By Michelle Moody, Deputy Director, Business Operation and Solutions Division
Early this month, the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) formally kicked off our next onboarding effort. On July 7, we held an official kickoff session with the California Department of Technology (CDT) and the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR), where we provided an overview of the onboarding journey, key implementation activities and timing, and the roles of the departmental implementation teams. In addition to these two departments, we will work closely with the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) over the next year to begin the planning effort to bring them onto the system.
Currently, there are more than 150 departments actively using the FI$Cal system for statewide budgeting, accounting and procurement. These departments were onboarded in large releases during the project implementation. Nine departments, including some of the largest departments in state government, were deferred from these releases, as most had their own enterprise resource planning systems in place. As these existing systems reach their end of life, the deferred departments will transition to the FI$Cal system, and will go through the onboarding process.
After the last large release, and in anticipation of the next round of department onboarding, we had the opportunity to reflect on the process and identify how best to approach it. We took the opportunity to review our processes, in order to identify ways to streamline and improve the transition.
Over the past year, a fit/gap analysis of the deferred departments was conducted. The analysis provided insights into the level of complexity of the departments’ systems, identified high level business process gaps, and elevated the potential need for new interfaces between FI$Cal and department legacy systems. The fit/gap analysis gave us important information to start the planning processes.
In the past several months leading up to the July kickoff, we have been busy preparing. We reviewed and updated the Master Departmental Workplan (MDW) used by departments to manage their onboarding tasks. Changes made to the MDW were based on lessons learned from our prior onboarding experiences, and included extending the timeframe to bring the departments on to FI$Cal to two years and moving training and access to the system earlier in the process.
With the official kickoff now complete, CDT and DOR staff will begin the transition in earnest. Throughout the transition, department teams can expect the support of FI$Cal with a number of supportive services, including regular touchpoint meetings, the updated MDW, and a dedicated relations coordinator. Once the onboarding is complete, there is an array of additional user support options to further assist our new end users transacting in the FI$Cal system.
We acknowledge a change of this size can be difficult, and our goal is to make this journey as easy as possible. We also know there will be some challenges, as there are with many transitions, but we look forward to tackling them alongside these departments and to supporting their journey to FI$Cal every step of the way.
We look forward to welcoming CDT and DOR, and soon CalTrans, onto the FI$Cal system!