The county made the decision to migrate to WebEOC SaaS near the end of 2022, and it has now successfully navigated the challenge it faced when it realized its on-prem servers would soon be obsolete.
And while the county has not experienced a disaster since making the switch, the reviews based on its experience performing testing and training on the new system have been glowing. “From the IT perspective, it’s been great,” says Sanders. “It’s taken away the burden and risk of doing the upgrade and monthly updates.”
The switch also allowed the county to clear out years’ worth of digital clutter and improved the platform’s resilience by eliminating the single point of failure that results from having multiple servers in the same location.
The SaaS migration also enhanced the EMA’s ability to work with its partners, such as local fire departments, law enforcement, public health agencies, and the Red Cross. “As we’ve upgraded and added functionality, it’s provided a much more seamless ability to coordinate with our partners,” says Westbrook.
The new functionality allows partners to log on to the system remotely and get real-time information from WebEOC Boards about impacts, resource requests, and similar matters. “They’ve raved about it,” says Westbrook.
WebEOC SaaS has also allowed the county to realize the advantages of embedded maps in WebEOC’s Board-contained and system-wide dashboards, enabling at-a-glance comprehension of where impacts and resources are physically located across the county and helping brief key stakeholders quickly when every moment counts.
“We’re in the early stages of getting into map functionality,” says Westbrook. “We had none before. We’ve seen other agencies that have that. We can see already it’s going to be amazing what we’ll be able to do with it.”
