E-BILL AND PAYMENT UPGRADE. Cloud vs. In-House and Package vs. Custom Code

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1 E-BILL AND PAYMENT UPGRADE Cloud vs. In-House and Package vs. Custom Code 1

2 About the Presenter» Dan Richardson» Senior Software Developer» I ve worked on SCG s various My Account websites since 1999.» DRichardson@SempraUtilities.com 2

3 About SoCalGas Size Customers History Largest natural gas distribution utility in the US 20,000 square mile service territory Million customers 5.9 Million active meters 2017 marks the 150 th anniversary of our founding in 1867 in Los Angeles 3

4 SCG My Account History Original website Smalltalk on OS/2 Migrated to new Smalltalk on Windows New EBPP custom UI on vendor package Added custom portal, more orders, etc. New business portal and outside functions Replace residential portal and EBPP 4

5 My Account: By the Numbers million active My Account website users 2.3 million paperless accounts (40%) 18 Million payments worth $1 billion last 12 months. 10% to 13% web payment annual growth rate 41 million bill ready s over the last year 4 million consolidator ebills over the last year 5

6 Why replace My Account and EBPP Outdated UI in appearance and function Needed better UI support for mobile devices Needed WCAG 2.0 AA UI support On old technology stack Vendor application tier package EOL No direct version upgrade of vendor package Needed reliability improvements and high availability 6

7 My Account MATRIX Features and Functions Outside My Account Portal EBPP 1. Registration 2. Login/Logout 3. Remember Me 4. Forgot Username and/or Password 5. Service Order 6. Start Service 7. Stop Service 8. Transfer Service 9. Check Service Status 10.Auto Enroll 11.EZ Enroll Residential Business 1. Create / Edit / 1. Start / Stop / Transfer Service 2. CARE (discount) Apply / Verify / Renew / Cancel 3. Payment Extension 1. Many-to-Many support. 2. Manage User (Delegate) Access 3. View User Activity 4. Go Paperless 5. Service Order 6. Manage (service) Appointments 7. Analyze Usage / Usage History 8. Compare Bills / Calculate Carbon Footprint 9. Manage My Online Profile 10.Manage Account Information 11.Manage Alerts 12.Add / Remove Account Delete Payment 2. Create / Edit / Delete Bank Acct. 3. Automatic Monthly Payment Plan 4. View My Bill 5. Bill History 6. Charges and Payments 7. Level Pay Plan 7

8 My Account MATRIX Project Timeline 8

9 1 2 3 Cloud Based Software as a Service Solutions EBPP Replacement Solution Architectures Considered Cloud Hosted Packaged Software 4 5 Locally Hosted Packaged Software Locally Hosted Custom Software Cloud Hosted Custom Software 9

10 RFP Part 1: Functional Requirements Capability Create One-Time Payment Description Check if a bank Redirect to add bank account page, if there is no bank account associated. account exists. Get accounts, Call CIS Webservices to get the real time account balance & due date. Also check if there are amounts, date to pay any payment arrangements for a given account. If the web service call fails, display the amount & due date from the last valid bill indexed. Payment arrangement details are not displayed in case the payment arrangement web service fails. On-screen verification Server-side verification each Amount >= $1 each Amount < $1, each amount only digits and. If there are multiple payment accounts, ensure that none of them is selected by default. Default to a payment account if and only if there is only 1 payment account associated. each Amount >= $1 each Amount < $1, each amount only digits and. at least one bill account selected exactly one bank account selected payment date is valid date payment date >= today payment date < today + 90 days No existing same amount, date, account payment No more than 1 existing same date, account payment Account is not restricted from pay (cash only) Bank Account is not negative file (returned checks) 10

11 RFP Part 2 : Technical Requirements Will it work with our single sign on, portal, application server, database, monitoring tools, etc. Does is support high availability, disaster recovery, load balancing, datacenter failover, fault tolerance? Does it handle our current volume and expected growth? With what response time? Does it support role based access controls? Many web user to many bill account relationships? Security questions such as PCI v3.0 compliance, encryption in transit and at rest, security event logging. Cloud security questions such as where is it hosted, datacenter security, security audits, penetration testing, staff access to raw data, etc. What is your snapshot/mirroring/backup strategy? 11

12 RFP 3 : Integration Architecture 12

13 Selection Criteria (1 of 2) Criteria Description Wt. Price - TCO 5 Year Basic 5-year TCO analysis Implementation Costs Upfront implementation costs On-Going Support Costs On-going support (incl. defect fixes, enhancements), H (Incremental O&M) hosting, transaction, etc. costs Accounting Analysis Analysis comparing Capital v. O&M cost balance of each option. H Contingency Representing confidence level of development quotes/estimates Capability Mapping % the solution provides existing capability via Out of the Box (OOB) /Configuration (remaining % is Custom) H Solution Maturity Solution provides reliable EBPP functions (payments processing, etc.) H Vendor's experience with integrating solution with similar Implementation Experience approach, architecture, security, volumes, etc. M Adaptability - Ease Ease of making basic enhancements to the solution M Adaptability - Cost Cost of making basic enhancements to the solution M Flexibility and ease of adding major industry best practice Adaptability - Best Practices M enhancements (e.g. Credit Card payments, etc.) 13

14 Selection Criteria (2 of 2) Criteria Description Wt. Integration of User Experience Provides seamless customer integration with Portal H WCAG 2.0 Accessibility Solution developed per WCAG 2.0 AA specifications M Responsive Design Solution developed to support Responsive design on Tablet/Mobile H Ease of Integration Ease of integration for initial implementation of solution H On-Going Support/ Service Reliable operation of EBPP application (uptime %, defect Levels fixes, etc.) M SCG IT SME Resources Loss of SCG SME resources will not impact project; Plus the benefit of reallocating to higher value work L Security Provide a secure solution that meets SCG guidelines H Network Latency - User SCG Network impact to support hosted solution load; Response Time Impacts may impact User Experience (Response Times) M Disaster Recovery The sophistication of the DR approach meeting the EBPP Tier2 designation M Suitability to a SaaS solution Ability to meet SCG IT strategic objective of utilizing given requirements cloud based solutions M SDGE Re-Use Ability for SDGE to re-use all or portions of the solution. L Maturity of Company Maturity of solution vendor's company L 14

15 Selection Results: Custom In-House Other options 60% higher 5 year TCO Other options ongoing costs after 5 years Custom had best capability mapping Custom had best integration Custom had best adaptability and customization 10% to 35% higher total selection criteria score 15

16 SCG Specific Considerations (YMMV) Custom EBPP reused My Account MATRIX environments and infrastructure significantly reducing costs We already had an experienced ADF project team from earlier My Account MATRIX releases We were able to reuse our existing MATRIX development environment, build system, framework code, etc. We had a Business and IT SME team with a combined 30+ years of custom EBPP experience Most of the previous EBPP implementation was custom, especially batch, which enabled reuse and easier rewriting Had steadily been replacing previous EBPP package with custom code even before MATRIX project 16

17 My Account MATRIX Project Timeline 17

18 MATRIX Development Approach Methodology & Process Methodology - Hybrid (agile/waterfall) using best practices of both Testing strategy - Multiple browsers & test phases, testing automation Documentation, Reviews, Approvals, demos early on Phased implementation where possible Solid Requirements & Change Management process Daily stand ups Effort Estimation Estimates based on solid requirements not many surprises Estimates based on historic data (previous MATRIX phases) Resource allocation to support project timeline Close monitoring of estimates & milestone dates to avoid slippage & stay within budget 18

19 Overall Team Structure Team Structure Different Vendors (Separation of Concerns) Dedicated teams (Creative, Functional, Development, Testing) with formal handoffs Strong internal leads partnering with vendor s team leads Strong Internal SME s & Ownership Dedicated support (Network, Operations, DBA, etc.) Strong sponsorship support and project autonomy Team Size at Peak (50) Functional/Creative - 3 ADF/Online Development - 12 (4 component leads ) User Interface Development - 4 Batch Development - 9 (onsite/offshore) Architects - 4 (ADF, Batch, Solutions, Infrastructure) Testing - 14 (7 offshore, 6 onsite including COT) Management - 4 (Vendor and SCG, Business PM) 19

20 Key Project Artifacts (see Appendix) Detailed Requirements and Use Case Functional Wireframe Accessibility Wireframe Mobile Wireframe Error (and Message) Log GUI Design (Desktop and Mobile) 20

21 Project Result and Lessons Learned Project was delivered on time and on budget with a relatively small number of defects with most fixed during storm Splitting into several major production releases made each a more manageable size and reduced risk and complexity. Spitting each main release into several rounds of test releases enabled more overlap in requirements time, design time, development time, and testing time leveling teams workloads Close integration of business unit representatives, analysts, developers, SME s, maintenance team, and testers was crucial for overall success We needed dedicated server, storage, network, security and other infrastructure team resources available to the project 21

22 Demo of SCG My Account» At this point I would like to log on to SCG s My Account website and spend a few minutes showing some of the responsive and accessibility features. I ll need a network connection to do this. If this will not be available, please let me know and I ll record a (no audio) desktop video of this and will send it to you separately. This was part of my presentation at Oracle Open World and was well received. 22

23 Q&A and Discussion» Questions?» Comments?» Further information requests? 23