New York Senate Enjoys an Open-Source Success Story

New York Senate Enjoys an Open-Source Success Story

How one of the country's oldest legislative bodies modernized its constituent services with a move to open-source software.

The New York Senate's adoption of an open-source constituent relationship management system coincided with the chamber's "Open Senate" initiative, which emphasized transparency, efficiency and citizen participation. (Kenneth C. Zirkel/Wikimedia Commons)

What forces create impactful change in the world? A mandate? A leader? The voice of the people? For the New York Senate, it was all these forces that launched one of the country's oldest legislative bodies into the world of open-source software-a world of transparency, collaboration and serving the public good.

When Ken Zalewski joined the Senate as manager of business applications in 2009, government was undergoing a technology renaissance of sorts. An executive order instituting an open-data policy had just been signed by President Barack Obama. In New York, voters had recently chosen a new Senate majority for the first time in decades. Under new leadership, the chamber embarked on the "Open Senate" initiative, emphasizing government transparency, efficiency and citizen participation.

One of Zalewski's first projects was to replace the Senate's in-house, mainframe-based constituent management system, known as the Online Masterfile Information System, or OMIS. It was 2009, a time when Facebook was outpacing MySpace in the world of social media. The iPhone was gaining popularity, and government was rapidly moving away from legacy mainframe systems and toward distributed web-based applications to manage interactions with constituents. But the New York Senate still relied on an expensive, cumbersome solution that didn't even have a dedicated field to store constituent email addresses.

To replace OMIS, Zalewski and team selected CiviCRM, an open-source, community-maintained constituent relationship management system, for its flexibility, its potential for long-term cost savings and sustainability, and its alignment with the core values of the Open Senate initiative.

A New Era of Open-Source Software

To explain open-source software, it might make sense to start in more familiar territory, commercial software.

How Commercial Software Licensing Works

In the world of enterprise-level commercial software, the software isn't simply sold outright like a new car or a box of cereal. Instead, software manufacturers grant limited permission to their customers to use their software under certain rules and conditions. These rules, as defined in a manufacturer's licensing agreement, are usually designed to generate income, protect intellectual property, mitigate legal risk and establish policy.

The Freedom of Open-Source Software Licensing

The big differences between open-source software and commercial software are in the licensing agreements. And there are some very big differences.

First, the use of open-source software is free. Anyone can download it, install it and start using it.

Second, barring a few limitations, open-source licensing allows you to do what you please with the software: modify the code, add new functionality and even redistribute your improvements for the benefit of others.

There are many possible open-source licenses to choose from, including the MIT License, Apache 2.0 License and GNU General Public Licenses, version 2 and version 3.

The Bumpy Road to 'Bluebird'

Zalewski and his team knew that they had their work cut out for them. The Senate had some unique demands that would require extensive customizations under a tight deadline. But, through the power and flexibility of open-source licensing, Zalewski's team had the freedom to act swiftly, add the Senate's custom features on top of the CiviCRM core product, and even share their new government-focused CRM solution for the benefit of New Yorkers and other government bodies as well.

The new CRM software launched in 201O and was affectionately given the name Bluebird CRM after the Eastern Bluebird, the official state bird of New York.

But Bluebird's launch had some bumps. After its release to over 60 district offices, some major performance problems became apparent. Not only did Senate users have to learn and adapt to the new software system, they were faced with noticeably slower response times.

Zalewski and team scoured the codebase in search of the problem.

"It all came down to 19 lines of code," Zalewski says. "There was a block of 19 lines of code that was the core of our performance problems. And when that block of code was fixed, you could feel a sigh of relief across the entire Senate. It was a major 'wow' moment for us."

Zalewski considers this small change to the codebase as Bluebird CRM's turning point. Fixing just 19 lines of code netted a dramatic improvement.

The Test of Time

Over the years, the flexibility of open-source licensing has allowed the New York Senate to continue improving Bluebird CRM. Mass emailing was added, allowing senators to quickly and economically send important information alerts, legislative information and community updates to their constituents. An inbound-email feature was added to help senators' offices manage incoming constituent messages, making it easier to turn an email into a new case for a constituent needing help. Another integration with the Senate's website, nysenate.gov, imports constituent feedback-such as comments and support or opposition to legislation-into Bluebird CRM, giving senators more insight into their constituents' concerns.

Today, Zalewski sits in his corner office overlooking the ice-skating rink in Albany's Empire State Plaza. Bluebird CRM, the open-source system that he has nurtured and championed for the past 15-plus years, continues to be a success story, serving roughly 20 million New Yorkers and delivering over 30 million communications annually. His team maintains 63 separate Bluebird CRM "instances," or dedicated environments within the system, one for each Senate district, ensuring that constituents' data is accessible only to their specific senator.

Zalewski and his team were among the first to use open source in the legislature and remain advocates because of the software's great flexibility and cost-effectiveness-and because they became part of a worldwide community of developers. The New York Senate recently joined with other legislatures to support and promote code sharing as a path toward cooperation and shared benefit.

Technology professionals from legislatures in Alaska, Kentucky, North Dakota and New York have formed a Code Sharing and Development working group under NCSL's National Association of Legislative Information Technology (NALIT). The group aims to foster collaboration and an open exchange of software, knowledge and ideas.

Nate Frank is a systems programmer for the New York Senate. Sarah Altshuler is a policy associate in NCSL's Legislative Staff Services Program and NCSL's liaison to NALIT.