Item - 2020.GL14.24

The General Government and Licensing Committee:

1.  In accordance with Section 71-11.1C of the City of Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 71 (Financial Control By-law), granted authority to amend Purchase Order Number 6041647 with Kronos Canadian Systems Inc. to provide professional services to implement the upgrade of the Time Attendance and Scheduling System in the amount not to exceed $400,000 net of all of all taxes ($407,040 net of HST recoveries) revising the total contract amount from $4,182,345 net of all taxes ($4,255,954 net of HST recoveries) to $4,582,345 net of all taxes ($4,662,994 net of HST recoveries).

The purpose of this report is to seek authority to amend and increase Purchase Order No. 6041647 with Kronos Canadian Systems Inc. to upgrade the Time Attendance and Scheduling System by the amount of $407,040 net of HST recoveries, increasing the total contract amount from $4,255,954 to $4,662,994 net of HST recoveries.

The Time Attendance and Scheduling System is an off-the-shelf software from Kronos Canadian Systems Inc. ("Kronos"). Kronos technology facilitates the time entry and scheduling of staff. The city has an existing contract with Kronos to acquire software licenses for Parks, Forestry & Recreation and Toronto Paramedic Services. The contract includes associated maintenance and support changes. It also enables the City to obtain software updates but excludes professional services to perform the upgrade in the City's environment.

The Kronos system utilizes the Adobe Flash plugin. The Adobe Flash is a cross-platform plugin designed to allow the viewing of graphics, video and text over a web browser. Recently, Kronos released a version upgrade to eliminate the use of Abode Flash in order to mitigate enterprise risk. It has been publicized and well documented that Adobe Flash contains some vulnerabilities. As of December 2020, all major web browser platforms, such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, have stated that they will not support Adobe Flash and will prevent any technology from using it on their platforms. Since City of Toronto users access Kronos via a web browser, the upgrade would also mitigate a technology compatibility issue. Therefore, it is critical that the City of Toronto applies the version upgrade by year end 2020.

As part of City operational best practices, City staff manage and maintain technology upgrades, but due to the complexity of the change, the City requires, expertise of Kronos professional services to upgrade and thereby mitigate technology risk based on their detailed knowledge of the software.