In its collaboration with IRS Safeguards, Sky Solutions aims to enhance security and operational efficiency, focusing on compliance with industry standards and regulations. The partnership involves assessing system configurations, interviewing users, and reviewing artifacts against benchmarks such as CIS, NIST, and IRS guidelines. Sky Solutions oversees the maintenance of mainframes, operating systems, applications, and databases, providing comprehensive support for information submissions and responses in alignment with Publication 1075. The project extends to Safeguards methodology updates, emphasizing timely rollout, effective change control, risk management, and cost reduction.

Goal

The goal of Sky Solutions’ collaboration with IRS Safeguards is to enhance security, compliance, and operational efficiency while ensuring adherence to industry standards and regulations. This includes optimizing the risk-based review process, supporting risk model maintenance, and providing effective cybersecurity measures, all while reducing costs and risks related to federal tax information (FTI).

Challenge

Safeguards faced challenges in maintaining compliance with industry standards and regulations. Sky Solutions stepped in to optimize the risk-based review process, identify areas for improvement, and implement enhancements. The project required a holistic approach, including risk model maintenance, IT guidance, and knowledge transfer to bolster cybersecurity measures.

Solutions

Collaborating closely with agency stakeholders, Sky Solutions adopted a multifaceted approach. This involved risk model maintenance support to optimize the Safeguards risk-based review selection process, generating a Risk Dashboard for timely identification and communication of findings, risks, ranking, and remediation data. Additionally, a focus on outreach strategy and communication planning aimed to streamline outreach, improve customer service, and enhance overall efficiency.

Technical Challenges Overcome

Addressing technical challenges, Sky Solutions focused on optimizing the risk-based review process, providing cybersecurity expertise, and supporting the development of a Risk Dashboard. The project required meticulous planning to ensure timely communication and identification of resources for review planning.

Advantages of the Digital Experience

The partnership with Sky Solutions has yielded several advantages. The risk-based review process has been optimized, leading to timely identification and communication of findings. The Risk Dashboard facilitates informed decision-making, and the outreach strategy has improved customer service and overall efficiency.

Technologies/Methodologies

• CIS Benchmarks
• NIST Guidelines
• IRS Guidelines (Publication 1075)
• Risk Dashboard
• Cybersecurity Tools

Outcome

We successfully achieved the efficient reduction of costs and minimization of risks to federal tax information (FTI) in the possession of agency partners. The Risk Dashboard has proven to be a game-changer, providing real-time insights for decision-making. Sky Solutions’ collaborative approach has established a strategic brand for Safeguards, promoting the program internally and externally.

The post Elevating the Security and Operational Efficiency of Safeguards appeared first on Sky Solutions.

An integrated grants management system, developed for the Federal Justice Program Office, serves as a key pillar in bridging informational gaps, streamlining communication, and facilitating seamless data exchange among diverse stakeholders, ranging from Program Office staff to grant recipients. The system’s interoperability enhances the quality of grants management by fostering informed decision-making, reducing processing errors, and promoting collaboration between all involved parties.

The digital experience offered by the grants management system has revolutionized the grant application, award, and management processes, benefiting both the Grant Administration Division staff and grant recipients.

There are three grant-making offices: the Public Safety Grants Division, the Justice Program Administration Office, and the Office for Women’s Safety Initiatives. While the Justice Program Administration Office and the Office for Women’s Safety Initiatives used the Grants Management System (GMS), the Public Safety Grants Division used the NexGen system.

Goal

Since all three offices share many of the same processes, the goal was to enhance the award recipient (external user) experience in managing grant awards by transitioning to a single grant management system for all three grant-making offices, while simultaneously improving the internal user experience.

Challenge

The context in which the Justice Program Administrative Office operated prior to the implementation of the integrated grants management system was fraught with challenges that demanded a transformative solution. 

1. Unclear Vision for the System: The business struggled to define a clear vision for the system’s design and functionality, leading to delays and multiple iterations.
   Impact: Increased project timeline by 20%, with at least 3 to 4 prototypes created to align with stakeholder expectations. 
2. Cross-Team Coordination: Integration required seamless collaboration among multiple development teams, each working on different components of the grant lifecycle.
   Impact: Potential risk of misalignment caused delays in integration. 
3. Knowledge Gap in Grants-Making Processes: Developers lacked an understanding of the grants-making process, leading to inefficiencies and additional training needs.
   Impact: Added an estimated 120 hours of onboarding and training to bridge the knowledge gap. 
4. Complex External System Integrations: Interfacing with external systems such as grants.gov, sam.gov, and financial systems (e.g., ASAP, UFMS) posed significant challenges due to data incompatibility and frequent system downtimes. 
   Impact: A substantial number of project delays were attributed to external system unavailability, accompanied by multiple incidents of data exchange errors.

Solutions

Sky Solutions, in partnership with GDIT, has harnessed Pega’s cutting-edge digital workflows to drive the success of the Integrated Grants Management System. Our focus has been on modernizing and streamlining the grant application and award processes, unlocking the full potential of the solution for the modern grant management landscape. Key highlights of the solution include:

• Designed interactive prototypes to help the business visualize the system and accommodate evolving requirements.
• Promoted seamless collaboration among development teams to integrate components into a unified system.
• Conducted training sessions to familiarize developers with the grants-making process and align technical efforts with business goals.
• Built robust application programming interfaces (APIs) and interfaces to enable seamless data exchange with external systems such as grants.gov, sam.gov, ASAP, and UFMS.
• Implemented error-handling, retry mechanisms, and monitoring tools to manage external system downtimes and ensure data integrity.
• Leveraged the Pega platform to develop a cohesive system that streamlined the grant lifecycle, improved user experience, and enhanced transparency and reporting capabilities.

The project team adopted an agile development approach to ensure flexibility in addressing evolving requirements while adhering to rigorous security and compliance standards. The multi-phase implementation plan was executed with regular feedback and involvement from end-users to optimize the user experience.

Technologies/Methodologies

• Pega platform
• Agile

Outcome

The successful implementation of the integrated grants management system has brought transformative benefits to all stakeholders, driving efficiency and scalability across the organization. The new System:

• Supported the development and implementation of SAFe for grants case management, serving over 1,500 internal users and 15,000 external users, handling 14,000+ applications annually.
• Scaled operations from 8 to 12 Scrum teams within a month to address increased demand.
• Successfully supported 15 Scrum teams at the peak of the project, deploying certified Agile resources, software test engineers, and business analysts.
• Migrated 700,000 records and 30 million attachments from legacy applications to a modern platform, ensuring data integrity and seamless operations.
• Achieved 90% automation testing coverage, a 96% application guardrail score, and improved team velocity by 50% within six months.
• Program Impact: Grants are processed faster, reaching an additional 20% more beneficiaries annually. As of April 2022, 6,636 out of 6,690 entities (99%) and 41,724 external users were enrolled. The system managed $6.6 billion in award funding drawn down by grantees from the Automated Standard Application for Payments (ASAP) system
• Overall: 10% profitability increase in first year of implementation, 15% reduction in operating costs, or improved productivity/efficiency

The post Modernizing Grant Management for Federal Justice Program Office   appeared first on Sky Solutions.

The Federal Justice Program Office undertook a significant transition by migrating their grant-making system from GMS and NexGen to an Integrated Grants Management System. This involved transferring tens of thousands of ongoing solicitations, applications, and grants from the old systems to the new one, ensuring the seamless continuation of operations.

Goal

Ensure a smooth transition of ongoing cases from GMS and NexGen to the Integrated Grants Management System by its launch on October 15, 2020. 

Challenge

• The business struggled to agree on which cases and case types should be migrated to the Integrated Grants Management System. Some believed only grantee-accepted grants should be migrated, while others argued that all unresolved cases should be included. The only consensus was that closed-out grants should not be migrated.
• A thorough understanding of both the old (GMS and NexGen) and the new Integrated Grants Management System was essential for proper data migration. This involved mapping tens of thousands of data elements between the systems, transitioning from relational databases (GMS and NexGen) to an object-oriented data structure, and ensuring that each case type in the Integrated Grants Management System had the necessary data to function properly. Additionally, processes had to be mapped between the systems to ensure that cases in specific parts of the grant lifecycle were migrated to the correct spot in the Integrated Grants Management System.
• The final system for data migration was not static. The Integrated Grants Management System remained under development until its launch in October 2020, with new functionalities and data elements being added daily. This made it extremely challenging to keep up with the data migration, as new processes and data elements had to be mapped, and additional development work was required to accommodate these changes.
• The approach to data migration was frequently challenged by either the business or the lead of the data migration team. Despite showing good progress, there were constant requests to explore other approaches, many of which were known to be less effective.

Solutions

To address the challenges, the team at Sky Solutions decided to assume the worst-case scenario and began mapping and developing for the migration of all case types. This proactive approach enabled them to be prepared when the business ultimately decided to migrate all case types, excluding closed grants. They maintained constant communication with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from GMS and NexGen to understand their systems, while collaborating with the Integrated Grants Management System developers to gain insights into the new system’s development. The team attended sprint review demos to stay updated on new functionalities.

Spreadsheets were created to map processes and data elements between GMS, NexGen, and the Integrated Grants Management System. The team worked closely with the business and SMEs to address missing data issues. They informed the business that they needed to work from a static system, building a data migration application on the last deployed version of Integrated Grants Management. This required halting all development at least one sprint before the system went live to incorporate the latest changes.

To address challenges to their approach, the team patiently explained why their method would work and why alternative approaches would not be effective or would slow down the data migration process. They often had to implement these alternative approaches to demonstrate their ineffectiveness, ensuring the success of the data migration.

Technologies/Methodologies

• Pega 
• Agile 
• AWS (Amazon Web Services) 
• Kafka 

Outcome

Sky Solutions successfully migrated hundreds of thousands of cases and tens of millions of attachments. Despite facing challenges due to missing or incomplete data from GMS and NexGen, these issues were eventually resolved after the Integrated Grants Management System went live. Many of the migrated cases have since been closed out in the Integrated Grants Management System, while numerous migrated awards remain active in the system.

The post Seamless Transition into Integrated Grants Management  appeared first on Sky Solutions.

The Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission (MWCC) wanted to modernize its claims management process using automated technologies. It selected Bizagi, a sophisticated BPM Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) tool to achieve this. Sky Solutions collaborated with the government, PMO contractor and Bizagi to perform systems integration and modernization, replacing outdated and poorly integrated legacy systems.

Goal

The primary goal of the project was to enhance the overall claims service experience for both internal and external MWCC users.

Challenge

MWCC encountered several challenges, including slow claims processing times, outdated and cumbersome legacy systems, and insufficient integration across different operations. These issues led to inefficient claims intakes, prolonged processing times for hearings and appeals, and delays in settlements, which negatively impacted the service experience for Maryland citizens.

Solutions

To effectively address these challenges, Sky Solutions focused on several key strategic initiatives, such as:

• Establishing a robust technological foundation that not only supports innovative applications but enhance system performance
• Applying a systematic approach to optimize processes, improving overall efficiency
• Establishing protocols to ensure rapid issue resolution with defined response time targets
• Migrating legacy claims and user data to a more advanced platform, improving accessibility and service delivery
• Introducing advanced reporting tools to improve decision-making and transparency
• Implementing a new system to streamline document handling and retrieval

Technologies/Methodologies

• Bizagi
• Power BI
• Azure B2C
• Azure Active
• Agile
• SQL Server
• SharePoint
• FileNet
• Low-Code/ No code

Outcome

The solution implemented enhanced the overall claims experience for both internal and external users through seamless integration of various systems and modernization of legacy components, ensuring a more cohesive and user-friendly process. Some of the key benefits of the solution include:

• Boosted productivity by 30%, enabling teams to complete tasks more efficiently
• Reduced operational costs by 25% due to optimized resource allocation and streamlined processes
• Improved user satisfaction by 40% with intuitive and responsive experience
• Cut down service delivery response times by 50%, significantly enhancing operational speed
• Increased customer retention by 20%, driven by improved service offerings and enhanced communication strategies that fostered loyalty

The post Revolutionizing Claims Management with Digital Modernization appeared first on Sky Solutions.

Con Edison, a utility company in New York, needed intranet portals to manage requests from departments such as HR, Finance, Electric, Gas, and Storm Damage Maintenance. These portals handle work orders, refunds, transfer corrections, vehicle home requests, and vacation requests, simplifying the process for employees to submit requests and obtain manager approvals. Designed to manage high traffic, the applications aim to streamline eligibility determinations and service authorizations while ensuring real-time visibility into compliance and service delivery.

Goal

The project aimed to modernize intranet portals across various departments, resulting in a robust solution that enhances the user experience. A custom Angular framework was developed to streamline the approval process and enable seamless script embedding. Azure APIs were integrated for secure authentication, and a SharePoint Online site was set up to provide remote access without compromising functionality. The goal was to deliver responsive websites quickly, backed by strategic design and dependable user support.

Challenge

During the modernization of all intranet portals using the new framework, we faced several challenges, particularly the migration from the legacy system to the new platform. This process involved not only transferring data but also migrating attachments. We had to develop numerous C# console applications to read the .xsn files (from the old platform), extract the data into Excel, and then upload it to the database. This added complexity to the task of obtaining the necessary information, requiring extensive collaboration and testing to ensure accurate and efficient data flow across the various systems. Despite these challenges, our team remained dedicated to delivering a robust solution that enhanced overall service delivery.

Solutions

Sky Solutions developed a solution that:

• Utilized the Angular framework to build dynamic, responsive websites that adapt seamlessly to user interactions.
• Leveraged the .NET Framework for powerful back-end services, boosting website performance and scalability.
• Incorporated HTML and Bootstrap to create a modern, intuitive front-end design that enhances user experience.
• Employed SQL and Oracle EBS for efficient database management and streamlined data storage.
• Implemented web services to enable seamless communication across different components of the application.
• Provided ongoing support and maintenance, ensuring smooth website operation and swift resolution of any issues.
• Developed custom case types based on data complexity and volume, optimizing workflows and process efficiency.
• Generated detailed reports covering usage statistics and operational insights for better decision-making.
• Migrated content and attachments from legacy systems to modern web applications, improving accessibility and usability.
• Integrated with tools such as Power Automate and Nintex Workflow to automate processes and increase efficiency.
• Facilitated data migration from legacy formats, such as Excel, to secure SQL databases for more efficient data management.

Technologies/Methodologies

• .Net
• Angular
• Azure
• SQL
• Oracle EBS
• Power Automate
• Nintex Workflow

Outcome

Sky Solutions has streamlined the request submission process, approval workflows, and notifications, significantly enhancing user experience. Users can now generate reports effortlessly by applying filters on the webpage, driving greater efficiency and empowering users to make data-driven decisions.

The post Transforming Intranet Efficiency: One Unified Portal at a Time appeared first on Sky Solutions.