New York State Education Department

New York State Agency Fights Paper Burden

VESID is a New York State agency that helps individuals with disabilities overcome their challenges and find jobs. But VESID’s paper-based case management system was slowing these efforts down. The agency asked CGI to design a new, automated system. Now VESID’s staff can share information and work together more effectively than ever.

The Challenge
The Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) is the New York State Education Department agency that helps individuals with disabilities find jobs. With more than 20,000 new cases per year—and an active caseload close to 100,000—VESID fills an urgent social need.

Federal regulations require VESID to keep detailed records. From the moment a client made contact, their case was tracked on paper. Government forms, medical reports, counselor’s notes—everything went into bulging paper files.

By the late 1990s, all this paper was becoming a problem. Since only one person could work with a file at a time, there were many bottlenecks. Important documents could be misplaced. Compiling statistics was onerous. And there was no way to ensure consistent case handling across VESID’s 15 field offices and 10 satellite offices.

VESID knew they needed to start moving away from paper. So they engaged CGI to develop an up-to-date case management system (CaMS) that would help them achieve their goal.

The Strategy
The project began with joint design sessions where CGI and VESID decided what standard forms and data to capture and what business rules to implement.

“We made sure these sessions included key people from every field office,” says Randy Hyatt, CGI’s project manager. “And we took a use case approach, so we were speaking their language, not technospeak. The goal was to create a system that would let staff manage their cases all the way from initial client contact through to final disposition.”

Once the design was finalized, CGI began developing CaMS with industry-standard tools, to facilitate future enhancements. At the project’s peak, CGI had 25 developers working on CaMS, assisted by VESID staff who made a key contribution: an innovative module that moved many forms from paper to screen while still producing attractive printouts.

Late in the project, a new requirement emerged: modify CaMS so that it could be accessed over the Web by VESID staff while they were in the field and by contractors who were not on the VESID network. To minimize costs and development time for this change, CGI sourced an existing package, Citrix Metaframe, for serving applications over the Web.

“Using Citrix MetaFrame to Web-enable the system was a very innovative touch,” says Philip Lahaie, VESID’s manager for the CaMS project. “Instead of adding $1.5 million and another year to the project, this approach cost less than $100,000 in purchases and took just 4 months of development time.”

Because CaMS had to go into production immediately, with no time for debugging in the field, CGI used an automated test method to catch an estimated 97% of the bugs before the software was released. “We had to go live right away,” notes Lahaie, “and with a highly sophisticated system like this one, that’s impressive.”

The Technology

• Application environment: automated Case Management System providing LAN, WAN, and Web access to Oracle 8.0 database and on-screen forms and letters; Citrix MetaFrame application server with very thin client transport protocol for Web access
• Development tools: Rational Rose UML analysis and design tool, Powerbuilder 7 fourth-generation programming language, OCX add-on for screen-based forms and letters
• Total users (projected): over 900, in 25 offices and via the Web.

The Results
CaMS is now up and running, making life easier for VESID’s staff. In addition, the business rules built into CaMS now ensure that every case receives consistent handling, and that new staff learn proper procedures.

“We’re still largely paper-based,” says Philip Lahaie. “But now our people can access more data more quickly and share workloads more easily. People know that when CaMS accepts their information, that means they’ve done their job properly. We’re now rolling CaMS out one office at a time, and wherever it’s in use, the results have been very encouraging.”