business leaders throughout the enterprise. This helps us identify and deliver solutions that more closely match the businesses’ strategic plans and enables us to do so more efficiently. Finally, the longer-term vision for IT includes doing more in the way of cloud-based solutions to leverage greater economies-of-scale and speed, improved collaboration with our peers in the tribal-IT world to learn from their best practices, and developing closer relationships with local colleges to meet the increasing challenges of recruiting qualified talent.We went for this award because we really felt we were creating something entirely new for users. Innovation to me means creating something brand new or even taking an existing idea to another level. Ultimately you are providing a new experience/ service/product for the user in a manner they’ve never seen before. 52This award is especially meaningful as it is recognition among our peers in the tribal IT field. It is gratifying to our entire Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community IT Department to know that our diligence and accomplishments are acknowledged at a well- respected organization such as TribalNet. We consistently have many projects in-flight and numerous completed throughout a year and feel as though we really are ‘doing more with less’, as stated by the Hurdlers Award, the recognition of this is very rewarding.Mark Treat, Director of IT accepted the award on behalf of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC).Chuck Scharnagle, CIO of the Mohegan Tribe accepted their award on behalf of his team.We at the Mohegan Tribe’s IT department greatly appreciate this award. The fact that TribalNet saw fit to give us the Innovator’s Award helps validate the hard work and dedication it took to get RingSide to where it is today. Everyone associated with the project recognizes that other tribes are working equally hard to create opportunities for their tribal governments, casinos, and other entities. To be placed at the top for a year is very special for all of us.Q & A - Industry Award RecipientsQ: What are your best tools for measuring the success and impact of your departments technology initiatives on the business?Q: Where do you see technology’s role falling in the casino and hospitality industry 10 years from now?We track both quantitative and qualitative measures using ITSM methodologies and tools. The primary goal of the measures are to gauge how technology initiatives impact business objectives of the enterprise. For qualitative measures, on the operational side, we track internal feedback from our users on the level of service provided. We focus on availability, capacity, incident management and problem management to ensure stated QOS levels are met per our SLA’s. On the project side we measure ROI for each individual project and follow the SCRUM methodology for project execution.I feel in 10 years it would be very difficult to discern the difference between business and technology. Here are some of my thoughts; technologies role will increase exponentially in supporting and driving every business process within the enterprise and beyond, extreme data mining and big data analysis will drive every decision in either an automated or manual fashion, smart agents within the enterprise will manage most of the digital interactions within the enterprise and security will continue to be a primary concern. Behavioral and cognitive science theories will form the underpinning of the interactions.Thank you for recognizing our team for all their hard work and accomplishments. I am thrilled to receive the award on behalf of the Viejas IT team from an organization like TribalNet. Our IT team members bring their talents and drive to collaborate with each other to execute on the vision laid out by our General Manager and the Tribe. The award has energized the team even more to focus on critical business needs and deliver value to the enterprise.Ram Patrachari, CIO of Viejas Enterprises accepted the award on behalf of his team.TribalNet is accepting nominations for IT teams to receive one of the 2016 TribalNet industry awards Deadline to submit: 8/15/16NEW voting process in 2016 that will involve engaging conference attendees in casting their vote! Recognize your IT team for their achievements this year by submitting your nomination TODAY!Visit us online to complete the recommendation form at: www.tribalnetonline.comWelcome to the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC)I enjoy saying this to new members. We have had another year of outstand-ing growth as more and more people are coming to realize how valuable this no-cost resource can be to them. The MS-ISAC is an independent 501c3 non-profit organization funded by the Department of Homeland Security to provide free cybersecurity services to our nation’s state, local, tribal, and territo-rial governments, as well as, any organizations owned by these governments.If you represent a tribal government or an enterprise that is owned by a federally recognized tribal government, then you are in luck! The MS-ISAC can provide you with free resources ranging from an experienced incident response team to real time monitoring for misuse of any domains or IP address-es owned by your organization. I have worked with Shannon, Mike, and the entire TribalNet family since 2013. I remain impressed with their passion and commitment to bringing security conscious people together. At the MS-ISAC I am surrounded by dedicated individuals who have a pas-sion for what they do. Equally important, they have enormous respect for the members we serve.At its core, security, be it physical or cyber, is the desire and means to protect ourselves and oth-ers. The philosophy of the MS-ISAC was beautifully articulated by our first CEO, Will Pelgrin, who said, “We can achieve much more collectively, than we can in-dividually.” This is the basis for what we do every day. I spend my days on the computer and phone connecting with people who may not know me or the MS-ISAC. My message is simple, direct, and honest. There is no cost to join the MS-ISAC, there are no hidden fees down the road, and there is no obligation or requirement to stay a member. So why wouldn’t you join?We can prove to you just how valuable MS-ISAC can be! We can offer you cyber event notifications, educational webcasts, significant discounts on train-ing resources for your staff, free access to federal training platforms such as FedVTE, use of a private malware analysis platform, the US CERT Portal that you can use for secure communication and docu-ment sharing, and even access to our 24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC). The MS-ISAC SOC is the heart of the Center for Internet Security. It is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Regardless if it is a night, weekend, or holiday there will always be a dedicated MS-ISAC security analyst on duty and ready to assist you. This is a resource that anyone can use. Even if you are not a formal member of the MS-ISAC any state, local, tribal, or territorial government can still take advantage of our Incident Response services and our Security Operations Center. No one should ever be left to deal with an inci-dent on their own, even if the only help they want is a second set of eyes on the problem. With that in mind, I encourage any U.S. government or governmentally owned organization to take down the following contact information:MS-ISAC 7x24 SOCPhone: 1-866-787-4722 Email: soc@msisac.org Whether it is your own government or a neighbor-ing government please encourage anyone suffer-ing from a cyber incident to give us a call. We will happily work with them to provide no obligation guidance regarding their particular situation. If you want a reference, I will be happy to provide one. Our partners have always said the strongest part of the MS-ISAC is the people. We work hard, are dedicated to our mission, and truly want to help. Most important, is the partnership we have forged with Trib-alNet to bring this valuable resource to their members. The MS-ISAC: A Valuable Free ServiceAndrew DolanDirector of Stakeholder EngagementMulti-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center(MS-ISAC)Featured Columns - Security ResourcesAndrew Dolan, Director of Stakeholder Engagement,Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC)54TribalNetFeatured Columns - Security ResourcesMike, Shannon, and the board are fantastic people and truly dedicated to making sure that the U.S. tribal communities are both protected and able to get access to the best resources available. If you want that reference, talk to Chuck, Dustin, Mike, Terry, Amy, Eddie, John, Shannon, Patrick, or Matt! They will tell you about the great benefits you can have by joining the MS-ISAC.We can provide real help, valuable resources, without the bill. We have been in this business for over 12 years and we have never lost a member. Not one.Talk to your friends, do your own research, and then use the info below so we can start helping you.Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) 31 Tech Valley Drive East Greenbush, NY 12061 Phone: (518) 266-3485 Email: Info@msisac.orgOr use the following link to register for the MS-ISAC: https://msisac.cisecurity.org/members/register/The Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center: Serving our nation’s state, local, tribal, and territorial governmentsAndrew is the Director of Stakeholder Engagement for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a division of the Center for Internet Security. The MS-ISAC has been designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as the focal point for cyber threat prevention, protection, response and recovery for the nation’s state, local, territorial and tribal governments.It all starts by making a connection.The TribalNet Team and resources are ready to As technology powers tribal organizations and enterprises to push the boundary for innovation and critical improvements, we too are taking our services to the next levelTribalNet Assist is the consulting and management division of TribalNet, specializing in directly providing resources and services to Native American organizations and their enterprises. Nobody understands the uniqueness of Tribes, Tribal Governments, Tribal Gaming and Enterprises like TribalNet. Connect with us today to learn more about how the four pillars of service in TribalNet Assist can make an impact on your organization.Leadership. Strategy. Innovation. Improvement.How to get started? Connect with us today - info@tribalnetonline.com More information available at: http://www.tribalnetonline.com/consulting_services.phpAgency Updates - DHSStrengthening Federal CybersecurityDHS has enhanced federal cybersecurity by expanding our EINSTEIN and Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) programs. As directed by Congress, EINSTEIN 3 Accelerated—which strengthens perimeter defense for federal civilian agencies by detecting and blocking known cyber threats, including classified threats—will protect all federal civilian agencies by the end of 2016. The DHS is also piloting an analytic-based “reputation scoring” system as part of EINSTEIN 3A, which will prioritize indicators by likely severity and identify new potential threats. By the end of 2016, all federal civilian agencies will also have implemented CDM Phase 1, which detects vulnerabilities in computers and software, and prioritizes these risks, enabling agencies to fix the most severe vulnerabilities first. The DHS will also increase its federal civilian cyber defense teams from 10 to 48. These teams will respond to incidents, conduct “red team” penetration testing, proactively hunt for intruders on federal networks, and help agencies design more secure systems.The DHS is developing a cadre of cybersecurity professionals to defend our nation’s networks. The department has expanded access to the Federal Virtual Training Environment—an online, on-demand training system that provides access to cybersecurity curricula—to federal, state, local, tribal, and territo-rial government employees, as well as U.S. veterans. It also co-sponsors CyberCorps Scholarship for Service and the National Centers for Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Program, both of which are intended to produce a pipeline of cybersecurity professionals.Enhancing Critical Infrastructure Security and ResilienceThe DHS encourages critical infrastructure owners and operators to manage cyber risk by adopting the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. The department’s Critical Infra-structure Cyber Community Voluntary Program supports the practical application of the framework by facilitating access to free technical assistance, tools, and related resources. Recognizing that cyber threat information sharing is essential to the protection of critical infrastructure, the department has made significant progress improving the scale, scope, and speed of its information sharing initia-tives. Among these many achievements: the Cyber Informa-tion Sharing and Collaboration Program has expanded to more than 160 private sector participants; the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program has expanded beyond critical infrastructure entities to all U.S.-based public and private organizations, added a third service offering and a fourth Commercial Service Provider; and the DHS recently selected the University of Texas at San Antonio as the Information Sharing and Analysis Organization Standards Organization, which will publish a first draft of best practices this summer. As mandated by Congress, the DHS launched the Automated Indicator Sharing initiative, which will enable the exchange of cyber threat indica-tors between private sector entities and the govern-ment at machine speed, allowing participants to mitigate cyber threats on their networks in near-real-time while protecting Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.For more information about DHS cyber programs, please visit: www.dhs.gov/cyberDHS Cybersecurity Efforts Complement White House’s Cybersecurity National Action PlanThe White House recently announced the Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP), an important new initiative to bolster our nation’s cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is one of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) high-est priorities, and the DHS has made significant progress increasing the cybersecurity posture of our government, our citizens, and our critical infrastructure.Herb JoseyDeputy Director (acting) External AffairsOffice of Cybersecurity and CommunicationsU.S. Department of Homeland SecurityHerbert.josey@hq.dhs.gov (703) 235-576757Spring 2016Product Spotlight Value to Native American market:Leveraging a common platform, on the same database (Microsoft SQL Server), fully integrated to the productivity suite within Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and Outlook), is a benefit to any business. The Microsoft Dynamics Accounting systems are just that! As any Tribal entity looks to leverage its resources for its members, cost and efficiency are very important. The Dynamics products are able to support both Non-Profit and For-Profit operations in a single system on the same platform, making the application unique in its ability to support all business aspects of the tribe. That capability within the software suite, added to the experience and deep knowledge of a tribe’s requirements for business technology from Arctic IT, make the Microsoft Dynamics and Arctic IT combination a solid choice for a tribe looking to automate and improve its business operations. Low software costs and reasonable implementation project costs make Arctic IT and Microsoft Dynamics the right choice every time.CompanyArctic Information Technology, Inc./Tribal PlatformsSales ContactsDave Bailey, CTO & Vice President Lessa Peter, Marketing Managerdbailey@arcticit.com lpeter@arcticit.comwww.arcticit.com www.arcticit.comMicrosoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics AX byPLATFORMSTRIBAL A DOYON GOVERNMENT GROUP COMPANYArctic IT specializes in the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics accounting solutions for both Tribal Governments and Tribal Enterprise. The accounting solutions offer a full financials suite, including GL, AP, AR, Bank Reconciliation, Fixed Assets, Fund and Grant Management, Human Resources and Payroll Management, and many other functional elements. They are also fully integrated with Microsoft Office and all reporting is built directly into Microsoft Excel. Built-in dashboards, Purchasing Automation, Electronic Banking, multi-entity functionality and reporting delivers extensive value to both large and small tribal organizations. Arctic IT’s expert implementation methodology allows us to be more cost effective for our clients, with most project durations lasting 4-6 months, depending on the complexity.Screenshot of System in UseWho We Are: Arctic IT is a 100% Tribally-Owned information technology Enterprise that focuses on implementing Microsoft Business Applications for Native American Tribes throughout the U.S. Our extensive experience working with Tribal Governments and Tribal Enterprise allows us to provide value and expert consulting services to our clients. We grew our roots working for tribal organizations and we deeply understand the need to leverage technology to ensure secure futures for the tribe and its members. Our parent organization, Doyon, Limited (www.doyon.com) has also enabled us to grow our business into Federal Government Contracting where we have been thriving. We work for the same government organizations that help fund the member services and programs within our client base. Enrollment, Education, Social Services Case Management, Per Capita and Loan Management are all components of our Tribal Platforms Software Suite. These software applications designed specifically for use by tribes, are fully integrated in our Microsoft Dynamics Accounting and CRM applications, providing an efficient and audit trail compliant suite of software that any size tribe can leverage, cost effectively.References of Where Installed: • Saginaw Chippewa Tribe• Forest County Potawatomi • Mohegan Tribe• Barona Band of Mission Indians• Seminole Tribe of Florida58TribalNetRequest a FREE Demo and see how TribalChoice can cost effectively help your tribe manage its health services.888-290-1099 | www.TribalChoiceMD.comTribalChoice Offers Tribes: A Single Platform for Multiple Specialties and WorkflowsNational Data Warehouse User Population Reports Track Patients With Inte-grated Referred Care PortalA Fully Customized EHR Experience for Your TribeIntroducing TribalChoiceAn Electronic Health Record, Practice Management and Billing Solution customized for Native American tribes.Matt ClayPokagon Band of Potawatomi IndiansDirector of Health ServicesTribalChoice ClientStill living by our grandfathers’ teachings, just doing it with a modern methodology.“Now there’s a choice...CHOICENext >