Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) User Group Meeting– July 2014 Hosted by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) Caroline Jackson Crossroads Project Manager North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health

 Four states with diverse requirements applied to be a State Agency Model (SAM) Project ◦ Two EBT states ◦ Two Food Instrument (FI) states  Virginia (EBT), Mid-Atlantic FNS Regional Office  West Virginia (EBT), Mid-Atlantic FNS Regional Office  North Carolina (FI), Southeast FNS Regional Office  Alabama (FI), Southeast FNS Regional Office 2

3 Jim Finley UAT Director Jim Finley UAT Director USDA FNS Headquarters USDA FNS State Systems USDA FNS Mid- Atlantic Regional Office USDA Southeast Regional Office Caroline Jackson Crossroads Project Manager Caroline Jackson Crossroads Project Manager Crossroads Executive Steering Committee State WIC Director and one Designee Crossroads Executive Steering Committee State WIC Director and one Designee CSC Crossroads Design, Development &Implementation Vendor CSC Crossroads Design, Development &Implementation Vendor MAXIMUS Crossroads Quality Assurance Vendor MAXIMUS Crossroads Quality Assurance Vendor FIS/CDP WV EBT Vendor FIS/CDP WV EBT Vendor XEROX VA EBT Vendor XEROX VA EBT Vendor Barbara Swartz Project Management Assistant Barbara Swartz Project Management Assistant Leah Aspell Project Management Assistant Leah Aspell Project Management Assistant

 Family Centric ◦ Aggregated Benefits ◦ Family Appointments ◦ Family Issuance  Benefit Issuance (FI or EBT)  Highly Customizable and Configurable (for example): ◦ Flexible Scheduling Component ◦ Proof of Pregnancy 4

 Highly Customizable and Configurable (for example continued): ◦ Presumptive Eligibility for Pregnant Women ◦ Length of Certification for Children ◦ Head Circumference ◦ Social Security Number Visible ◦ Allows for a Indian Tribal Organization to utilize the system under a State Agency  Participant and Vendor Portals  Disconnected Solution 5

 Electronic Interfaces to 3 rd Party Systems and Devices ◦ State (such as accounting systems, adjunctive eligibility systems) ◦ Federal (such as Food Programs Reporting System (FPRS) and Integrated Program Accounting System (IPAS) are planned) ◦ External Partners (such as wichealth.org) ◦ Peripherals (such as scales, hemoglobin/hematocrit measurement devices, signature pads)  Clinic Workflow Dashboard 6

 Microsoft.NET 4 Technology  Structured Query Language (SQL) Database  Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) ◦ Uses XBAP (XAML Browser Application) for download from browser  Active Server Pages (ASP)  Crossroads is installed at each State’s Data Center 7

 Average monthly caseload by state for Oct 12-Sept 13:  Number of WIC staff members using Crossroads: 8 StateCaseload Alabama139,001 North Carolina264,124 Virginia156,784 West Virginia46,402 StateUsers Alabama600 North Carolina1,000 Virginia580 West Virginia220

 Pilot ◦ Start dates were adjusted from Summer 2013 to Winter 2013/2014 to allow for:  User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of over scenarios  Development of several Change Requests identified during UAT  Set-up and testing of FI states was more time consuming than EBT state set-up  Rollout ◦ VA Pilot began 11/18/2013 (completed 5 of 5 rollouts) ◦ WV Pilot began 1/21/2014 (completed 4 of 7 rollouts) ◦ NC Pilot began 2/10/2014 (completed 4 of 10 rollouts) ◦ AL Pilot began 2/24/2014 (completed 4 of 10 rollouts)  Warranty (October 2014-October 2015) ◦ Continue working on Consortium deferred non–essential Change Requests 9

 Begin Process Early! ◦ Focus on Environment and Configuration set-up  Realize Data Conversion is a complicated process ◦ Identify data to convert ◦ Verify results  Utilize a “Mission Control Center” during pilot  Develop a Communication Strategy  Planning will pay off! ◦ Realize that you can’t plan, anticipate and mitigate everything 10

 Testing is an ongoing activity  Staffing Challenges ◦ There will be turnover in staff ◦ Balancing act for staff assigned to project activities along with existing job responsibilities 11

 Crossroads EBT Interface is built on Universal Interface Specifications version 3  What Worked Well for Crossroads EBT ◦ Moving from legacy EBT to Crossroads EBT ◦ Moving from legacy FI to Crossroads EBT 12

 Crossroads is in the process of forming an official User Group to continue the positive, forward momentum of the Application as it is adopted by other states 13

14  Several sessions throughout this EBT User Group Meeting will be discussing and demonstrating the Crossroads application  Go to NC WIC Program Web Page found at: and view Crossroads Training videos If you want to know more…