Please give insights on the following questions based on the below case :

1. What value is the current system providing for Park Services? For campers? As Curhane, what value would you like to create?
2. What has to change in order to realize value from your ideal system? What criteria should you use to evaluate alternative courses of action in order to achieve greater value from a new system?
3. Analyze the problems with the current system, and evaluate the changes that would be required to create the new system.
4. Develop realistic alternative courses of action, including roles, resources, and results for moving closer to the ideal.
5. Make a decision, create an action plan and describe, in detail, who needs to do what and when; tell how you would implement your plan.

SASKATCHEWAN PROVINCIAL PARK CAMPSITE MANAGEMENT AND RESERVATION SYSTEM

Mathisa Curhane, manager of visitor services with Saskatchewan Park Services (Park Services), was thinking ahead to next year. Park Services had experienced a number of turbulent years around the provincial park campground reservation system. Over the years, the behind-the-scenes machinations required to process those campground reservations had placed an onerous burden on the Park Services staff, both in Regina and at the local provincial parks. Additionally, the present system severely limited the type of services that could be developed for tourists and campers due to the lack of quality data on campers.

While steps had been taken in 2009 and 2010 to address some of the major problems surrounding the campground reservation system, serious issues remained that required prompt action. This reality proved particularly true when the system in place in Saskatchewan was compared to the new camp ground reservation systems that had been recently employed in Alberta, Manitoba and the federal national park system.

Camping in Saskatchewan Provincial Parks

With respect to provincial parks, the ministry’s mandate was to support and promote Saskatchewan tourism and manage and enhance Saskatchewan provincial parks by providing recreation and interpretive programs for park visitors.

INFORMATION SYSTEMS AT PARK SERVICES

Up until the mid-1990s, campsite assignment and tracking were maintained through the use of a peg board and carbon-copy forms completed at the campground office, with one copy filed and the other given to the camper.

In 1997, a campground management system, created by Digital Rez out of Sicamous, British Columbia, was acquired by Park Services. This system, known as the Reservation Operating System (ROS), was property management application software for campground and camping resorts, bed and breakfasts, inns, hotels, hostels and marinas. ROS was deployed throughout much of the Saskatchewan park and campground network as a tool for managing campsite allocations – the primary task of servicing campers.

This campsite management software had the capability of being run from a central server (i.e., at Park Services in Regina) that would serve remote clients (provincial park offices and campgrounds), but this feature was not adopted. A clear physical challenge to the central server option came in the form of poor telecommunications with remote parks and the campgrounds within the parks.

In addition to the physical reasons for not employing the central server option, there were organizational issues as well. Park and campground management decision-making had historically always been decentralized, pushing decision-making out to the personnel with the most intimate knowledge of the specific campground.

Organizational Structure and IT Support

Until 2004, Parks Services (part of the Ministry of the Environment until 2007) had its own internal IT staff. In 2005, the Information Management Branch (IMB), the department responsible for IT for the government of Saskatchewan, was reorganized as the Information Technology Office (ITO). Part of the purpose of the reorganization was to restructure the department from a decentralized operation, with personnel dispersed among the user departments, into a centrally staffed and run government resource.

In order to realize the benefits of centralization, the ITO adopted a policy of standardizing PC support, which was to be performed centrally with ITO personal networking with the user’s PC. By necessity, upgrading PCs was left until the end of the camping season, when all park and campground PCs were routinely shipped to Park Services in Regina.

Campground Reservation Processing

The ROS system purchased in 1997 enabled campers to make campsite reservation requests in advance of the season at specific campgrounds by phone and mail; subsequently, faxed reservation requests became an option. Then, in 2000, an online option was added to the mix, and by 2009, this electronic Reserve-a-Site system had expanded to include 19 of the 21 campgrounds using ROS and computer hardware supported by Park Services (two of the 21 parks using ROS were not part of the Reserve-a-site program). Six of the remaining provincial and historical parks offered camping on a manual self-check-in basis .

Park Services in 2007

From 2000’s inception of the online reservation option within the ROS through to the 2007 camping season, clients who requested a reservation online entered details of their request through a web-based form that was stored in a central server in Regina. Online forms were accessed from the park office and were combined with mail, fax and phone requests in date order and then processed at the park.

First, in the fall of 2007, the credit card companies, including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc., banded together to create the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council. Part of the mission of this council was to create rules for the protection of credit and debit card data.

Second, in November of 2007, a provincial election resulted in a change of government. Within days, the new government announced a reorganization of departments and ministries. With this reorganization, Park Services lost access to the Ministry of the Environment’s intranet, which had been used to store online campsite reservation requests.

These two events combined to create an urgent need to devise another option for taking online reservation requests that met PCI security standards and did not rely on the Ministry of Environment’s intranet. The Information Technology Office, however, was not prepared to tackle the PCI compliance issues and online payments. In November 2007, after exploring numerous options and with time running out, Park Services proposed to delay taking reservation requests until April in order to properly develop and build a reservation form and related procedures but was told that the reservation window had to be open for January. In December 2007, the new website administrator for Park Services put together an Adobe XML version of the previous form used for online reservations that excluded credit card information. This solution was tested and implemented in time

THE PERFECT STORM: 2008

Starting January 1, 2008, clients accessed an Adobe form through the website of the new Ministry of Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport and completed the online application form, which was then e-mailed to an account that had been created for each provincial park. The e-mail account was hosted on a central server in Regina, and online reservation requests for all the campgrounds within a given provincial park went to that park’s e-mail account. On January 1, 2008, 749 reservations were made, and the first sign of trouble came almost right away when frustrated clients phoned and complained to the ministry about the lack of user friendliness embedded in the Adobe XML Architecture input form.

The next sign of trouble emerged when park staff began processing reservations requests as usual, on a first-come, first-served basis. As a result, given the volume of requests, it took three months to clear the backlog of campground reservations requests. On average, the process of contacting each individual and collecting credit card data took park personnel two to four calls per reservation.

Besides dealing with complaints from clients about the lack of user-friendliness of the form itself, central Park Services in Regina and provincial park staff members did their best to hide other problems encountered with processing the reservations from the clients and devoted considerable unexpected time towards assisting park and campground personnel as much as possible with processing the forms and contacting clients. It was apparent to everyone that a different process had to be put into place for the next cycle.

Temporary Solution 2009

In the fall of 2008, Park Services set to work on developing the requirements for a system that included the online payment of the minimum stay plus a reservation fee. One potential option was to modify the Ministry of Finance’s Saskatchewan Electronic Tax Service (SETS) application. Unfortunately, when the ministry began preliminary discussions with the vendor, it quickly became apparent that there would be no possibility of building a payment portal and having it in place by January 2009. In November 2008, the ITO was asked to create a system to take reservation requests without collecting credit card data. With the PCI compliance issue removed, work progressed quickly, and the ITO developed an HTML form, similar to the one in use in 2007, that would store reservation requests to a central database, which staff could access and then re-enter or upload the necessary information into their appropriate local version of ROS. This system was developed, tested among park and campground clerks, revised, retested and then finalized around Christmas 2008.

The changed form was in place for January 1, 2009, and it made a huge difference to clients and staff.

Also left unaddressed were the issues around the ability of Curhane and her staff in Parks Services and their colleagues in the ministry to analyze park data and generate meaningful statistics and insights about clients.

Enhancements and Issues 2010

While the 2009 changes to the reservation form made it easier to access and extract data from the online reservation requests, the underlying labour-intensive processing of the reservations remained unchanged.

For the 2010 season, the Online Reservation Administration System (ORAS) web portal was created with two distinct functions. The first function was for clients making reservation requests. The second function enabled those who had succeeded in making a reservation to proceed to the portal and make the necessary payments online. While not everyone preferred to or was willing to pay this way, many were, and as a result, the staff time spent on the later stage of the reservation processes (i.e., obtaining payments) was significantly reduced. A side benefit of the ORAS was that it generated data that could provide new insights Further analysis revealed that, in 2010, 12,732 applications were made online but only 10,118 were successful, which seems to suggest the need for more capacity.

Potential Options

As it stood, the current method was fairly labor intensive and, depending on the park, could result in the passage of a considerable period of time. Also, as evidenced by the May 2010 decision to shut down the online reservation request portion of ORAS for the season, there were clearly some serious limitations to the current system.

An ongoing question involved making a business case for the appropriate level of connectivity between campgrounds and a central database at Park Services. One expensive solution involved establishing 100 per cent connectivity within parks between campgrounds, with full connection to a central server providing a self-serve option for clients, which would allow them to see what campsites were available, to choose their own site based on this information and then make payments immediately.

In terms of software, Curhane felt there were a number of options available. The most immediate local option would be to have the ITO build a custom system for Park Services. Park Services would then pay the ITO for development on a cost-plus basis, which would come close to market rates. While this option was a valid possibility, it was not accepted by the ITO, which primarily viewed its role as that of a project manager that facilitated the flow of work to the private sector.

Another option involved interprovincial government IT agreements, which might facilitate options available through Alberta and Manitoba. This tailor-made reservation system allowed potential clients to serve themselves, enabling them to drill down into detailed maps of each campground and view site locations, as well as place reservations for specific sites. Anecdotally, Curhane had heard that it cost the Alberta government millions of dollars to have the system built.

A pure variable-cost option had also been identified wherein the service provider would provide the hardware, software, and telecommunications with no outlay costs to Park Services. The service provider would charge Park Services for each reservation made. This option would require Park Services to sign a five- to a 10-year contract, and the cited $10-per-reservation fee would be dependent on the length of the contract and the actual level of service requested of the service provider.

Less expensive options would involve off-the-shelf packages with some modification possibilities, such as the existing system in use, ROS, as well as others offered by Mediamix Interactive,8 which currently supported online reservations in the national park system and the provincial park systems