Enhancement and Re-Engineering of the ISBE Entity System

Client: Illinois State Board of Education

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) data systems division awarded a contract to MSF&W for a Requirements Study for the Enhancement and Re-Engineering of the ISBE Entity System.

The Entity system is generally described as a collection of names and their associated addresses, phone numbers, and contact information. Additional information, such as RCDT code, TIN numbers, claim information, etc. is maintained by other systems in their own data tables.

ISBE moved toward a data warehouse to foster sharing of information. MSF&W realized that paramount to achieving this goal, the new Entity system must allow for the centralization of the identification of entities serving and being served by ISBE.

Through extensive stakeholder interviews, observations, and JAD sessions, MSF&W defined requirements, business rules, and a data model for an Entity system. MSF&W recommended that the proposed Entity system operate as a central server that provides names, addresses, contacts, and phone numbers to all of the ISBE applications. The Entity System will provide oversight responsibility in maintaining unduplicated names, addresses, contacts, and phone numbers.

It was the recommendation of MSF&W that the Entity System not only be able to consolidate the data but also provide the means to generate lists, mass emails, and labels, thereby negating the need for multiple databases. This will also allow the end-users to provide their own updates, segregating them until validation by ISBE personnel. Once validation occurs, the data will be included in the common files.