Agenda - Council - 02/24/1987 - Laserfiche WebLink

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TO: CHI[iF AUSPOS FROM: OFF. ARNESON SUBJ: COMPUTER PROBLEMS AIID UPDATE DATE: FEB~ 16~ 2987 Our system wa:-~ put on l i~e in March, 1985 after council approval in July 1984.' This system is a co~bination of administrative and police functions. The poJice we'ce added to t},e ~ystem to gain support information and additional fu~ctions~ not ~vailable on the state system. When Ramsey wa~s put on l J.n~ i',~ 1985, an ENFORS users committee had been in existance ior some time. Thi~; committee was set up by the users to address problems found in the syst~mo A decision was made by the users committee and approved hy the state ~o hold all modifications to the system until a ]argo numbeY of changes ~.:er~ identified and corrected. Over 200 program~; changes weYe r~ade. This d(~cision was made to save update and modification costs to the ~sers o!! the ~ys[em~ The =esu].t of this decision was the Release 4.0 update. The R(]ease 4.0 update was released for installation in Dec. 1986~ Since Jan~ 1, 1987 we have di~;covered some programing problems with our system~ These problems ar~ in the reports that we may generate and in the Master Nam~ Index. The iniormation is in the system but we are unable to retrieve this information, caaking it worth]ess. All of the programing problems have not been ideptJiied at this time. Problems that have been identified ar~' partial or.total computer commands that are missing. The cause Js unknown but believed to have been directly related to the computer hardware crashes we were e~eriencing when the system was first put on line. The crashs themse]ve~ (lid not create the program command losses. The command losses were probably lost when the system was rebuilt from a backup. This backup was probably defective and caused the loss of the commands. There are two ways that we ~:an correct the problems encountered. The first one i~ to id~ntif? ~ll of the problems and correct them. I contacted Ernie Swat:out of MASYS concerning the cost estimate. It.is estimated that it wi]] take 3 days for this process. The estimated cost is $300 a day for a total of $~)00~ If the time to repair ou~ system is greate% then the estimated cost wouid go up proportionally. The cost of this would; be paid by the City of Rams~y~ The second.~a__~v is to.purcha~;e the Release 4.0 update. This would automatically correct an¥~_problems we haw:~ as all of the pro,rams would be replaced. The cost of this would be ~;{~..5~. Along with correcting our problems there are several enhancements to th,~ reports that can be run by the computer.