Governor Mark Dayton recently proclaimed November, 2017 to be “Veterans and Service Members Appreciation” month. Currently, there are more than 353,000 veterans and service members living in Minnesota, and those veterans may often need to interact with the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs. MNIT is proud to honor the brave men and women who have fought for our country, and to help modernize the systems that help provide services to those veterans.

MNIT staff partnering with the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs completed a project this year to develop an automated process for state benefits applications submitted by Minnesota Veterans. The project developed an application called the Veteran Application Tracking System, or VATS, that could be used by several divisions in the MDVA to streamline information sharing and manage all the needs of Minnesota Veterans.

One of MNIT’s priorities is to modernize aging technologies, and VATS has now replaced multiple manual, paper-based processes, and an existing 15+ year old application that was expensive and difficult to support.

Our MNIT MDVA Project team worked with several other departments and agencies to make this project a success: MNIT staff at MDVA, Enterprise Services and the Department of Health; MDVA business, Minnesota Management and Budget, and Ramsey County. Being able to easily reach out to other state employees was extremely helpful, and using the expertise of these groups and individuals produced a better solution.

With VATS in place, there are now automated workflows for approvals, appeals and denials, and MDVA staff can access the system to make decisions on benefits from wherever they may be. Veterans can submit applications online, and with a master/single database, that information can accessed across all veterans programs and services. With consolidated electronic case notes, a 30 minute search now takes just a few seconds, so applications are processed more quickly. VATS was built with flexibility in mind, so the application can easily accommodate changes like adding a new benefit type, business policy or process, or making modification to comply with legislative mandates. Dynamic reporting provides granular reports and audits.

The project team and business worked very closely on this project. The project manager and business analyst met frequently with the business to make sure they captured a full understanding of their requirements for the new application. Additionally, the Project Steering Committee met regularly and received progress updates, made decisions, signed off on completed components, and removed barriers as necessary. Having the project sponsors engaged in the Steering Committee meetings really helped keep this project focused and successful.