Orange County, California is one of the most populous in the United States, boasting about 3 million residents, 18,000 employees, and nearly two dozen agencies supporting their needs. Orange County Information Technology Agency (OCIT) is one of those agencies, providing IT solutions across departments for communications, network and Internet access, data center services, application development, and more.
CData Arc enables OCIT to integrate IT systems and allow transparent, real-time communication between Orange County residents and Public Works employees.
The Challenge: Critical System Integration for Public Works Requests
OCIT is responsible for building and maintaining Orange County Public Works' public-facing customer relationship management (CRM) application and land management system (LMS). Built on top of Salesforce, the LMS manages land permits, planning, and inspections, while the CRM serves as a portal for residents to report safety concerns, maintenance issues, or property violations. These can include potholes on the road, graffiti, water pollution, property violations, and more.
To quickly respond to residents' reports, Orange County needed a way to integrate the public-facing CRM and LMS portals with their internal-facing CMMS (computerized maintenance management system). The CMMS, built by MaintStar on SQL Server, facilitates the County's maintenance operations by tracking and maintaining the daily tasks of Orange County Public Works employees.
Additionally, OCIT was looking for a software solution to perform daily data transfers to Orange County's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system using flat files and secure file transfer protocols (SFTP).
They previously used the free MuleSoft Community Edition for their enterprise service bus (ESB) needs, but when MuleSoft discontinued support for their free tier, OCIT was faced with a budgetary challenge.
“Of course we reached out to MuleSoft to demo their paid product, but the price was beyond our budget, so we had to look for other options," said Jonathan Liou, OCIT App Development Supervisor.
OCIT turned to CData Arc to deliver real-time data integration between the CRM and LMS in Salesforce and the CMMS in SQL Server, as well as automatic and secure data transfers to the County ERP system.
“CData Arc is very powerful and scalable, so that's why we decided that it was the right tool for our team," said Liou.
CData Arc is very powerful and scalable, so that's why we decided that it was the right tool for our team.
– Jonathan Liou, OCIT Applications Development Supervisor
The Solution: Real-Time Communication with Constituents
CData Arc offered a robust data transfer and integration solution at a low cost of entry, allowing for bi-directional communication between Orange County Public Works employees and the residents they serve.
Once an Orange County resident reports a case in the CRM, it is logged into Salesforce and transmitted to the CMMS, where the Public Works division can create a work order and assign the project to the correct department. County employees can then perform an inspection in the field to determine how long the maintenance job will take, as well as the staff and materials required to resolve the issue.
“Constituents use our CRM system to report the case to the County, and CData Arc allows us to immediately take an action to have the County work on it," said Liou.
Bi-directional integration was a crucial requirement for OCIT when researching solutions to replace MuleSoft, as the County also needs to provide timely information to the residents who submit requests.
“We have frequent updates, so whenever notes or statuses are updated in the maintenance system, those need to be reflected on the CRM side so the public can see it," said Krishna Bosam, OCIT SR. IT Applications Developer.
CData Arc provides OCIT with lightweight, yet powerful integration platform that facilitates real-time, bi-directional data flow between Salesforce and SQL Server.
After downloading the 30-day trial, getting started with CData Arc's low-code interface was simple.
“CData Arc and MuleSoft are very similar in concept, so it was very easy and quick for our developers to pick up when we switched to CData Arc," said Bosam. “But ease of implementation is one of the advantages of CData Arc because it's very easy to install and configure. MuleSoft isn't as intuitive – the installation and configuration take time."
Ease of implementation is one if the advantages of CData Arc because it's very easy to install and configure.
– Krishna Bosam, OCIT SR. IT Applications Developer
Liou and his team are confident that CData Arc, backed by CData's extensive connectivity capabilities, will help OCIT provide Orange County residents with unmatched IT services – now, and in the future.
“CData is known in the industry as one of the primary connectivity providers, so I feel comfortable that we have access to all the connections we need," said Liou. “So, in the future if we switch or expand to other systems, we know you have the connector that can help.
CData is known in the industry as one of the primary connectivity providers, so I feel comfortable that we have access to all the connections we need."
– Jonathan Liou, OCIT Applications Development Supervisor
