The Client

SERS is a statewide defined benefit retirement system for non-certificated persons employed by the public schools within the state’s cities, villages and counties, as well as local districts, vocational and technical schools, community colleges, and The University of Akron.  Benefits include service retirement, disability and survivor benefits, and access to health care coverage for benefit recipients and their dependents.

The Situation

SERS engaged with an external consultant/vendor to develop a new line of business (LOB) solution for pension administration.  This solution is a large-scale, enterprise-wide, web-based application system called the SERS Member and Retiree Tracking (SMART) system. The SMART system project is a phased, multi-year endeavor with identified milestones.  The project is targeted for completion in 2017.

The Challenge

SERS selected Halcyon Solutions as qualified vendor to work with SERS staff and onsite vendors to provide subject matter expertise in a variety of areas.

The Solution

This third party expertise provided guidance and aided SERS in reviewing the proposed designs, assessing alternatives, and making quality tactical and strategic decisions related to the SMART system.

Halcyon Solutions has provided process review, requirements management, infrastructure setup/management, development methodology usage, project planning, application architecture review and software development best practices guidance to SERS over the engagement period.

The Results

SERS has leveraged the Halcyon team’s recommendations to enhance the quality of the LOB implementation. Appropriate support based process/procedures and tool usage guidance is being addressed by the SERS support team as they prepare to support SMART.

The Technology

• .Net Framework
• MS Team Foundation Server (TFS) & MS Test Manager (MTM)
• VMWare infrastructure
• SQL Server 2013
• ITSM help-desk solution
• SharePoint 2013
• MS Exchange/Active Directory