Design Work

 

Illinois Senate President: Senate Office Legislation Analysis and Reporting System

Under the direction of Senior Senator John Cullerton, the Office of the Senate President (OSP) serves as the leadership body for the Democratic Caucus of the Illinois Senate. Among its many functions, the office is responsible for maintaining a database of bills at various stages in the legislative process.

Challenge

The Office of the Senate President approached MSF&W with an initiative to design and develop a Bill Analysis and Reporting system. The technical requirements of the system presented some unique security and functionality challenges. End users needed a secure system in which to document and review legislative proposals.

Solution

MSF&W designed the Senate Office Legislation Analysis and Reporting (SOLAR) system that allows Senate staff to annotate bills and collaborate with one another to refine and develop pending legislation. Because of the sensitive nature of the content in the system, MSF&W designed and implemented a secure web solution for OSP.

 

IDES: Website Redesign

The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) is a state agency focused on economic growth in Illinois. The agency oversees the delivery of job training, unemployment insurance, and other employment-related services.

Challenge

The Illinois Department of Employment Security issued an RFP to find a vendor with the expertise needed to revamp its extensive agency website. The website serves as the agency’s primary tool for service delivery to dislocated workers, job-seekers, and employers.

Solution

As a subcontractor to the prime vendor, MSF&W developers were responsible for the business requirements and new design for the IDES website. The existing website was built on an outdated content management system which made it difficult to support and maintain.

The new website was developed using SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer, Nintex and Visual Studio 2010. The new SharePoint website manages the content in a more efficient manner, and allows non-technical administrators to update/add content and make layout changes. This site gives IDES a content managed solution, rather than static HTML pages.

 

Sanitary District of Decatur: Data Integration Initiative

The Sanitary District of Decatur (SDD) is the regional wastewater treatment authority for central Macon County, providing wastewater treatment services to the residents of the City of Decatur, Village of Forsyth, Village of Mt. Zion, and for industrial and commercial users in the Decatur metropolitan area.

Challenge

The Sanitary District of Decatur was using two disparate systems for accounting and asset management. The staff wished to integrate purchase order data from the accounting system into equipment cost data from the asset management application. Prior to the implementation of MSF&W’s solution, the agency lacked sufficient data to effectively monitor costs associated with machinery owned by the district.

Solution

MSF&W implemented a separate data repository to collect data from the accounting system and direct it into the appropriate location in the asset management system database. Another automated process can query against the newly created data repository to identify questionable data and initiate an email alert. Operational staff can now access equipment data from the accounting system from within the asset management system.

 

OSFM: Underground Storage Tank System

The Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal provides professional personnel and programs for the citizens of Illinois and is committed to protecting life and property from fire and explosions through inspection, investigation, training, education, data processing, and statistical fire reports. The Division of Petroleum and Chemical Safety registers and manages the thousands of underground storage tanks containing petroleum or hazardous chemicals. Their responsibilities and duties include issuing permits for all tank installations, removals, repairs, upgrades, and abandonment.

Challenge

The agency was faced with an escalating program as a result of new federal and state regulations. Initial attempts at managing the program relied upon a series of disparate and outdated standalone databases and many manual paper-laden processes. In the absence of an IT development staff, MSF&W was asked to design an integrated software solution to allow centralized management of the program while placing responsibility for remote data capture capability in the hands of the field inspection personnel and the contractors licensed to perform the many duties associated with tank installations, removals, repairs, upgrades, and abandonment.

Solution

MSF&W conducted a requirements definition phase that examined the many operational activities of the division with particular attention to the new state and federal regulations. As part of the process, consideration was given to the interaction between field personnel and central office management and program personnel and the data required to fulfill the daily operation as well as the federal and state reporting requirements. MSF&W designed a .NET/SQL Server solution that placed full data query capability in the hands of the field personnel and allowed for forms based data capture for submission to the central database.