January 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 52

OPERATIONS
Are You Prepared When Technology Fails?
Keeping your agency operating smoothly during a system shutdown
By Hunter Pooser

t is a normal day; attendance at the recreation facility remains steady.
But as the next member walks through the main entrance, ready to
check in for a recreational activity, the unthinkable happens. The
computer monitor appears to be loading at an incredibly slow rate,
until suddenly, the screen displays a horrifying message: " Server Error. "
Without warning, the recreation software stops working and the staff member running the system becomes frantic, unsure what steps to take.
This is not just any type of software; it is the command center for
the entire park and recreation department. The technology holds
the recreation facility's most precious information, generates crucial reports, processes transactions,
stores program information, and
for some departments, hosts their
website and its functions.

A Contingency Plan

IMAGES COURTESY OF HUNTER POOSER

Park and recreation professionals
depend on the convenience of using computers and other technologies for most work tasks. Several
professionals may not even use pen

and paper for much of their career.
Typically, we assume that this complex and crucial technology will
work without a malfunction. With
the ability to hold mini-computers
in our pockets and the availability
of many other technologies in every aspect of our lives, we forget
how far we have come from a notso-distant past.
For many workplace operations,
technology has changed everything. Communication has become
faster through email and the use
of smartphones, documents have
become easily accessible on computer hard drives and clouds, and

Parks & Recreation

marketing tactics have gone digital through websites and social
media outlets. In August 2019, a
major server outage at a software
company affected many park and
recreation agencies nationwide.
This continued for approximately
12 hours, leaving many agencies in
the dark. In numerous instances,
criminal groups have hacked government agencies and caused their
servers to crash. What if something
happened to your agency's technologies? Are your administration and
front-line staff prepared?
When developing a program or
hosting an event, park and recreation staff prepare plans B, C and
D to respond to unanticipated circumstances. The same needs to be
thought of regarding technology
and its impact on daily operations.
If the department requires daily admission reports, how would
your staff track attendance? If the
facility is a " pay-to-play " location, how would you successfully
process both cash and credit card
transactions?
All park and recreation departments need to have a plan for when
technology fails. The following
gives recommendations on how
to recover when technology stops
working for a recreational facility.
Hardcopy Backup - The most
important priority is to keep operations running as smoothly as
If experiencing server or internet connection issues, alternate computer programs,
such as Microsoft Excel, can function as a
data collection and record-keeping tool.

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January 2020 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2020 - Parks & Recreation