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Top 10 modernizations happening right now in state government

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

The State of Oklahoma is in its modernization era, fueled by fast-paced leadership, hybrid workforce needs and a commitment to improve government services for Oklahomans. The Office of Management and Enterprise Services Information Services team, the state’s primary IT provider, is leading agencies in the charge to replace outdated technology, increase transparency of state data and streamline historically manual processes.

There are certainly dozens of huge projects going on in the state right now. From the development of Service Oklahoma to the implementation of the Treasury System Modernization project, the State of Oklahoma is experiencing a rapid pace of amazing modernizations that are in flight right now! While the list could be much longer, below are just ten initiatives we’ve identified to highlight for the month of August.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic drastically accelerated the need for secure digital services. Since then, the state has identified many opportunities for advancement, from mobile-friendly platforms to cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions that better protect state data and citizen information. The projects outlined below are among the many innovations currently in progress or recently completed, that depict the State of Oklahoma’s rise to a new digital frontier.

1. Workday@OK – harmonized HR for state employees

Workday@OK is the State of Oklahoma’s new human capital management system that provides human resources, payroll, benefits, talent, learning and more services to all state employees. Further, Workday@OK harmonizes all state agencies on a central, cloud-based platform for the first time in state history.

Implemented Aug. 15, 2022, Workday@OK allows the state to efficiently manage our people-related activities and lifecycles in a post-COVID-19, hybrid working environment. All these functionalities are now part of a single, unified system. It also offers real-time workforce data and insights, helping state leadership make more informed decisions and shape long-term strategies.

Visit the Workday@Ok webpage to learn more.

2. eProcurement modernization – simplified business with the state for suppliers

The state is launching a new eProcurement platform designed to help suppliers provide invaluable services to the state and millions of Oklahomans. This project aims to increase contract visibility, provide more competitive supplier options and better partnership management between businesses and the state. The new eProcurement portal also empowers suppliers to manage their own information, reducing redundant data entry and ensuring more accuracy.

The new online portal allows suppliers and the state to work closer together – beginning with supplier registration and, ultimately, leading to more streamlined and transparent services for state suppliers and agencies.

Visit the eProcurement project page to learn more.

3. Shared Data Platform – catering services to Oklahomans

The new State Data Platform provides transparency, security and accountability of state and citizen information.

The platform connects individual state agencies that offer complimentary services, from food benefits and school attendance to mental health and driver’s license support.

The hub-and-spoke data sharing style allows agencies to work together to improve lives of Oklahomans and give the citizens control of their data while ensuring all information is protected and secure.

4. Human Services system upgrade

OMES collaborated with the Department of Human Services, LocalPeople, MiPro and Oracle to complete a 13-month migration from an outdated system to PeopleSoft Financials within scope, on time and under budget.

Along with the financials implementation, we also modernized their Speed eTravel application that resided on AS400. The new application, iTravelOK, was developed on Oracle Apex. Additionally, iTravelOK will provide DHS with Google Maps and single sign-on capabilities.

DHS will now also have seamless integrations to Workday@OK for cost allocation to maximize transparency of the agency’s financial records.

“The migration of the largest agency onto the state’s ERP system is a substantial accomplishment,” said Ayana Wilkins, financial enterprise application director for OMES, “but, it could not have happened without the dedication, commitment and get stuff done attitude that the OMES teams exhibited.”

5. ServiceNow – easier IT support for state customers

OMES recently launched ServiceNow, an updated IT support portal that simplifies service delivery. Through the new portal, customers can worry less about technical issues and get back to more meaningful work.

“Updating our IT Service Management tools and processes will dramatically change how we serve our customers,” said Jason Garrett, senior director of OMES Customer Success. “It will improve efficiency in solving IT issues and, in turn, allow state employees to return to serving Oklahomans.”

For five months, OMES worked closely with vendor ServiceNow to transition to an updated IT service management system.

The support portal provides a central location for customers to submit IT service requests, check the status of existing tickets, report an outage and chat live with a Service Desk technician.

6. Statewide financial system roadmap – securing taxpayer dollars

OMES updated the PeopleSoft Financials enterprise platform from on-premise to the latest cloud infrastructure model, moving it from Version 5 to 33 and soon to Version 40.

PeopleSoft Financials is an online software that provides state financial teams the ability to transact and view financial systems, online workflows and more.

“The updates have increased performance in networking, computation and storage overall for the system but also for the various applications within PeopleSoft,” Wilkins said. “This is transforming how our agencies report and track assets and their financials.”

Additionally, moving to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure allows the State of Oklahoma to stay up to date with the upcoming PeopleSoft upgrades, giving OMES the ability to continually offer new functionality to state agencies.

Security was another big factor in choosing OCI. PeopleSoft Financials was designed on security-first principles. It includes network virtualization and pristine physical host deployment. PeopleSoft Financials’ OCI helps reduce risk from advanced, persistent threats.

OCI benefits from tiered defenses and highly secure operations that span from the physical hardware in our data centers to the web layer, in addition to the protections and controls available in our cloud.

7. Oklahoma Corporation Commission

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission is in the process of a multiyear project to better serve Oklahoma businesses. OCC will digitize all paper regulations and documentation, while upgrading internal processing systems and information management databases into a new, modern solution.

8. ABLE Commission

The Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission migrated from their 25-year-old IBM mainframe to a modern occupational licensing and administrative system to streamline services.

9. State Department of Education

The State Department of Education is in the process of migrating on-site technology servers, databases and applications to the cloud. A complete review is underway of the existing system architecture with a two- to three-year plan of modernizing old data and student reporting systems into an information warehouse that can handle all application back-ends at scale.

10. OMES application development

OMES is two years into a four-year plan to introduce Agile Scrum methodologies, DevOps, DevSecOps and BizOpps at scale. This will allow developers, servers, networking and security teams to collaborate and build standardized solutions that protect the integrity of software applications created at the state. Development teams will be able to build software applications faster than ever before and harness new levels of automated testing.

Last Modified on Sep 01, 2022