
News
Project & Product Highlights
Conservation Tracking System for BWSR
All Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) grants are tracked through eLINK, BWSR’s conservation tracking system. eLink helps BWSR and its local government, tribal nation, and nonprofit grantee partners track grant progress, pollution reduction benefits, cumulative grant funding, and map locations of projects on a statewide, county, watershed, or individual project basis. This new system reflects current business requirements and modern technology with a supportable development model. eLink features faster performance, an improved user experience, a new user data portal, API for data interoperability, reporting engine, and it complies with the latest state security and accessibility standards.
DNR Point of Sale System
MNIT helped modernized the Point of Sale (POS) systems at Department of Natural Resources (DNR) state parks as more Minnesotans pay for services with credit cards, mobile pay, or tap-to-pay. This modernization also ensured that customer data was protected in compliance with Payment Card Industry standards. MNIT teams worked through power outages and blizzards and traveled to remote parks around the state to install credit card readers and processing machines, modernize rack locations, and network closets, and upgrade switches at Minnesota’s 66 state parks.
Energy Assistant Program On-the-Go
MNIT partnered with the Department of Commerce to update the application behind the Minnesota Energy Assistance Program so Minnesotans could apply for benefits using their laptop or smartphone anytime. This update replaced the outdated mail/fax/email process with a new modern, responsive design hosted on the cloud. The application provides identity and access management, and the advantages offered by a modern cloud hosting environment: scalability, high availability, resiliency, responsiveness, agility, and cost control.
Expanding Healthcare Eligibility: Eliminating the “Family Glitch”
MNIT worked with the Department of Human Services (DHS) to expand Minnesotans’ healthcare eligibility. New legislation required changes to DHS’s Minnesota Eligibility Technology System (METS). This changed the eligibility methodologies and extended MinnesotaCare and the advanced tax credit for some Minnesotans that were previously ineligible. The project expanded coverage to families that were impacted by the “family glitch,” which calculated coverage affordability based on the cost of premiums for individuals, rather than families.
MnDOT Mobility as a Service
In March, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) launched the first multimodal trip planner app to make travel easier in Greater Minnesota, Rochester, and Mankato. Residents and visitors in southern and western Minnesota can now plan for and, in some cases, pay for public transit and intercity bus trips using the free, cloud-based Transit app, available for download in app stores. MNIT and MnDOT partnered to ensure accessibility criteria, security, and data access requirements were detailed, assessed, and scored in the procurement and contracting process.
MPCA Website Redesign
MNIT website developers and project management staff helped redesign and reorganize the public-facing Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) website to improve user experience. MNIT teams built the website and migrated content to an upgraded environment. This project improved website functionality, navigation, and design. The redesign enabled a content strategy that positions the MPCA as the state’s leading environmental management agency and met the needs of users and customers.
Product and Agile Launch
MNIT formed the Product and Agile Center of Enablement (PACE) in 2022 to bring a disciplined, structured, and consistent process for enhancing customer insight and experiences and delivering value more frequently and incrementally. Following TAC recommendations, Minnesota officially launched its product approach in January 2023 when four early adopters began their learning journey of product and agile transformation. As part of the early adopter program, PACE held workshops in March to expose leadership and management to new languages and mindsets, what they should expect, and what changes lay ahead. Around 120 individuals, including state leaders, attended these sessions.
Project Abracadabra: Making MDH File Cabinets Disappear
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has archives of paper documents and forms, all stored in countless file cabinets. Historically, converting that data to digital formats has been a manual process. Project Abracadabra is transforming the conversion process with an AI service that applies advanced machine learning and automation to extract the content and store it in the cloud. MNIT is working with 6 different divisions at MDH on this effort. One group has over 30 years of records for thousands of people with more than 20 different types of documents, including handwritten documents. The project used MNIT’s Resource Sharing program to tap into resources and expertise from multiple divisions to meet MDH’s needs and go live with its first division.
Agency Metrics
Office of Transformation and Strategy Delivery
Over the quarter, MNIT’s Office of Transformation and Strategy Delivery tracked the completion of 37 projects across Minnesota’s executive branch agencies, boards, commissions, and councils.
320
Total projects tracked over the quarter
42
Total projects started over the quarter
Q1 Projects by value
Security
472 cybersecurity incidents detected by or reported to MNIT Security Operation Center within the Office of Enterprise Security.
Type of security incident | # reported |
---|---|
Policy Violation | 135 |
Forensic Investigation | 59 |
Compromised Password | 53 |
Malware | 41 |
Network Attack/Scan | 9 |
Copyright Violation | 8 |
Denial of Service | 5 |
Lost/Stolen Device | 4 |
Social Engineering | 3 |
Unauthorized Access | 3 |
Unauthorized Disclosure | 1 |
Other | 110 |

Procurement
The Procurement Division is responsible for processing all requests to purchase everything from IT hardware, software, and mobile devices to contractors brought in to assist on projects.
Number of Purchase Requests

Average Processing Time (days)

1,132
Purchase Request Volume
9
Average purchase request processing time (days)
Geospatial Information Office
The Minnesota Geospatial Information Office coordinates geographic information systems (GIS) within the state, creating connections between state agencies and other stakeholders from government and non-government organizations.
29
Number of projects the office supports and hosts
1,015
Number of resources on the Minnesota Geospatial Commons
46
Orgs sharing their data on the Minnesota Geospatial Commons
+22.6 Million
Number of hits on the geospatial image server
Office of Accessibility
The Office of Accessibility is charged with overseeing the implementation of accessibility standards for all executive branch employees and state agencies.
1,299
Number of downloads of the Office of Accessibility’s guidance documents
820
Number of downloads of the Office of Accessibility’s quick cards
58
Number of people new people trained in Accessible Word documents
Enterprise service desk
Our enterprise service desk provides 24/7 IT support and services for Minnesota state government: executive branch agencies, boards, councils, and commissions; non-executive branch customers, education, tribal governments, nonprofits; and MNIT staff.
107,159
Total volume of all service desk tickets across the executive branch
52,359
Number of those tickets resolved the same day
48.9%
Percentage of service desk tickets resolved in one day
4.76
Average rating of service desk interaction (1-5 scale)
IT Optimization Updates

CloudRAMP
CloudRAMP (Cloud Readiness and Modernization Project) is MNIT’s enterprise project to identify and modernize applications to begin moving into the Azure cloud.
MNIT teams are participating in cloud readiness workshops to collaboratively plan, prepare, and define their cloud migration strategy. In Q1, MNIT teams partnering with the Department of Corrections and the Department of Revenue participated in the workshop.