1. MOWINS – Moving Forward
Good morning and Welcome to the MOWINS Moving Forward session. Today I’ll be talking a little bit about the history of MOWINS and then I’ll tell you about the SPIRIT Users Group and how the Missouri WIC program works with that group to try and make MOWINS a better product for you, the end user.

2. So now let’s be honest. Who hasn’t felt like doing this when something doesn’t go right and you are frustrated? I know I’ve felt like this before. How many remember the roll-out for MOWINS? I can remember our WIC director at the time, Lyn, she used to say, the train has left the station and it ain’t stopping. And it didn’t stop. And we made it through. So what is in our future for MOWINS?

3. SPIRIT – Successful Partners in Reaching Innovative Technology
SAM – State Agency Model
SUG – SPIRIT Users Group
ITO – Indian Tribal Organization
ESC – Executive Steering Committee
CCWG – Change Control Work Group
Let’s start off with some acronyms that I’ll be using in the presentation. You all work in WIC, you know we have to have acronyms.
SPIRIT – Successful Partners in Reaching Innovative Technology
SAM – State Agency Model
SUG – SPIRIT Users Group
ITO – Indian Tribal Organization
ESC – Executive Steering Committee
CCWG – Change Control Work Group
Whew! I hope you can remember all of these……..As we go along, I will be referring to the data system as SPIRIT rather than MOWINS but you know they are one in the same.
Terminology

4. 2002 2004 2007 13 ITO’s formed the consortium to develop SPIRIT
Development and launch of the SPIRIT SAM began
First implementation of SPIRIT
Here are a few facts about the history of SPIRIT. In 2002, 13 ITO’s in the southwest formed a consortium to develop the SPIRIT IT system to support the WIC program. As part of the FNS SAM initiative, it is based on the principle of “Build it once and replicate it many times” so that several state agencies can use it rather than several state agencies building their own systems. Development and launch of SPIRIT began in 2004 with the first implementation in 2007.

5. 2008 2009 Missouri began the pilot of SPIRIT
Missouri was fully implemented in July 2009
So here in Missouri, we began our pilot in December of 2008 with 6 agencies. We were fully implemented in July 2009 with Callaway county being our last agency to convert.

6. 20 States using SPIRIT today
2014
20 States using SPIRIT today
And today, there are 20 state agencies using SPIRIT. These include now 14 ITO’s, plus 6 geographic states Missouri, Minnesota, Montana, Maine, Mississippi, and Alaska. SPIRIT is being used in 6 of the 7 FNS regions throughout the country. And as you may or may not know, everyone does business a little different. We all follow the same USDA policies and guidance but USDA also gives the states some flexibility when implementing those policies.

7. In 2007 there were approximately 21,000 participants being served by SPIRIT.
Today, there are over 561,000 participants being served. WOW!!!

8. In 2007 with the first roll-out of SPIRIT, there were 120 clinic users.
Today, there are over 3600.

9. Growth = Challenges
With this nearly 2500 percent increase in growth in SPIRIT comes many challenges. So how do we meet those challenges? Well the 20 state agencies using SPIRIT must work together to make enhancements that will work for all the users of the system or at least the majority. With over 3600 users, that’s a lot of people to have to please!

10. There are several groups with representatives from all the states that work together to make the enhancements in SPIRIT.

11. ESC CCWG Nutrition Task Force Testing Team
The ESC is a group made up of WIC directors from several of the states. The ESC is responsible for appropriating funding for enhancements and approving the release schedule from the contractor. They are the group that gives final approval on all decisions by other groups when necessary. This group meets one to two times per week for approximately one hour each meeting. They meet face-to-face once a year to do strategic planning for SPIRIT.
The CCWG is a group made up of experts in the SPIRIT system from several of the states. The CCWG is responsible for working out the business requirements, design details, and final approvals of the enhancements. They work directly with the contractor to determine the functionality of each enhancement. They are also responsible for working with the contractor and the ESC on the release schedule. They work with the ESC to prioritize enhancements that have not been through the business requirements process. If the testing team cannot determine if an issue passes or fails, the CCWG reviews the issue, tests it, and then gives final approval of pass or fail. This group is considered the working backbone of the SPIRIT Users Group. This group meets one to two times per week for approximately two hours each meeting. At times, they have met one to two times per week for three to four hours when necessary. Members of this group also meet with all of the task forces when discussing issues.
The nutrition task force is made up of nutrition experts from all the state agencies. They discuss all major changes needed in SPIRIT as mandated by USDA related to food rule changes and risk factors. This group meets as needed.
The testing team is made up of folks that know the system inside and out. Missouri and Minnesota use local agency staff when possible to assist with testing. There are others in each state that also assist with testing other modules such as vendor, end of day, and end of month processing.
There are several other groups that meet either on a weekly or bi-weekly basis that deal with different facets of SPIRIT. And many of the folks that are on the groups I’ve already mentioned are also on these groups.
We have:
DGB – Designated Governing Board. These folks oversee the contract with the code development company.
TAG – Technology Advisory Group. These folks discuss technology upgrades to SPIRIT.
Reports Task Force. These folks discuss all the reports available in SPIRIT.
Vendor Task Force. These folks discuss the vendor application.
EBT Task Force. These folks meet to work out the requirements for EBT both off-line and on-line issues.

12. So now let’s talk about the process of getting an enhancement done
So now let’s talk about the process of getting an enhancement done. Does anyone here remember the days of HANDS? Back in the day, I could make a phone call to our IT staff, ask them to take a look at something that wasn’t working correctly, and have it fixed most of the time, that same day. SPIRIT doesn’t work like that. Remember I said there are 20 states that use SPIRIT? Well, SPIRIT also allows for more data to be collected than HANDS could ever even imagine. With all this new data, we are able to do a lot more reporting than we could before. We get requests every week from local agencies who are working on grants and need specific data for their agencies. We also get requests from the Missouri department of health directors, legislators, representatives, universities, and other departments that analyze WIC data.
I won’t go through all the details of this flow chart but as you can see, there are several steps in the process. Multiply this by the number of enhancements in the que because the same process is done for each one. Defect fixes take a similar path although there are not as many layers of research/approval. So in a nutshell, the process takes this path…..(next slide)

13. Implement into production
Request entered
Priority
Requirements
Funding source
Development begins
Scheduled for release
Development complete
Testing release
Implement into production
1. The enhancement request is entered into a tracking software by a state.
2. The request is put in the list to be prioritized.
3. It then goes to the CCWG for a requirements gathering. This could take 1 hour or it sometimes takes 3 or 4 hours.
4. The ESC then has to approve the enhancement and attach a funding source to it.
5. The contractor begins working on the enhancement in the code. If they have questions, it then goes back to the CCWG to discuss and clarify.
6. The enhancement is then scheduled into a future release. The priority will determine the release it is scheduled for. If the enhancement is mandated by USDA federal regulations, it is scheduled as soon as possible.
7. Once the contractor is done with the code development, it’s packaged into a release.
8. The states then receive the release for testing. States typically have 2 to 3 weeks to be able to test. Any defects that are discovered in the release are to be corrected and placed in the next patch release.
9. And finally, it’s ready to be implemented in to production.
Any or all of these steps can be repeated as many times as it takes to get the enhancement right.

14. 32 releases since 2011 250+ enhancements 1000+ defects
The process is a long one but it works. We’ve implemented several enhancements since we started in 2008.
Since 2011, Missouri has successfully implemented 32 releases into MOWINS production. This includes full releases and patch releases. As an example, when we implemented 2.18 into production, we were actually implementing 2.16, , , 2.17, and so on. There were 11 releases all rolled up into one.
We’ve implemented over 250 enhancements. Not all of these are at the clinic level.
We’ve implemented over 1000 defect fixes, again, not all of these are at the clinic level.

15. 114 Enhancements in the que
Future Releases
130 Defects in the que
114 Enhancements in the que
So what’s coming in the future?
We have 114 enhancements in the que right now. We are working through the process to gather requirements and get those scheduled for future releases.
We have 130 defects in the que to be scheduled.
And hopefully you all know that we are implementing a new release 2.20 into production next weekend.

16. Future Enhancements Performance/Infrastructure
EBT offline for Missouri
Food prescription print preview
Appointment scheduler
Ineligibles in benefit issuance
M2M Issuance – Missing proof
Timeout – Enter password
Transfer entire household
Deployment improvements
Some of the future enhancements include:
Performance/Infrastructure – As we all know, speed of the application is a critical issue for us. Minnesota is another large state using SPIRIT and they have the same issues that we do.
EBT offline for Missouri
Food Prescription – Allow ability to do a print preview but not allow printing of checks
Appointment scheduler – plan to rewrite many of the features/functionality to make it work better outside of the participant folders.
Ineligibles in Benefit Issuance – This enhancement is to make anyone who is categorically ineligible, not show in the benefits issuance window. This has an effect on the speed of issuing benefits currently.
Month-to-Month issuance and Missing proofs – This enhancement will allow the missing proofs to be keyed and not allow issuance of benefits. Currently, there is nothing stopping benefits to be printed if they are missing a proof. This puts us out of compliance with the federal regulations.
Timeout – Enter password. This enhancement will allow the end user to enter only their password when the system times them out after 30 minutes of inactivity.
Transfer entire household – this enhancement will allow the end user the option to transfer all eligible family members of a household and not have to transfer each individual one at a time.
Deployment improvements – this enhancement will improve the deployment and updates to each computer when we push a release to production.

17. LWP Task Force Johnson Truman St. Charles Family Care Peoples Douglas
Joplin
Miller
Columbia/Boone
Butler
Truman
Family Care
Douglas
Texas
Crawford
Lincoln
There is one group here in Missouri that I’d like to recognize that have greatly assisted with several enhancements by reviewing the requirements. Some have helped with testing releases and they also review the MOWINS e-Learning trainings that are produced for all local agency staff.
If there is anyone here representing one of these agencies, please stand up. This is the local agency or LWP task force. Johnson, St. Charles, Peoples, Joplin, Miller, Columbia/Boone, Butler, Truman, Family Care, Douglas, Texas, Crawford, and Lincoln.
Thank you all so much. You have been a tremendous help to me.

18. And just one additional statistic that I’ll leave you with
And just one additional statistic that I’ll leave you with. This is a chart of the help desk calls that come in per month. This is As you can see, there is an average of about calls per month. When we implement a new release, the number of calls spike. As you can see here in July 2013, there were 988 calls. This is to be expected with implementing new functionality.

19. So please be patient with us while we try to make things better for you guys.

20. If you have any ideas for enhancements, please let us know
If you have any ideas for enhancements, please let us know. Any questions?