The State department is facing challenges in modernizing its legacy systems to interface seamlessly with the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) project. These legacy systems are outdated and need to be re-engineered, updated, modified, and tested to ensure they are sustainable, maintainable, and can provide accurate and timely data to FI$Cal. The transition to FI$Cal is critical to improve its financial management processes and ensure compliance with state regulations.
The project requires a comprehensive approach to address various technical aspects, including updating applications to supported platforms, modifying applications to ensure data accuracy, developing secure web services, and ensuring the systems are secure and maintainable. The project also involves significant coordination and collaboration with the State department’s System Readiness Team and requires knowledge transfer to the technical staff to ensure ongoing support for the updated systems.
Radian Solutions’ proposed solution for this project involves providing a team of Microsoft and Oracle Systems experts to assist the State of California’s Department in updating, modifying, and testing various legacy systems to interface with, or be converted to, the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal). The key components of their solution include:
- Technical Support: Providing technical support to review and provide feedback on FI$Cal Project deliverables and to identify the level of effort required to update, modify, and document the legacy systems for sustainable interfacing with FI$Cal.
- Development and Documentation: Developing and documenting process flows, business requirements, use cases, test scripts, test cases, and test scenarios based on project timelines and resource availability.
- Application Modification: Modifying applications interfacing with FI$Cal to be on a supported and maintainable platform, ensuring timely and accurate data transfer. This includes changes to applications utilizing various technologies such as Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports, BI Publisher, APEX, Crystal Reports, VB6, Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server, ASP.Net, Ajax, Telerik Controls, Windows PowerShell, Linux Shell, SQL Server, Oracle RDBMS, DTS, SSIS, SSRS, and UI expertise in HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, Boilerplate, and Bootstrap.
- Design and Development Practices: Developing application and system-level designs, including non-functional requirements such as security requirements, secure development practices, and secure web services.
- Build and Test: Performing the build and test for updates and modifications needed to legacy systems impacted by FI$Cal, including knowledge transfer and documentation for the technical staff.
- Technical Architecture Feedback: Reviewing and providing feedback on the technical architecture to the State department.
- Data Conversion: Assisting the State department with the conversion of data from existing legacy systems into FI$Cal.
- Interface Development and Testing: Assisting with interfacing the legacy systems with the FI$Cal system, including identifying development objects for interfaces, developing a legacy interface test approach, mapping legacy data elements to FI$Cal data elements, managing and participating in legacy interface activities, and providing advice on managing interface risks with mitigation strategies.
- Business Analyst Activities: Providing business analyst activities such as scheduling meetings, setting agendas, recording minutes, coordinating work efforts, and creating documentation like project schedules, dependencies, alternative options, risks, and issues.
Overall, Radian Solutions’ proposed solution aims to ensure that State Department’s legacy systems are sustainable, data is accurate, and timely interfaces with FI$Cal are provided, supporting the overall goal of updating and modernizing the systems to interface with FI$Cal.
The proposed solution for the project involves Radian Solutions providing technical consulting services to update, modify, and test various legacy systems of the State department to ensure their compatibility and integration with the FI$Cal system. Here are some potential benefits and impacts of this solution:
- Enhanced System Compatibility: By updating and modifying legacy systems, the solution ensures that these systems can interface effectively with FI$Cal, leading to smoother integration and data exchange.
- Improved Data Accuracy: The modifications will focus on ensuring that the data provided to FI$Cal from the State department’s systems is timely and accurate, which is crucial for financial management and reporting.
- Sustainability: The re-engineering of legacy systems will make them more sustainable and maintainable, reducing the risk of system failures and ensuring their long-term viability.
- Enhanced Security: The development of secure web services and secure development practices will enhance the security of the systems, protecting sensitive financial data.
- Operational Efficiency: The updated systems will likely lead to improved operational efficiency, as they will be better aligned with the requirements of FI$Cal system and more capable of handling financial transactions and reporting.
- Cost Savings: In the long run, the sustainability and maintainability of the updated systems may lead to cost savings, as there will be fewer system failures and less need for emergency repairs.
- Risk Mitigation: The solution includes managing interface risks with mitigation strategies, which will help in reducing the risk of system integration failures and data inaccuracies.
- System Readiness: The legacy systems will be better prepared for the FI$Cal go-live, ensuring that the department can continue its operations without disruption.
- Stakeholder Confidence: The successful implementation of the solution will likely increase confidence among stakeholders, including the state staff, financial partners, and other interfacing entities, in the reliability and effectiveness of the financial systems.
Overall, the proposed solution aims to modernize and enhance the compatibility of the department’s legacy systems with FI$Cal, leading to improved data accuracy, system sustainability, and operational efficiency.
- Agile Methodology
- Software Development LifeCycle (SDLC)
Visual Studio 2010/2013, ASP.Net (C#, VB.Net), SQL Server, Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports, BI Publisher, SSRS (SQL Reporting Services), SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services), DTS (SQL Data Transformation Services), APEX, Crystal Reports, Team Foundation Server, Ajax, Telerik Controls, UI expertise (HTML5/CSS/JavaScript/Boilerplate/Bootstrap), Windows PowerShell, Linux Shell