Rhode Island Quick Start

Transcription

1 Rhode Island Quick Start 2012 NASCIO Awards Nomination Project Initiation: December Phased Milestone Completion Dates: April 2011 June 2011 August 2011 October 2011 Presented by, the State of Rhode Island June 4, 2012 Contact: Nicole Courtemanche Project Manager, 1 State Street, Suite 401 Providence, RI x230 1

2 SECTION 2 - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The State of Rhode Island has been hit hard by the national recession. With the third highest rate of unemployment in the nation, state leaders have taken a wide variety of actions to jumpstart the local economy. Recognizing the importance of nurturing the birth of new small businesses, lawmakers allocated funds to the RI Secretary of State (SOS) to develop a web-based One Stop Business Center. The goal was simple: make it easier for entrepreneurs to navigate the state regulatory process of starting a new Rhode Island based business. With a fixed budget of $250,000 and an aggressive schedule, the SOS turned to the team at to develop the service. The task was formidable; the team needed to create a tool that would mirror the full functionality of the in-person service already provided by the Secretary s First Stop Business Center. The service was required to easily adapt to new and changing regulations, offer a robust set of help tools and be completely managed by non-technical personnel. The result is Quick Start a robust set of integrated tools that include a searchable library of tasks and forms, a new business wizard that intelligently guides users through the start-up process and a growing collection of online forms that can be quickly completed and submitted online to numerous state agencies for approval. It was time to put Rhode Island back to work, and Quick Start is ready to make anyone a business super hero. 2

3 SECTION 3 - BUSINESS PROBLEM AND SOLUTION The Problem Before Quick Start, a potential new business contacted the Office of the Secretary of State, often in person to understand the required steps to open their particular business type. A trained SOS staff member would assemble a collection of the required paper forms, tasks, information and regulations into a customized packet. Although the SOS continued to offer excellent phone and support, it was the responsibility of the new business to submit the forms to the appropriate agency or office. Those businesses not fortunate enough to be able to meet with the SOS were left to navigate a sea of paperwork on their own. Another core problem was the communication loop between the business start-ups and the numerous agencies responsible for regulating their future business. Too often, entrepreneurs would wait for months for updates regarding their submitted applications. The new legislation required that agencies offer feedback no less than 60 days once any application is submitted. Lastly, there was a huge amount of data replication throughout the numerous forms a business was required to complete. Those tasked with completing applications were required to enter the same information, such as names and addresses, into unique forms again and again. The RI General Assembly recognized these core issues and Title 42, State Affairs and Government, Chapter , Business Fast-Start Office. The legislation stated, The purpose of this chapter is to provide a convenient, accessible, and timely one-stop system that will enable the business community to acquire, maintain and file the necessary state licenses required to start and conduct business in Rhode Island. The new online service: Needed to intelligently mirror the institutional knowledge of the SOS staff Offer a large number of web-based forms Fully track the life-cycle of submitted information Manage redundant information The Solution Historically, One Stop Business systems had relied on hard-coded decision trees to electronically create a task list based on responses to a fixed set of pre-determined questions. The issue with this approach is that as regulatory processes change, programmers are forced to continually revamp the underlying computer software. The 3

4 result is often what programmers call spaghetti code numerous exceptions to the original programming that can quickly render the entire system obsolete. The development team at RI.gov replaced the risk of spaghetti code with programming based on fast food burgers. Quick Start provides the team at the SOS a robust administrative toolset that allows non-technical staff to quickly upload forms and enter tasks. The admin next associates a list of every form or task that could possibly be required for a defined job type. Once this stage is completed, the admin drafts questions and possible responses designed to eliminate one or multiple tasks from the list. For example, nearly every job type asks if the user intends to do business with the state. If the answer is no the system automatically eliminates all state vendor forms from the list. The methodology is akin to ordering a fast food burger first you select the type of burger you want, and then tell the server what you don t want on the burger. Additionally, Quick Start offers users a great deal of flexibility when it comes to signing up for an account. Taking a page from industry-leading commercial Web applications, Quick Start enables users to sign up or sign in using their Facebook or Google accounts. Necessary data for sign-up is transferred (with a user's consent) from the chosen service, saving time and effort. While Quick Start offers users the experience of a completely unified tool, the system is actually made up of several individual applications that work seamlessly together. The form library, authentication and user management, administrative services and online form tool are each a stand-alone services. Using this methodology not only sets the stage for future expansion, it and also allowed RI.gov to launch the Quick Start system in phases. This approach turned out to be a huge benefit midway through the project when RI.gov selected Achieve Forms by Firm Step to manage the design and process workflow of the many online forms the system would eventually support. Working with the technical team at Firm Step, RI.gov was able to fully integrate Quick Start s user management and authentication system with the Achieve Forms product. To better accommodate the form based data the system would need to manipulate, developer selected MongoDB as the backend database. Rather than storing data in tables as is done in a "classical" relational database, this system stores structured data as JSON - like documents with dynamic schemas. Quick Start was coded in Ruby using the Rails framework. Taking advantage of the biggest trend in Web design this year, RI Quick Start was built 4

5 from the ground-up to use responsive design techniques. This makes Quick Start equally at home on your smart phone, tablet or desktop. Have an idea for a business on a restaurant napkin? Start the business on your phone, and pick it up later on your desktop. Business Quick Start boasts one website, one sign up, and no apps to download and install. The SOS/RI.GOV Partnership Governance & Funding In June of 2010, Secretary of State Mollis approached the Rhode Island General Assembly to create the legislation for Business Quick Start to meet his mandate to help make Rhode Island a more business friendly government. The dollars approved totaled a fixed price project fee of $250,000 awarded to Rhode Island Interactive who manages the State Portal at In 2012, the Department of Administration also supported the goal of the project by writing every agency administration management member to add as many forms in scope for the Business Quick Start project to the service as possible. Now that the service is completed, it is the general plan of the Secretary of State to support ongoing maintenance and growth of the service through the self-funded contract between Rhode Island Interactive and the Department of Administration. Project Management & Collaboration The very large effort of defining business rules in Quick Start was fulfilled by the team at the Office of Secretary of State s Business First Stop Information Center. The team at the SOS began this task even as other aspects of the system were being developed. Even now, after development and design has been completed, project management is ongoing. Working together, RI.gov and the SOS continue to educate the administrative agency stakeholders on the service: What is considered in-scope and out-of-scope How forms should be created in the tool Paperwork and agreements necessary so payment can be accepted by Rhode Island Interactive on behalf of the state agencies Such effort is managed between the Office of the Secretary of State staff as well as Rhode Island Interactive project management. SECTION 4 - SIGNIFICANCE Agency administrations now have access to a centralized dashboard to manage the workflow of forms submitted by business users. For the new business, the arduous 5

6 process of determining which forms are required for their unique business as well as the method of completing forms is now streamlined. One of Quick Starts greatest innovations is the concept of Universal Business Data. The majority of agency forms require the same basic types of information People (Owners, Managers and Agents), places (Mailing and physical addresses) and things (Business name and type). Unfortunately, small inconsistencies between how agencies manage and recognize this data prevented any type of universal form. To manage this redundant information, designers took a lesson from the user experience offered by major e-commerce sites. Just as online shoppers are able to save their shipping, billing and payment information, Quick Start users can save and manage their own frequently used data. With a single click, users can select from their own lists of people, places and things to quickly and accurately to complete online forms in minutes instead of hours. Both Google Analytics as well as built-in application metrics measures the effectiveness of the fledgling Quick Start system. In a six-month span in 2011, Quick Start received 11,931 page views. These numbers were achieved with very little media attention as the project was being rolled out in phases throughout 2011 and into the beginning of 2012, Quick Start gained popularity just from being linked from the Secretary of State s website. In 2012, Google Analytics reported 16,455 page views over just a four-month span, of which, 2,400 views reached the user registration page. As the Secretary of State s Business First Stop Center works with more agencies to bring more forms online, system use is expected to grow exponentially. SECTION 5 - BENEFITS OF THE PROJECT Prior to the involvement of RI.gov, the Secretary of State had explored several turn-key systems available from various vendors to fulfill the legislation. Many of these systems required an investment four times larger than the funds allocated by the General Assembly. Furthermore, these systems typically mandated that multiple agencies to make costly investments in their backend systems. Lastly, as the states regulatory process is constantly changing, a significant ongoing expense would need to be allocated yearly to ensure that the system wouldn t become obsolete. Working with RI.gov offered several advantages to the SOS for delivering the Quick Start service within the tight financial budget: Ten years experience in working with numerous RI state agencies in converting their paper workflows into online services A comprehensive understanding of the regulatory processes and inter agency workflows required to start a business in RI. 6

7 Multiple existing and positive relationships with agency leaders The ability to support the expense of ongoing maintenance and growth by leveraging their existing self-funded model Through their partnership with RI.gov, the SOS was able to deliver Quick Start at a fraction of the investment typically allocated for similar systems. While delivering the service at the lowest possible costs was an important aspect of the Quick Start service the true economic benefit of the system rests squarely with the cost savings it presents to its two core user groups New businesses and the numerous state agencies charged with regulation. Although Quick Start is still in growing, the expected long-term agency savings should be formidable. Payments are collected via credit card eliminating the need to process checks Online forms use required fields and business logic to ensure fewer errors requiring manual correction Integrated help should minimize time spent on customer service Quick Start was created to be a clear signal that RI supports small business. All involved hope the real benefactor of Quick Start will be an improved local economy. For Rhode Island entrepreneurs, the key benefit is having a centralized portal that offers a simpler way of navigating the complexities of the business upstart process. The end goal of Quick Start has always been simple make it easy for a new business to get started in the State if Rhode Island. New businesses will result in new jobs which is paramount in the state given Rhode Island s high unemployment. For Rhode Island state agency administrations, Quick Start is designed to provide a more convenient, expedient, and user-friendly method of data reception. Furthermore, when an agency chooses to embrace the full functionally of the service, the critical communication loop between user submission and agency acceptance can be fully managed. For the Office of the Secretary of State, Quick Start greatly widens the number of new businesses it can work with. Through intelligent automation, Quick Start can compliment, and in many ways even replace, the former time-intensive paper process to assisting entrepreneurs in the upstart process. Not only is Quick Start available 24x7, but also thanks to the many customer service features of the system, help can be provided faster and in a more efficient manner than ever before. 7

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