Hitting the Road

Each spring publicly operated parks, marinas, harbours, and conservation areas face the challenge of preparing the first long weekend of the busy season, launch a tsunami of activity as peak season arrives with its many visitors. Since our clients operate with reduced staff during the off-season getting prepared can be challenging. Staff working wear many hats and when things get technical, and require a specialized skill set, projects such as computer hardware and software set-up and networks, as well as internet connectivity are often outsourced.

Risk prevention and reduction

Hiring just any contractor to optimize these systems has many risks; security clearance for the technicians and an in-depth understanding of the existing system infrastructure coupled with the need to conform to government regulations and rules can be a challenge for even the most seasoned field team. Without these systems at optimal performance the parks run the risk of revenue loss and frustrated guests – not an ideal situation by anyone’s standards.

Camis has contracts with several clients that involve different level of government and conservation authorities to manage and set up these systems. Given the strict data collection and security requirements of government operated facilities, Camis needs to ensure consistency is maintained coupled with the use of Camis reservation software.  

This spring, Field & Corporate Infrastructure conducted over 130 service visits to locations in Canada and over 142 visits to locations in the United States. These on-site service visits equipped our clients with the tools they need to manage bookings, payments, merchandise, rental sales and provide the connectivity, system control and reporting needed to support our clients throughout the year.

On-site equipping maintenance

Site service visits are an opportunity for our teams to update and assess the efficiency of installed hardware. The service teams not only update and upgrade hardware but also evaluate how the software is performing in those environments. Field & Corporate Infrastructure teams work with Product Management and Development on improving software performance in the field. Collectively gathering bandwidth and computer data usage in greater detail, defining proper troubleshooting steps to identify specific areas of the software causing higher than normal processing times.  This information equips our teams to make ongoing improvements in our field solution.

Covid-19's many challenges

With most of the world on varying degrees of lock down to reduce the spread of the virus, Field & Corporate Infrastructure teams encountered numerous challenges as they worked with clients to organize visits. Since we have service teams in both countries, crossing borders was thankfully not one of these challenges.  

Being aware of the ever-changing government mandated safety and security measures required in each province and state was an ongoing concern and made scheduling a moving target. Each member of our service teams is properly trained on COVID-19 protocols as well as ensuring we adhere to our clients Occupational Health & Safety standards. This ensures while on site, our service teams are safe and conduct themselves accordingly. Also, there is a global shortage of hardware due to the pandemic’s impact on supply chains. Our teams were aware of this in advance and proactively worked with vendors to obtain standardized hardware meeting Camis’s system requirements in the shortest time possible.

Strong connections

Since January over 1 million reservations have been processed; a clear indicator that people are excited about being connected with the outdoors once again. We also saw record breaking reservations numbers go through our call center and online reservation systems. While our spring service trips focused on hardware, networking, and software services, we were also excited to reconnect in person with our clients.

Having visited over 424 client locations in the United States and Canada during the spring of 2021, with a priority on installations being professional, clean, and ergonomic, each client knows us personally and trusts that we will ensure that our field hardware solutions exceed client expectations and that all Camis employees strive to build strong connections to improve the user experience.