Customer Story

City of Chattanooga: Innovating government services to support Tennesseans

The City of Chattanooga uses Google Workspace and Chromebooks to boost productivity, streamline IT administration, and deliver vital local services faster to Tennessee residents.

As the fourth largest city in Tennessee, the City of Chattanooga provides local services to nearly 180,000 residents daily.

United States
https://chattanooga.gov/

Features used

Calendar

Drive

Docs

Gmail

Forms

Google Meet

Sites

Sheets

The City of Chattanooga uses Google Workspace and Chromebooks to boost productivity, streamline IT administration, and deliver vital local services faster to Tennessee residents.

Google Workspace Results

65% boost in IT administration productivity

• Boosts employee productivity through cloud collaboration and document editing with Google Workspace

• Encourages mobile-friendly workflows through Chromebooks

• Increases department response times by integrating Forms into public-facing sites

Set against the backdrop of the Appalachian Mountains, the City of Chattanooga is home to more than 180,000 Tennessee residents and one of the state's largest cities. To keep pace with growth and its reputation for innovation, Chattanooga officials set out to further improve how they delivered services to residents. Across departments, employees spent considerable time navigating the limitations of the city's legacy office productivity tools. Troubleshooting routine tasks such as calendar syncing or getting emails to properly work on mobile devices ate up valuable time. Among IT staff, administrators could spend nearly 90 percent of their time on basic platform maintenance and upkeep of productivity tools.

"For Chattanooga, innovation creates new ideas that drive the city forward and bring high-wage growth. Google Workspace facilitates our efforts by encouraging collaboration through technology." - Andy Berke, Mayor, City of Chattanooga

"Chattanooga wants to demonstrate its leadership in adopting new technologies," says Brent Messer, CIO at the City of Chattanooga. "When it came to office productivity tools, we wanted an environment that costs less to maintain and would free up IT staff time for innovation."

For the city, migrating to Google Workspace was a clear choice. With Google Workspace, city IT staff has nearly doubled productivity and departments can now redeploy resources away from routine upkeep and towards more strategic projects that help reduce costs and improve citizen services.

"For Chattanooga, innovation creates new ideas that drive the city forward and bring high-wage growth," says Andy Berke, Mayor at the City of Chattanooga. "Google Workspace facilitates our efforts by encouraging collaboration through technology."

Greater flexibility for working

Device flexibility was a major focus when Chattanooga IT staff evaluated productivity platforms. With employees working in a variety of office and remote environments, administrators wanted a unified solution that simplified management and encouraged cloud collaboration on any platform. Google Workspace addresses both priorities. For administrators, Google Workspace streamlines routine tasks, such as account management and offers straightforward licensing with a flat fee based on the number of employees.

"Google Workspace frees up staff to concentrate on rethinking processes and adding value back to the organization. The flexibility to put documents into the cloud and then access them in the field has been very beneficial." - Brent Messer, CIO, City of Chattanooga

For city employees, document collaboration using Google Workspace has been among their most highly rated features. Real-time collaboration and cloud storage on Drive, Docs, and Sheets have shifted how staff handle budget sharing, bidding requests from outside companies, and other tasks. City employees can share a single file on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device and give authorized collaborators instant access, allowing them to stay more current on projects in progress without trying to track email attachments. Pages in Sites are also regularly created by individual departments to display relevant information hubs, providing additional efficiency gains.

Invites on Calendar offer similar productivity benefits, as staff members no longer have to worry about calendar incompatibility that prevent meeting attendees from seeing invites. In addition, Google Chat and Google Meet are regularly used for daily communication and meetings, saving time and money previously spent as employees traveled between offices.

"Google Workspace frees up staff to concentrate on rethinking processes and adding value back to the organization," says Brent. "The flexibility to put documents into the cloud and then access them in the field has been very beneficial."

Improving resident services

"With our aim to enhance digital services and create stronger neighborhoods and families, Google is Chattanooga's partner in innovation." - Andy Berke, Mayor, City of Chattanooga

The benefits of moving to Google Workspace are also experienced directly by citizens, as Chattanooga has integrated Google Workspace solutions into several public services. Forms is built into many city websites, allowing residents to ask questions and provide input more quickly and easily while saving city IT staff from having to separate data-entry and collection tools. At Chattanooga libraries, residents can check out Chromebooks for schoolwork and easy internet access. Library staff also use Calendar for reservations, replacing a previous approach of manually writing down reservations daily in a bound book.

"With our aim to enhance digital services and create stronger neighborhoods and families, Google is Chattanooga's partner in innovation," says Andy.

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*Google Workspace was formerly known as G Suite prior to Oct. 6, 2020.