The City of Tacoma has announced scheduled system outages in November to enable the upgrade of its primary business and financial software system. Aimed at enhancing internal functions and ensuring the systems are prepped for future demands, the city's transition to a new operating platform will, in theory, benefit users in the long run with no visible changes during their interaction with online account portals. These upgrades, meant to streamline services and improve customer experiences, will affect a number of systems, which will be briefly taken offline during the upgrade process.
As detailed in a recent announcement by the City of Tacoma, two particular periods in November have been earmarked for the system downtime. The first outage is scheduled for Saturday from the early hours of 7 a.m. to the late hours of 8 p.m. A longer service interruption is slated to begin on November 20, at 6 p.m., stretching over a weekend to conclude on the morning of November 24, at 6 a.m. During these intervals, key City services, including Ariba for businesses and vendors, the Escrow Portal, and the City Payment Portal, will all be inaccessible.
Additionally, customer service operations for TPU and Environmental Services will be interrupted, with closures scheduled on November 21, for system training. Despite the training closures, payments can still be physically dropped off at TPU's location on S. 35th Street and are set to be processed on November 24. Voicemails left for Environmental Services regarding utilities will also receive a response on November 24, following the outages.
The planned enhancements will halt updates to GIS systems managed by Power, Water, and Environmental Services, leading to outdated maps during the service break. Moreover, Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU) customers will be temporarily blocked from using the MyAccount service to conduct transactions, check balances, or manage their accounts online. Payment kiosks known as Payboxes will also be affected, rendering users unable to pay utility bills or business licenses during this specified downtime.
