A $1.93 million plan to make city service requests easier to track

A resident portal and automatic status updates are the payoff Sandy Springs staff is seeking from a proposed Salesforce overhaul of city service requests. The recommended switch carries an estimated five-year cost of $1.93 million—about $549,000 more than the OpenGov alternative staff evaluated.⁠[1]

The mayor and City Council are scheduled to consider two separate awards Nov. 3: $220,833.29 to Carahsoft Technology Corp. for Salesforce software and $711,750 to StackNexus for implementation. Staff puts the rounded first-year total at $932,583, within the $1 million fiscal 2027 project budget. These are recommended awards, not approved contracts.⁠[1]

The problem staff wants to solve is what happens after someone asks the city for help. Its report says the existing Lucity system leaves residents with limited visibility into a request's status or closure, while employees rely on manual steps, email and institutional knowledge. The replacement would bring service-request intake, work orders, asset management, mobile field operations and resident communications into an integrated platform.⁠[1]

The cheaper choices are considerably cheaper. The city's five-year comparison lists OpenGov at $1,382,916 and retaining Lucity at $208,257, versus $1,931,993 for Salesforce. The Lucity figure covers maintaining the already-installed software, not building an equivalent replacement. Staff says staying with it would leave the service-delivery gaps unresolved.⁠[1]

Why pay more? The evaluation committee says Salesforce offers more extensive data migration, more features and better integration. It raised concerns about moving historical records to OpenGov and features still on that company's development roadmap. But its assessment was not uniformly negative: the same memo says Community Development is very happy with OpenGov's existing permitting and licensing platform.⁠[1]

The recommendation followed a procurement reset. The city says it canceled its original request for proposals April 23 because responses exceeded its cost, scope and timeline expectations, then reduced the scope and pursued direct negotiations. The committee used a qualitative assessment of the best fit rather than weighted numerical scoring.⁠[1]

There are qualifications to the price comparison. OpenGov's first-year license quote was prorated; the memo says Salesforce could also prorate its first year if the city chooses. Future Salesforce licensing costs would depend on the executed agreement and future budget appropriations. Staff anticipates implementation taking nine months from project initiation—not an immediate launch after a council vote.⁠[1]

The Nov. 3 council meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Studio Theatre at City Hall, 1 Galambos Way.⁠[1]