We are pleased to announce that Bryan Brown is the new IT Director at the Department of Natural Resources. Bryan has worked in IT for over 29 years. After joining the State of Utah, Bryan has spent six years supporting the Department of Health’s Division of Medicaid and Health Financing where he was instrumental in increasing the confidence of DMHF in DTS and in its capabilities by providing leadership and stability to complete critical DMHF projects, while improving the communication between DTS and DMHF. After the department merger into the new Department of Health and Human Services, Bryan became a Lead Application Manager supporting DTS teams for the Division of Integrated Healthcare, Division of Aging and Adult Services and the Division of Services for People with Disabilities.

At 10:15 a.m. on April 20, 2023, hundreds of thousands of Utahns will “Drop, Cover, and Hold On” in The Great Utah ShakeOut, the state’s largest earthquake drill ever! Major earthquakes may happen anywhere you live, work, or travel. The ShakeOut is our chance to practice how to protect ourselves, and for everyone to become prepared. The goal is to prevent a major earthquake from becoming a catastrophe for you, your organization, and your community.

DTS will be participating in the drill this year. Be sure to have the contact information of your peers, supervisors, and fellow employees updated in the event an emergency takes place. 

Voting is now open for the 2023 Statescoop 50 Awards. Go here to vote. There are three nominations from Utah: Alan Fuller, Dave Fletcher, Chris Bramwell, and Protecting and Preserving the Great Salt Lake from the Division of Water Resources. According to the Statescoop website, “The StateScoop 50 Awards annually honor the best and the brightest who make state government more efficient and effective. These awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of our peers and acknowledge their tireless efforts to make a positive impact in the government IT community and in public service.” Please take a few minutes and vote for your favorites before April 7.

The FCC is putting together a new, more detailed map with locations to identify where broadband service is offered. This map will serve as the new foundation for broadband analysis, policy, and grant distribution. Individual states were offered the chance to submit corrections and updates based on their local knowledge. 

The Utah Geospatial Resource Center (UGRC) worked with the Utah Broadband Center to help individual counties prepare submissions by handling all of the data formatting and validation steps as well as the actual submission to the FCC. This allowed the counties to spend their valuable and limited time focusing on the things that they are the authoritative source for—apartment numbers, incorrect addresses, new development, etc. The data coming from counties is aggregated by the UGRC and stored in the State Geographic Information Database (SGID). This coordinated effort means Utah will get its fair share of the funding and be able to distribute it to where it will make the biggest impact.

Thanks to the hard work of the participating counties, UGRC, and the Utah Broadband Center, Utah had by far the most corrections accepted by the FCC from any state. We added 24,598 residences that weren’t included (“Missing broadband serviceable location”) and corrected the addresses of 23,491 residences already included (“Incorrect primary address”).

The 2023 Security Awareness Training is now available. All executive branch state employees must complete the training annually. One of the most important elements of our defense and protection of the state’s information assets is user awareness and training. As an authorized user of the state’s information resources, you have an obligation to help protect the confidentiality, integrity, privacy, and availability of the state’s data. Part of that obligation is completing the required annual security awareness training. To complete the training, go to the Security Awareness – 2023 page.

We are pleased to announce that Rachael Cassady is the new IT Director for the Edge Group in DTS-Operations.

Rachael brings a range of experience to this position, having spent 27 years working for the State of Utah in various roles. Her career began as an Environmental Scientist with DEQ, where she then moved on to become a Compliance Program Manager with the Division of Drinking Water.  In 2020, Rachael became an IT Analyst Supervisor with DTS, serving DEQ. Throughout her career, she has had exposure to a wide variety of people and programs within the State of Utah along with many Citizen engagements.

Rachael graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, and from Western Governors University with a Master’s degree in Secondary Science. She enjoys skiing, mountain biking, riding horses, University of Utah football, and playing classical violin. She is thrilled to take on this new challenge as IT Director for the DTS Edge Team.

Please join us in congratulating Rachael.

There’s a behind-the-scenes story to the new pop-up liquor store at the Salt Palace Convention Center for the NBA All-Star Game weekend. The Division of Technology Services network team built a system that allows the pop-up store to connect to state resources in a secure manner from a portable network case. This “Network in a Box” not only takes care of the immediate need for the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) but addresses the potential future needs when a network needs to be immediately accessible, but a secure state-connected wired infrastructure may not be available.

The self-contained system is one a small mobile rack encased with wheels. It contains drawers, UPS (battery backup), wireless (WiFi) access point, and other features. The case provides two separate LTE connections (AT&T and T-Mobile), and can accommodate a third public internet network hardwire connection. This provides multiple ways for a pop-up store to achieve connectivity to DABS resources to stand up a store, basically, anywhere. 

In an effort to streamline the DTS Special Billing Agreement (SBA) process, agencies will no longer need to sign DTS SBAs effective immediately. We will continue to have agencies approve SBAs in ServiceNow, but no PDF will be sent for signatures. Additional information can be found here. Please reach out to your IT Director with any questions. 

We are pleased to announce that Rachael Stewart is the new IT Director for the Department of Health and Human Services. Rachael has worked for the State of Utah for 23 years. She started as an Eligibility Specialist with DWS and went on to fill various positions including Program Specialist, Trainer, Business Analyst and Program Manager. She began working for DTS in 2016 as a Sr. Project Manager and has spent the last 4 and a half years at DHHS (formerly DHS) as an IT Manager. She feels fortunate to have worked with a wide variety of state and federal programs that support Utahns. Rachael attended the University of Utah and majored in Political Science. She is excited for this new challenge and looks forward to continuing to work with DTS and DHHS. 

The Salesforce event specifically designed for Utah is back this year! Snowforce is the premier networking and learning event for the Utah Salesforce community. There is something for everyone: an executive track, an architect track, a marketing cloud track, and a bunch of hands-on learning sessions. This event typically attracts over 500 attendees.

See additional information and register at snowforce.io

Wednesday March 1st: Networking Dinner @ 6PM
Thursday March 2nd: Main Event & Sessions @ 8AM – 5PM, at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center, 1355 W 3100 S, West Valley City, UT 84119.
Friday March 3rd: Ski Day at Snowbird @ 8:30AM – 4:30PM

DTS has made a new catalog available in ServiceNow for enterprise software, including Atlassian products (Jira, Confluence, Trello), Zoom, GitHub, and Lucid. You can easily purchase software using this catalog. 

The new site provides resources to learn about what Utah’s boards and commissions do and how their work benefits our communities, as well as how to become involved as a board member. You can see the new system at boards.utah.gov. 

Utah’s Maps on the Hill exhibit will be held on February 14 in the Utah State Capitol Building Rotunda from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. 

Maps on the Hill, a free event, is a great way to learn how current mapping technology is being applied to important issues across a wide range of disciplines including economic development, natural resources, infrastructure management, public lands and environment issues, efficient services delivery, and more.  Maps on the Hill is expected to draw many map exhibits from all levels of government, private sector firms, and higher education. Utah’s elected officials and the public are invited to come learn about the various mapping projects from professionals and students.

Maps on the Hill is organized by the Utah Geographic Information Council (UGIC), a statewide user group of Geographic Information System (GIS) professionals, in partnership with the Utah Geospatial Resource Center (UGRC).

More information is available at http://ugic.org/maps-on-the-hill.

The 2023 Utah Digital Government Summit will be on June 27 at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center. Registration is not yet open, but more information will be coming soon. See additional detail here. 

We are excited to announce that Tricia Cox has accepted a new position as DTS Assistant Division Director. We look forward to working closely with Tricia in her new role. As Assistant Director, Tricia will be instrumental in improving all aspects of DTS and helping us continue to provide exceptional service to state agencies. She will help coordinate and execute a variety of division initiatives. 

Tricia has substantial experience with DTS, most recently as the IT Director for the Department of Health and Human Services. Over the past year, Tricia’s teams have successfully completed huge projects, including migrations to the Cloud and the merging of two of the largest agencies in the state. 

DTS is implementing the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) as our project and service delivery methodology across the organization. SAFe is a set of industry best practices and organizational tools that will help teams plan work, manage change, and coordinate efforts. 

SAFe will help us:

• Facilitate a culture of continuous planning and build quarterly plans that increase visibility and promote alignment
• Identify dependencies and risks early so that they can be addressed before they impact our work
• Manage resources so that we can plan the right work and the right amount of work
• Continuously improve and adapt our processes to meet the needs of our teams and the Agencies we serve

We have already started training some of our employees, and will continue to train all DTS employees through September 2023. DTS will be working closely with agencies throughout the next year to improve planning and prioritization of IT projects and initiatives to better meet needs. 

Scaled Agile Framework

Microsoft has indicated that they will no longer be supporting different versions of the Office suite throughout the next few years. Some agencies are currently using the products that are slated for end of life (EOL) in April 2023. The State currently has a number of machines with end of life (EOL) Microsoft Office products installed on them which require remediation. There are also Office products that are going to be expiring in the next couple of years that we want agencies to be aware of. We will be working with agencies in the coming months to determine a plan for migration.

The following are upcoming end of life dates for Microsoft Office products:

Additional information can be found here.

DTS is workin with agencies to adopt Windows 11 before Microsoft deprecates Windows 10 in 2025. We are working on a detailed plan and specific instructions for state employees in the coming months. You can see more information on the Windows 11 page on the DTS website. 

Windows 11 Adoption

Many agencies are currently using Zoom to host meetings and webinars where Google Meet does not fit the agency’s needs. Google Meet is the DTS recommended standard for meetings and webinars, but we have approved the use of Zoom Meetings/Webinars as an architectural supplemental standard if Google Meet will not work for the meeting.

Agencies have not had to pay for Zoom licenses in the past, as this has been paid for through the Telework Initiative funds provided by the Governor’s Office. Beginning December 4, 2022, Telework Initiative funds will no longer be available and agencies will need to begin paying for Zoom licenses if needed.

IT Directors will be working with agencies to determine how many Zoom licenses you will need in the future. When we have an estimate of how many licenses are required, we will be negotiating more accurate pricing with Zoom. You can see additional details here.

During the 2022 Utah Legislature General Session, the Division of Technology Services (DTS) and several state agencies were given general fund money in FY2023 for various information technology projects. This document provides an overview of the projects that DTS is assisting the agencies with during this fiscal year.

Funded Projects 2022

On October 28, Google Hangouts will no longer be available. Google is replacing Hangouts with Chat. DTS has already upgraded its users, but has allowed access to both products during the migration. The change on October 28 will only affect those that are going directly to the web version of Hangouts at hangouts.google.com. Hangouts.google.com will automatically redirect for Utah.gov users to Google Chat. 

DTS is now offering agencies a way to do Notarizations within Adobe Sign. Adobe has partnered with the company Notarize, and it is integrated directly into the Adobe Sign Console. This service has been approved by the Lt. Gov Office for Notary use and approved by the DTS Architecture Review Board for State use.

See additional detail here. 

Citizen Portal

Last year, the Rate Committee, Governor’s Office, and the Legislature approved some changes to the FY2023 DTS Rates. Agencies will see these changes starting with the July and August bill, which will be issued in September. Below is more information on the rate changes in FY2023. 

New Rates:

• Cloud Infrastructure: Included in the amount of each Application Developer tier rate is a $1.00/hour Cloud Infrastructure rate. This rate is to help pay for DTS support of the cloud environment.  This is a replacement of the cost + 25% percentage increase on the cloud bill.  The $1.00/hour charge is a simplification of the DTS rate structure and was well-supported by customers. You will see this charge when you view the details of your Application Developer charges.

Notable Rate Increases/Decreases:

• Cloud Hosting and Storage Services: In FY2021 and FY2022 the Division of Technology Services (DTS) charged a public cloud rate of cost + 25%. The additional 25% was for support and other charges related to administering the cloud. Starting in FY2023, DTS will be billing customers of public cloud at actual cost (which includes the shared portion of vendor support costs). This will simplify billing for agencies and clarify costs for public cloud. Agencies will see this change on the August 2022 bill.
  • You can see more details here.

• Long Distance: Prior to FY2023 DTS billed a separate charge of $0.0602 per minute for Long Distance usage. Starting in FY2023, Long Distance services are now included in the Business Phone Line VoIP monthly charge and you will no longer see a separate charge for Long Distance. This aligns to industry standards and simplifies the bill.

• Data Center Rack Space (Non-Executive Branch Agencies Only): Charges for Data Center rack space has increased due to the following: 

The DTS Rack and Rack U rates are affected by several factors. Two of the key drivers of the change in this rate are the migration to the cloud by many of our customers and the move to the Taylorsville State Office Building Data Center. DTS has a number of fixed costs associated with running and maintaining a data center, and while DTS has seen a reduction in its on-prem customer base, those fixed costs remain. This requires a rate increase for the remaining customers.  

• Database Core Model: Charges for SQL and Oracle database core models have increased to the following: 

DTS has been charging less than cost for both of these rates to bring Retained Earnings in line with Federal guidelines. We incrementally reduced these rates and are incrementally increasing them. The rates for FY23 are still under cost, but DTS is under recovering by less than the previous year.

• Web Application Hosting: FY2022 Shared Application Hosting on Prem rate has been renamed to Web Application Hosting and increased from $59.10 to $109.81 per instance for FY2023.

Usage for Web App Hosting on-prem (on physical DTS servers) has seen a reduction in customer base as other technologies have been adopted. DTS has a number of fixed costs associated with maintaining the Web App Hosting Environment, and while DTS has seen a reduction in its on-prem customer base, those fixed costs remain. This requires a rate increase for the few remaining customers.  

• Enterprise Software (Adobe, Microsoft, etc.): The Cost Plus rate for Enterprise Software has changed to up to cost + 10%.  This allows DTS to be more nimble and flexible to charge software based on proportional effort.  

Other Rate Changes:

• Application Developer Rate: The hourly billing for DTS application developers has changed slightly.  In FY2022, the Application Developer rate was based on 1A/1B – 4A/4B Tiers.  Instead of A and Bs, DTS is moving to Tiers 1-8. This move from Tiers and Sub-Tiers to straightforward numbered Tiers should make the bill less confusing for our customers.

• Other Technical Services: DTS has combined all the Cost + 10% rates into one rate listed on the published rate sheet under the Miscellaneous Services section. Customers will still be able to search under, for instance, Communication Services and see the Miscellaneous charges which fall under this category.

Further information:

You can view all changes to the DTS Rates by going to https://dts.utah.gov/dts-rates. 

If you have questions about any of the other rate changes, please contact the DTS FPNA team by emailing dtsfpna@utah.gov.

For billing questions or concerns, please contact the DTS Billing team by emailing dtsbilling@utah.gov.

The following were shared during the FY2023 Rate Presentation:

• Link to Rate presentation document share in rate committee
• Link to Rate Impact sheet shared in rate committee

In FY2021 and FY2022 the Division of Technology Services (DTS) charged a public cloud rate of cost + 25%. The additional 25% was for support and other charges related to administering the cloud. Starting in FY2023, DTS will be billing customers of public cloud at actual cost (which includes the shared portion of vendor support costs). This will simplify billing for agencies and clarify costs for public cloud. Agencies will see this change on the August 2022 bill. 

• Q – What is a Public Cloud?
  • A – Public Cloud is on-demand computing services and infrastructure that are managed by a third-party provider and shared with multiple organizations using the public Internet. 
• Q – Which Public Cloud providers does the State of Utah use?
  • A – In use today are:
    • Amazon Web Services (AWS)
    • Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
    • Microsoft Azure 
• Q – How does an agency pay for services with Public Cloud? 
  • A – At the end of each monthly billing cycle, DTS receives a bill from the Public Cloud vendor. This bill is paid directly by DTS back to the vendor. Simultaneously, a billing feeder file is generated from CloudHealth (our billing product) to divide out all costs to the appropriate billing units. This feeder file then generates a monthly bill that the agencies receive. This bill is paid by the agency directly to DTS to recover the above costs. 
• Q – What are Public Cloud costs?
  • A – Costs to agency customers are:
    • Direct costs for services from Public Cloud vendors, via the bill from DTS as described above
    • A monthly charge of 1.65% of total spend in cloud by Elcid for the use of CloudHealth and its services (Billing, Cost Optimization and Reporting)
    • Public Cloud vendor support charges. These are charges billed to DTS for Enterprise Support in AWS, Premier Support in GCP, and a future Azure support tier. Each ELCID will be billed based on the percentage of consumption. 

• Q – What does the $1 charge on tiered rates pay for? 
  • A – Cloud tools and resources
    • eg, AWS Shield Advanced, Terraform Cloud, Shared infrastructure
• Q – When do these charges take effect?
  • A – You will see these charges starting on DTS August Bill run on Sept 6th 
    • This will be for charges from July 2022  
• Q – How will these charges appear on my bill from DTS?
  • A – Cloud Health will show on the bill as 6516:Cloud Hosting and Storage Services. Drill down on to the detail level and it will show “Other”.  Then the Service Description will show “Cloud Health Charges”. 
  • Public Cloud will show on the bill as 6516:Cloud Hosting and Storage Services. Drill down on to the detail level and it will show “Other”. Then the Service Description will show “AWS Support Charges”, “GCP Support Charges, or “Azure Support Charges”. 

If you have any questions, please contact your IT Director or DTS Billing at dtsbilling@utah.gov.

The Department of Government Operations Rate Committee will be meeting on September 15 to consider the proposed FY2024 DTS Rates. DTS will be proposing a couple of rate changes, and will be presenting the rate impacts to the committee during this meeting. You can see more information on the rates here. 

We successfully completed the exit of the Salt Lake data center June 1, moving all state applications, network, and servers to the new Taylorsville facility. Work continued over the past couple of months to decommission and remove the old IT equipment from the data center located at the Capitol complex. We removed and destroyed over 3,000 hard drives from servers, ensured all inventory was accounted for, powered down all old servers and network gear, and filled truckloads of old equipment for surplus. 

On August 1, DTS officially handed over the keys to the old data center to the Capitol Preservation Board and the Division of Facilities and Construction Management. Demolition of the old data center and construction of the new building at the Capitol can now begin. 

The brand new data center in Taylorsville has many benefits, including:

• Security improvements:

  • Enhanced data encryption at rest technology

  • New secure Private Cloud 

  • Updated security management capabilities

  • New more robust security features on firewalls

  • Installed a new environmental system to protect against physical, environmental or human threats that can cause disruption or downtime to IT infrastructure

• Network improvements: 

  • Moved and increased the Internet to 100 Gb of bandwidth including new network equipment

  • Refreshed hardware and software

• Hosting/Server improvements:

  • Refreshed equipment with associated increased processing and security components

• Application improvements:

  • Upgraded databases

  • Moved 25% of applications to the cloud

  • Applications now have backup and redundant features

• Print Center improvements:

  • New printers with enhanced features and less downtime

• Phone improvements:

  • Additional redundancy and higher throughput for calls

Thank you to all DTS employees and agencies for your support throughout this tremendous project. 

The Cabinet Security Council has recommended that DTS implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all UtahID public accounts on August 22, 2022. It is imperative for the state to maintain security and privacy of citizen data and account information. MFA provides an extra layer of security for all state accounts. The use of MFA is an industry best practice and aligns with NIST, the national security standards that the state follows.

Agencies will not need to take any action. DTS will adjust the UtahID login screen with specific instructions for public users to select the MFA method (either enter an email address or mobile phone number) on their accounts. Any citizen who currently has a UtahID account will be prompted to add MFA to their account when they login to their account to access state services.

The FY2023 DTS rates will be effective July 1. See the full list here. Agencies can expect to see the new rates on the July bill. Please reach out to DTS Billing at dtsbilling@utah.gov if you have any questions. 

The Information Technology Plan is an overview of the agency IT project detail for the current year. DTS utilizes the IT Plan data to identify potential multi-agency use, necessary IT services needed for successful completion of the projects, and a cost breakdown for each project.

In accordance with UCA 63A-16-203, each executive branch agency must submit an agency information technology plan to the chief information officer on an annual basis. The IT Plan is the list of IT projects for the upcoming year, which helps DTS plan resources based on agency needs. DTS analyzes the projects in the plan to determine the impact to costs, operations, and services provided. DTS also uses the IT Plan to ensure compliance with the state’s overall IT strategy and potential areas for coordination among agencies. 

You can see the full plan here. 

Now that we have been a part of the new Department of Government Operations for a full year, we will be working together as a department to create new websites. This means DTS will be getting a new website. We will be working with a consultant in the coming months to help organize and design the new site. We are excited to find new and better ways to provide information to DTS employees, our customers, and all of our stakeholders. More information will be coming soon. 

All state agencies have a requirement to protect the constitutional right of privacy in relation to personal data gathered by government entities. To support state agency privacy maturity efforts and better prepare agencies for future privacy practice assessments, the Department of Government Operations Privacy Officer will be providing all state agencies the opportunity to have at least one individual trained and certified as a Certified Information Privacy Manager through the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

Each participant will receive two full days of instructor-led training, textbooks, participants guides, sample test questions and exam vouchers. This training and certification will ensure your agency
has someone with the knowledge, skills and abilities that knows:
● How to create an agency privacy vision
● How to structure the agency privacy team
● How to develop and implement an agency privacy program framework
● How to communicate to agency stakeholders
● How to measure privacy performance
● The privacy program operational life cycle

Every State Agency is being asked to:
● Designate one or more people as privacy officers,
● Have at least one individual attend the training, and
● Have at least one individual obtain CIPM certification.

Agencies that complete the above three actions will be better prepared to implement and their agency privacy programs and will be included in the required annual Judiciary Interim
Committee privacy report as having met minimum expectations for privacy practices related to designating individuals with privacy roles and responsibilities within your agency.

The first training session is scheduled for June 21-22, 2022 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Send any questions or comments to: Christopher Bramwell, DGO, Government Operations Privacy Officer

On July 1, 2022 Google will alter the view in Gmail to integrate in one place:  Email, Chat, Spaces, and Meet.

Mail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet will be anchored to the left side beginning July 1. Until then you can keep your current view or try the new view.

Opt in to the new view

Important: To use the new view, you must turn on Chat in Gmail and set Chat to the left-hand panel. Learn how to turn on Chat in Gmail.

1. At the top right in Gmail, click the Settings gear symbol.
2. Under “Quick settings,” click “Try out the new Gmail view”.
3. In the new window, click “Reload”.

Remember:  to try the new view you must turn on Chat in Gmail and set Chat to the left hand panel.

Learn about the new integrated Gmail layout (video and pictures of new layout): https://support.google.com/mail/answer/11555490?hl=en

Lucid is offering training on Org Charts for state employees. You can see more about Lucid here, and access the training directly here.

About this course

Use your org charts to visually communicate important information to specific audiences. Add details to help a new employee understand company structure, rearrange current structures to imagine future-state possibilities, or build from scratch to see the set up of your own team!   Throughout this course, you can expect to learn:

• How to use colors and lines to visually communicate hierarchy and reporting structures.
• How to add important employee information to your org chart, including pictures!
• How to build your own org chart using the shape library, or by importing employee data from an existing spreadsheet.

We are excited to announce the DTS Agency Billing Dashboard & Reports have been added to Domo!

Our new reports will have graphical views and reports which you can drill down to see the details on the same page. Our new reports offer greatly enhanced speed, filtering capabilities, and improved customizability.  

Please activate your account first by going to http://utah-gov.domo.com/, then you will be able to use the link on https://dts.utah.gov/ “My Bill” section.

What: Google Workspace Summit, a digital event for business and IT leaders who are looking to directly connect with Google executives, product experts, and customers to learn about the latest innovations that help secure and unlock team collaboration. 

Join us to:

• Discover new tools and approaches to help keep hybrid teams collaborating and productive, while boosting employee wellbeing.

• Get insights from security leaders. Google and the world’s leading security experts share how you can protect your organization by identifying and remediating risks before they turn into damaging incidents.

• Learn how your organization can use Google Workspace to transform communication and collaboration channels between frontline workers and corporate teams.

When: May 4th

Reserve your spot today and check out our event site for regular updates. If you have any questions, please send us an email at cloudsummitsupport@google.com.

DTS Chief Information Security Officer Phil Bates has names one of the Top 25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers by Government Technology. See the full article here. Congratulations Phil! 

The 2022 Legislative Session was an exciting time for DTS. Many great bills were passed and funded that impact DTS and employees. You can see the full tracking sheet here. 

• DTS and state agencies received a lot of funding for IT projects. This is an exciting time! We will be working on implementing a new HCM/Payroll system, a Citizen Portal, a CCJJ data integration system, and many new systems for DHHS. 
• The state will be observing a new holiday, Juneteenth. State employees will get this day off as a paid holiday beginning this year. The observance will always be on a Monday, so it will be on June 20th this year.
• Employees will receive a 3.5% salary increase. We are working on the details of any other targeted increases for certain positions. Stay tuned for more information soon.
• The state will be transitioning to a pay for performance plan. Watch for more information from DHRM with the changes over the next year.
• The CIO and CISO will sit on many task forces and committees to help with IT needs such as CCJJ data integration, blockchain, and cybersecurity. 

Effective immediately, DTS procurement services will no longer offer perpetual versions of Microsoft Office on the DTS catalog. Executive branch agencies are expected to purchase Microsoft Office365 user-based subscriptions to fulfill their Office software needs. All Microsoft perpetual items in the ServiceNow software catalog will be removed and only the Office365 version will remain.

DTS will be coordinating with agencies to remove all unsupported versions of Microsoft Office from state owned devices.

In the event a device-based version of Microsoft Office is required for a business process, rather than a user-based subscription, an email must be sent to dtssam@utah.gov with a justification as to why this is needed. . If an individual needs to maintain the current unsupported license (i.e. MS 2010), an exception request must be submitted to DTS enterprise security using the DTS Form 525 Security Risk Acceptance Request (select ‘Vulnerability Risk Acceptance’). Please note that device-based licensing will require documented justification to meet the standard for approval.

Switching to a subscription-based licensing model reduces:

• Time spent by agency personnel in finding and tracking Office licenses
• Security vulnerabilities associated with software going end of life (EOL)
• Compliance/audit findings

Please contact your agency’s IT Director if you have any questions.

The Utah Broadband Center, powered by the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, is launching the Utah Internet Speed Test Campaign. It’s a statewide effort for Utahns to report their internet speed at home, work, or wherever they connect to broadband. We encourage state employees to test their internet speed when they are at home.

People with or without internet access are encouraged to participate.

The Speed Test Campaign will help:

• Reveal areas of Utah that lack high-speed internet connection to homes and businesses
• Direct funding to provide reliable broadband access throughout the state
• Discover which households do not have an internet connection and the reasons why

Please help us identify Utah’s areas with the greatest need for internet speed at this URL: speedtest.utah.gov. It only takes 60 seconds.

Employees should use the spam reporting option in Gmail for messages that do not appear authentic.

Google Workspace administrators receive alerts on a daily basis for spam and phishing activity reported by users as well as when a user account is suspended due to spamming or other suspicious activity.

Since Google has added features to Gmail that allow users and administrators to manage suspicious message activity, it is not necessary to forward this type of email to spam@utah.gov any longer.  This account will be deprecated on February 11, 2022.

For additional information please click on Mark or unmark Spam in Gmail

DTS Networking has published a new form for agencies to use when opening a new office location, moving an existing office, or closing a site. This form will help DTS collect the information and notify the proper teams needed to enable the service change for telephones, IoT devices, and other network services. The new “Network Site Request” form can be found here. Additional network information and request forms can be found here.