Alberta Ministry of Government Services
Albertans give online services the nod
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Company Overview
The Alberta Ministry of Government Services, headquartered in Edmonton, was established in May 1999 following a major government restructuring. The ministry is responsible for Alberta Registries, Consumer Services, Information Management, Access and Privacy, the Alberta One Window Initiative, the Alberta Corporate Service Centre, and the Regulatory Review Secretariat. In 2000, Albertans performed nearly 12 million transactions through Alberta Registries. The registries services include registrations of birth, marriage and death, land title transfers, registrations of corporations, vehicles, and liens. A vast number of these services are now available to the public through a province-wide network of 230 privately owned registry outlets. Services are also available online at www.gov.ab.ca/eservices. Alberta was proclaimed a province of Canada in September 1905. Named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, the 660,000-square-kilometre province is home to more than 3.1 million people.
Business Challenge
In mid-2000, the Alberta Ministry of Government Services made a commitment to both government and customers to begin delivering public services over the Internet. Some products were already accessible online by financial agencies, law offices and other organizations acting on behalf of businesses and individuals, but direct public access was limited. With more than 1.7 million Albertans registering passenger vehicles each year, motor vehicle registration renewal seemed the natural place to start. But moving motor vehicle registration and other services online wasn't a straightforward proposition. Since the majority of registry products are delivered to the public through a province-wide network of 230 registry outlets, electronic delivery had to take into account that significant private sector delivery network. In addition, the ministry's information technology (IT) infrastructure was aging and funds were not immediately available for an upgrade. "We were running fairly old legacy systems that weren't very conducive to electronic service delivery without major system enhancements and major expense," says Larry Austman, chief information officer at the Alberta Ministry of Government Services. "Every time we open up our legacy systems to make major revisions it costs upwards of $250,000. It's a very expensive process. We would rather plan for an orderly, risk-reduced re-engineering of those systems instead of making enhancements now that would later be thrown away." In addition, motor vehicle registration renewal was just one of the services the government hoped to put online that year alone, so a planned, low risk process was essential. "We had to find a way to get our services online without significantly affecting our legacy systems," says Austman. "In addition, we had to move fairly quickly - not just because we wanted to, but because our citizens were demanding it." Austman adds the chosen solution had to be based on open standards to fit with future e-commerce standards in government. It also had to be leveraged for faster and less costly incremental applications. "We're working with limited funds so we didn't want to continue to rebuild from scratch every time," he says. Whatever path Austman and his information systems outsourcing partner, EDS, decided to take, it would have to benefit the rest of the Alberta government as well. "We're just one department within government so we don't operate unto ourselves," he explains. "It's very important that what we decided to do would have to fit the future direction and standards the government as a whole is setting for the enterprise. Whatever we chose to do had to be open and flexible so it could be applied to many different transactions not only in Government Services but potentially in other government departments as well."
Options Explored
In mid-2000, the ministry called upon EDS Canada Inc. to find an appropriate solution for the rollout of online services to the public.
EDS Canada Inc. is the country's foremost professional IT services company. By applying consulting, information and technology expertise in innovative and productive ways, EDS helps clients improve overall performance, extend their enterprise ahead of their competition, and serve their customers more effectively and efficiently.
The company's 6,500 professionals serve public and private sector clients across the country, delivering services in a variety of industry sectors including financial services, manufacturing, government, health care, crown corporations, communications, transportation and energy.
"The challenge was creating the opportunity for citizens to do business directly with the government using new Web-enabled technologies," recalls Hans Helder, vice-president of Edmonton-based EDS Canada Inc., Northern Alberta. "And the trick was to do it in a way that wouldn't force us to reengineer the legacy applications. That's where the collaboration between EDS and Microsoft Canada Co. became very important."
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Solution
EDS began its search for a suitable solution to drive the ministry's e-services initiative, working with AGS and representatives of the 230 registry agents. The conclusion: Microsoft BizTalk was the best way to go. BizTalk Server 2000 is a comprehensive solution that unites enterprise application integration, business-to-business integration and BizTalk Orchestration technology, allowing the ministry to easily build dynamic business processes that span applications and organizational boundaries. BizTalk Server, the latest release in the Microsoft .NETTM Enterprise Server family, is a framework based on new Extensible Markup Language (XML) schemas and industry standards for sharing information.
Deployment Time
By fall 2000, EDS was working closely with the ministry's business managers to create the BizTalk environment. Online vehicle registration renewal went live in April 2001, and can be accessed through the Ministry's web site, or at www.gov.ab.ca/eservices. The e-services Web site, developed by the Ministry's One-Window Initiative in consultation with the province's Public Affairs Bureau, includes links to online services provided by various government departments. A key business benefit, however, was that the services were processed through either the Alberta Registry Agent Association Web site developed by EDS for this purpose, or the Alberta Motor Association (AMA) Web site. The AMA is an affiliate of the Canadian and American Automobile Associations. This allowed clients of AGS the choice to continue to conduct services through the delivery channel of their choice.
Business Benefits
Microsoft BizTalk provided a host of benefits to the Alberta Ministry of Government Services. First of all, BizTalk enabled the ministry to Web-enable the backend and mainframe applications and then re-use the infrastructure to provide data to the registry outlets. "Storefront applications are supported by the same backend technology and the same Web-enabled technology as online vehicle registration renewal," explains EDS' Hans Helder. "There's just one single infrastructure supporting multiple channels of service delivery." BizTalk has enabled the ministry to bring its Web-enabled solution to market quickly and cost-effectively. Without an integration solution like BizTalk, says Austman, the ministry would have been forced to build independent applications to attach to vehicle registration or other systems and then present the applications to the Web - an expensive proposition at best. "Each new application would be costly in terms of time and dollars and wasted efforts in terms of rebuilds," he says. "I don't think any business or government can afford to do that, especially when Microsoft BizTalk lets you avoid that pitfall by saving time and extra costs, and reusing components for subsequent application builds. It makes good business sense, something both governments and corporations are concerned about. The only difference is that we're dealing with taxpayers' dollars, not shareholder dollars." The ministry also saved a tremendous amount of time by reusing development code. Once the vehicle registration renewal application was ready, the EDS development team began work on online payment of traffic fines. Thanks to BizTalk, the traffic fines application was brought on in just 45 days because the ministry was able to reuse 40 per cent of the development code. Estimates call for up to 60 to 65 per cent reuse for future applications. Because BizTalk Server incorporates open standards, the Ministry will be able to combine applications from multiple vendors in the future. "BizTalk Server is vendor-independent, so potential partners don't need to understand the intricacies of each application," says Austman. "It's good for the ministry and our clients and it enables a competitive environment." BizTalk Server has also enabled the ministry to plan for the future. Citizens' demands for online services can be met while the ministry carefully plans the redevelopment of its legacy systems. "We don't have to get into a panic situation and go for an all-or-nothing rebuild because that's a very high risk approach," says Austman. "We can build our key systems over time in five to seven years. Thanks to the approach using BizTalk, we can plan appropriately for the future and spend our money wisely. And because BizTalk is based on an open standard format, we're confident we will fit into the direction government wants to go in the future."
Resulting Value
The ministry hopes to add more online services for Albertans in such areas as land titles, corporate registration and personal property as funding becomes available. Services requiring strict identification and authentication procedures, such as drivers' license renewals, may be introduced at a later date.
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products or services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Co. information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information via the World Wide Web, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/canada/casestudies/ http://www.gov.ab.ca/gs
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