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into myWyco. Safe Software’s FME serves as an integration platform be- tween business applications and the data the county receives from the PayIt system, Howze said.
“What we’re trying to do is knit to- gether these core business systems with a new, much more user-friendly front end that is consistent across the web as well as mobile-based applica- tions, which is our myWyco applica- tion,” he said.
TRACKING 311 REQUESTS
After downloading the app, users can sign in as a guest or link their email or social media accounts to it, said Grant Gordon, PayIt’s managing director. The app uses a decision tree to figure out
eral back-office systems for managing work orders at different departments, such as code enforcement, Howze said.
FME connects PayIt to those back- office systems to facilitate bidirectional communication.
For instance, when a 311 request comes in through myWyco, it’s noted in the content management system and routed directly to the Public Works Department.
When the action has been complet- ed, that information travels from the Lucity workflow management system through FME to PayIt, which notifies the submitter via email or a pop-up no- tification in the app that the issue has been addressed.
Paying property taxes is simpler be-
over by a staff member, so it has saved hours of [employee] time.”
Government officials also started of- fering residents free payment options via e-check or the ACH financial trans- action network. Credit card payments, however, require an additional fee. By encouraging free payment options and charging a small fee for credit card payments, “we’ve seen our transaction costs decline significantly to the tune of over $100,000 in avoided transaction fees...in the first quarter of this year alone,” Howze said.
Additionally, the government has seen a 35 percent increase in the number of transactions completed online and an 80 percent increase in revenues collected through online purchases, he said.
Developers are working on incorpo- rating the ability to order vital records such as marriage, birth and death cer- tificates — an iKan function — and sending police notifications, Gordon said.
Howze said he is also looking into adding the ability to pay municipal court fines and fees, such as parking and speeding tickets, via the app.
“If we can put those on a single intui- tive application that knows that I sub- mitted a 311 request for my trash pick- up, reminds me when my property tax is due and can allow me to pay parking tickets or a speeding ticket, that’s a lot of added value for residents without the proliferation of applications for specific functions,” he added.
Gordon attributed the app’s success to the willingness of county and city officials to work closely with other de- partments and vendors while integrat- ing IT with the government’s lines of business.
“The ability to break down stove- pipes and look at and deliver an inte- grated solution that works across de- partments is one of the ways we really see for improving the experience for our residents and delivering value to the government,” he added. •
“What we’re trying to do is knit together these core business systems with a new, much more user-friendly front end that is consistent across the web as well as mobile-based applications.”
— ALAN HOWZE, UNIFIED GOVERNMENT OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY AND KANSAS CITY, KAN.
what users are looking for.
“We have secure, encrypted com-
munication between [the county’s] systems and ours to actually pass in- formation, to validate users, to pull up accounts or balances, and then we tokenize any sort of payment informa- tion so we don’t actually store that on the app [and] so we remain PCI-com- pliant,” Gordon added. “We allow the user to use that account for multiple needs. They have a stored credit [card] number that’s tokenized, so they can use it for vehicle registration and then can pay property taxes for that, too.”
The first element of the app to go live was 311 submissions for the Public Works Department. The county has sev-
cause the county has a single tax pay- ment system. Officials receive batch data daily from PayIt about transac- tions made in the past 22 hours. After the system is updated, the county pro- vides a fresh file to PayIt so users can see their status as paid.
SIMPLIFYING ONLINE PAYMENTS
PayIt also automates the reconciliation process for payments.
“Previously, treasury staff was man- ually reconciling online transaction payments, and it consumed multiple hours in a day,” Howze said. “Now, that reconciliation is being automated to the point where it just requires a look-
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