Stabilizing and Streamlining Our Core Processes and Platforms

IT core processes and platforms form the backbone of VA.

The work we do behind the scenes supports critical functions across the Department and ensures smooth interactions between systems for a better Veteran experience. In 2017, we took a hard look at improving our core processes. From our help desk support to financial management, from providing laptops to employees to consolidating data centers, and from decreasing our physical building footprint to expanding our cloud footprint, we’ve made tremendous progress.

Cloud

Decommissioning legacy systems, consolidating data centers, and evolving strategic sourcing created room in our budget to invest in innovative technology solutions. When the time came to identify alternative solutions to move critical functions previously captured in legacy systems, ensure data consolidation didn’t impact our data stores, and be more responsive to our customers’ needs, we looked to the cloud.

We began our move to the cloud by building the foundation and hiring an experienced cloud executive to drive our progress. We developed a strategy to understand the business requirements and developed an enterprise architecture. We assessed our systems and created a plan to migrate our applications to the cloud.

We now have more flexibility to innovate. Storing information in the cloud makes it widely available to developers and stakeholders, promoting increased collaboration. It also shortens the development cycle from weeks or months down to hours, allowing VA to dynamically scale applications up or down based on business needs.

To continue our success, we must modernize our network and ensure fast, easy, secure access to applications. We will retrain and redeploy staff to meet changing needs and shift from a capital-intensive model to managed services, developing cloud applications that are universal, not tied to one cloud vendor. The cloud is a more stable foundation for secure and flexible data storage and enables us to do more for Veterans faster and with fewer physical resources.

Implementing Cloud to Modernize VA

We are implementing cloud technology across the VA enterprise to better serve our employees as they work to improve the Veteran experience. Highlights of our 2017 cloud accomplishments include:

Office 365 ProPlus

Moving applications to the cloud facilitates collaboration and saves VA expenses on equipment, space, and operations. Upgrading to Office 365 ProPlus does all this while bringing VA the latest versions of productivity applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Skype for Business. It also gives VA additional levels of security, greater ease in updating and deployment, and extra tools and features that will better enable IT technicians to deliver more efficient, reliable service, and to resolve performance issues.

The project team has been working diligently through 2017 to upgrade VA users and mailboxes to Office 365 ProPlus.

Approximately 70 percent of VA has migrated to Office 365 ProPlus, with remaining users on schedule to migrate to Office 365 ProPlus by the middle of 2018.

Email-as-a-Service

At VA, email in the cloud is often referred to as email-as-a-service. More than 240,000 VA mailboxes have moved to the cloud, providing employees with:

A larger mailbox with 100 gigabytes of storage.
The ability to send and receive larger attachments.
A more stable, reliable, and secure email system that delivers enhanced performance.
Advanced viewing of shared calendars.

ServiceNow (IT Service Management Tool)

IIn October 2017, VA purchased a cloud-based IT service management tool, ServiceNow, a comprehensive single platform that modernizes the way our customers access IT support in VA.

screenshot of the Department of Veteran Affairs ServiceNow website interface.

When fully implemented, ServiceNow will enhance OIT employees’ ability to prioritize incidents, analyze issues,and capture service management metrics. It will also offer an advanced self-service portal through which users can submit requests, report issues, and talk to technicians via an online chat function.

This effort is a significant step forward in VA’s continuous drive to remain accountable, modernize IT, and improve utilization of resources. ServiceNow fulfills OIT’s strategic goals to stabilize and streamline core processes and institutionalize new capabilities that drive improved outcomes.

The next step is implementation. We expect ServiceNow to be operational in 2018, with the first wave of functionality to include incident management, service request management, knowledge management, and an interactive service portal.

“ServiceNow bridges the gap between our existing it capabilities and OIT’s vision to deliver world-class technical support and customer service.”
Jack Galvin, Executive Sponsor, ITSM Tool

Financial Management Business Transformation (FMBT)

VA has a clear and urgent need to address multiple legacy platforms used today in our finance and accounting mission-critical functions. OIT has selected a new, streamlined, cloud-based financial system solution to replace our 30-year-old Financial Management System (FMS). It will soon transition from this legacy financial management system to the new platform, the Integrated Financial and Acquisition Management System (iFAMS).

Making the transition to iFAMS requires the careful thought and planning of a new team within OIT’s Financial Management Business Transformation program—the Special Program Office (SPO). The SPO’s work includes analyzing nearly 200 interfaces involved in VA’s financial management data transmission and over 100 legacy systems to support the design of the new system and prepare for data migration and security requirements. The team works closely with the Business Process Reengineering team, reviewing each system and related interfaces to provide technical recommendations. By promoting operational efficiency and simplicity, this program supports Secretary Shulkin’s priority of focusing resources and strengthening foundational services in VA.

This transition effort will increase the transparency, accuracy, timeliness, and reliability of financial information, improving our fiscal accountability to American taxpayers and streamlining care and services for our Veterans.

VA Integrated Enterprise Workflow Solution (VIEWS)

After an intense review of a failed 3-year attempt to deploy a separate Veterans Affairs Intranet Quorum (VAIQ) enterprise correspondence management system, we charted a path toward a solution that would facilitate enterprise caseflow and case management—features the former, siloed VAIQ replacement attempt lacked. The new IT capability provides the Office of Congressional Legislative Affairs initial functionality and workflow case management. We’re also replacing VAIQ with this new solution.

In June 2017, the VIEWS project team successfully deployed its first Veteran-focused integration process (VIP) release. This innovative product is the first step toward eliminating one-off disparate systems and integrating corporate processes into a unified cloud platform, reducing the IT footprint at VA. VIEWS uses a cloud-based platform that can be configured and scaled for other case management needs, such as the White House VA Hotline initiative.

What is Veteran-focused Integration Process (VIP)?

VIP creates a more streamlined process for delivering IT solutions that prioritizes Veteran needs at the project, program and portfolio levels. Using Agile principles, it:

Reduces the number of documents from 57 to 7
Simplifies 5 phases into 2 critical decision points
Consolidates multiple release processes into one integrated release
Cuts the delivery cycle in half — from 6 months to 3 months

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