City of Miami

Now 105 years old, Miami is part of the nation’s eleventh largest metropolitan area. Incorporated in 1896, Miami is the only municipality conceived and founded by a woman, Julia Tuttle. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Miami’s population in 1900 was 1,700 people. Today it is a city rich in cultural and ethnic diversity with 368,600 residents, 60% of them foreign born. In order to meet the needs of such a substantial number of residents, the City of Miami found that instant access to information was crucial. The council believed that effective communication is an essential component of good government.

The City Clerks department for the City of Miami uses ISYS:desktop for searching and retrieving pertinent information. City clerks use the software to conduct word and phrase searches on the commission meeting minutes, contracts, lobbyist information and much more. “We evaluated several other search products prior to purchasing ISYS, but found ISYS to be more user-friendly. In addition, we found ISYS to be more widely used. The feedback we received from the county and the police department – also users of ISYS – was encouraging and promising,” says Leo Lyttle, Project Manager for the City of Miami. “ISYS allows our users, one of whom is our Mayor, to research meeting minutes from days, weeks, even years ago.”

Sylvia Lowman, Assistant City Clerk, agrees. “I use ISYS three or four times a day. I find it to be extremely useful and effective. It saves me so much time,” says Lowman.

One of the uses for ISYS:desktop is during commission meetings, to reference previous discussions on matters. While the meeting is being conducted, a commissioner might ask a question, for example: “When was this discussed before, and what was said about it? What was it referenced to?” The answer is as simple as entering a word or phrase in ISYS and all the commission minutes available that contain those words are retrieved instantly. “We have staff standing by during commission meetings, ready to use ISYS to answer any questions asked. The meetings are much more efficient with the quick and accurate answers ISYS helps our staff provide,” says Lyttle.

The City of Miami has come to recognize the necessity of proper document management.

Currently documents are being stored in hard and soft copy in different areas and in different departments. Searches in departments other than the City Clerks, are made the manual way, by going directly to file cabinets to find documents. So the City of Miami has plans to scan all of the City’s documents, therefore allowing users of ISYS:desktop access to the text and images of all the paper documents as well as the commission minutes. Eventually, staff will be able to search either their individual desktops or the organization’s network. “We want everyone at the City of Miami to have instant access to pertinent information when they need it. I believe that ISYS can help us in providing this to our staff,” says Lyttle.

Allowing the public to have access to the City of Miami’s legislative information is also a priority. “We plan to make our legislative information available to the public through ISYS:web,” says Lyttle. “Our plan is to purchase a system to process meeting agendas and implement ISYS:web to allow visitors of our website to do extensive and accurate searches on the information they need.”