Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Get the Bill Online! Steve Fulling (shown at right) wanted me to post a picture of the ITS phone bill.  Steve is the Director of the Division of Information Technology Services for the State of Utah.  ITS provides phone service to all state agencies. As you can see, the monthly phone bill uses a lot of paper (about 10 very full boxes).  Distribution is somewhat clumsy and some agencies make additional copies to distribute to their employees.  ITS worked to put the phone bill online last year, but the implementation was awkward and required a lot of manual intervention.  I have been telling them this needs to happen for at least a few years.  Several other state ISFs have stepped up and now do all their billing electronically.  For example, the copy services and state mail bills are sent electronically to their customers who can access the bill in a PDF or Microsoft Excel format.  Fleet Operations allows its customers to query and analyze their fuel usage and billing information.  The Division of Finance uses Cognos to analyze and make projections based on the bill data they receive from ITS.   Obviously, the phone bill is a little more complex than some of the other ISF bills that I have mentioned, but if we can create it on paper, we certainly have the capability to reproduce it electronically and just add a few tools that enable customers to drill down and analyze the detail.  ITS has done a lot of innovative and creative things and supports one of the best wide area networks in the country.  They are working with others such as UEN to make their services even more cost effective.   It's time for ITS to deliver a 21st century solution for phone bill distribution, workflow, and analysis. 8:54:08 AM

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.