Case Tracking project (2018/2019)

Overview

Early in 2019, the PDC improved the case management system used by its Compliance personnel. Internal processes were enhanced by the collection of more concise information from complainants and respondents. There were upgrades to internal tracking and notifications, new automation and templating, and new in-depth history and reporting for case progression. In addition, enhanced public access was added to the existing Enforcement cases section of the PDC website with advanced searching capabilities and the option of subscribing to updates. A nice visual representation of cases opened and closed per month for the past year and time to resolution was also developed and implemented, as well.

Project scope and structure

Early on, it was determined that though the focus would be on building new internal interfaces and data structures, it would also be important to update the public-facing enforcement section of the PDC web site. Notification and subscription options would be an added benefit. Three success criteria were identified:

1) An improved user interface for collecting the needed individual data elements associated with compliance complaints and cases.

2) Reporting and notification systems to keep track of the progress of individual cases, and to produce reports for the staff and the commission.

3) An informative and up-to-date public facing list of current and past enforcement cases, with a subscription option to automatically receive updates.

Stakeholders and meetings

The project was developed using the Agile software development approach under which requirements and solutions evolved through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customers/end users. Stakeholders included several members of the IT development team along with selected members of the PDC Compliance team and PDC management. Throughout the project, the goal was to incrementally deliver working project components at the conclusion of each two-week development Sprint, where applicable.

Delivery and close-out

The Case-tracking project went live for internal users on April 2, 2019. The public-facing side of the application was launched a day later. A successful project close-out meeting was held on April 16, in which project deliverables were compared to the original project scope definitions and stakeholders evaluated what went right and what went wrong, what worked and didn't work and what could be done better or more efficiently in future projects.