Chair – Don Currie

Member – Mandeep Mahanger, Tom O’Brien

There has been a lot of tech change in the last month!  valueBC was turned on in the new data center - and many people probably didn't notice a big difference.  In fact the same environment is now hosted on different hardware, on a different operating system.  Our GIS team is also working in collaboration with the development services team to upgrade the valueBC Map Viewer across the organization.

ERP Update – Since the last report, an annoying shortcoming of ERP has been fixed. The daily hour totals now calculate properly for those of us who have more than two pages of time codes. Kudos to IT for this fix.

Next Gen - The Next Gen Value BC team is putting the final touched on the “As Is” portion or the project. This is essentially a description of the current structure and function of the current version of Value BC, This will ensure all aspects of the system are documented and accounted for as the project moves forward.

The next step will be to address the “Future State” document. This will be an attempt to put together a wish list of what we want in a new system. After this, the “Future State” document will be used as the basis for the creation of an RFP for Next Gen Value BC. There will understandably be a degree of secrecy around this portion of the project until the RFP is released so that none of the potential bidders has an unfair advantage.

Whatever Next Gen looks like, we can only hope this system will build upon the strengths of our old system and improve on the weaknesses.   The NGVBC implementation team has taken to the Field Offices the South Fraser Region had an excellent brain storming session with Bruce Fitzpatrick from the VSS region who is a member on the Next Gen team. The intent was to gather field input, what we envisioned the system would work like and the functionally we want to see in it.

Many Ideas were presented to the Next Gen team including:

• Fully integrated NMC functionality with no user intervention required
• One viewer
• Self reporting capabilities with pre defined information fields giving the basic property details i.e. ICI-unit number and areas to avoid confusion with returns, check boxes rent includes: taxes, insurance, heat& light, snow removal etc…
• Built in cost manuals (e.g. MIPS & EPG)
• Notes screen to consolidate all notes
• Integrated GIS functions
• Self-Serve functions e.g. PARP scheduling,  presentation integrated and emailed to customers
• Improved system performance

It will be some time before we know what the new system will look like. Due to time and monetary constraints, we will never get all that we want or ask for. But…it’s sure nice to be able to provide input for consideration.

M/S/C