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Texas
Education Agency
Online
Grant Application System.
Scope
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Contracted to participate on a development team to develop an enterprise grant application system, transforming the Texas
Education Agency's paper application process to a
web-based application system
using ASP pages and a generic database
that will interface with the Agency upgrades for PeopleSoft.
Tasked with documenting, analyzing, and defining the user and system
requirements and features that included the use of a
multi-server architecture,
and the interfaces with existing PeopleSoft Financials.
eGrants was designed using an external web portal including major
interfaces with the agency’s PeopleSoft financial system to provide
grant applicants the ability to submit grant applications, amend
applications, report expenditures, draw down payments, and report
performance. Functionality included the ability for TEA staff to
create and manage grant applications, assemble and publish grant
application packages, receive submitted applications, and manage,
select, assigning readers, submit scores, negotiate, and approve
applications through workflow, allow grantees to access awards, submit
expenditure reports, and draw down funds.
This
system later included an upgrade to ASP.NET.
Tasks/Duties :
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Organized and facilitated customers and internal stakeholders conducting
joint application development (JAD) sessions with the purpose of defining the
functional business and system requirements utilizing use cases in UML
diagrams and textual descriptions, documenting requirements in a
requirements database to track development.
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Wrote clear, concise detailed system requirements specification (SRS)
documents and user documentation in accordance to TEA’s guidelines and
standards. |
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Coordinated daily team activities to ensure project schedule remained
on target. |
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During the design phase, worked with the development team to ensure
testability, reliability, usability, maintainability and performance
of a web-enabled
enterprise client/server application.
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Performed business
and system analysis towards the resolution of any reported application
issues documenting all resolutions. |
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Reviewed available tools, current system and subsystems, documented
interface requirements with the Agency’s upgrades of PeopleSoft,
identified associated constraints and issues and assisted
in the configuration of PeopleSoft Financials setup and control
tables. |
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Prototyped and implemented Phase II development for workflow, application review, and
scoring submissions utilizing eProcess, FileNet and Content Services
for document management. |
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Prototyped and implemented Phase III development of online grant
application reader assignment and scoring of competitive grant
applications. |
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Prototyped and implemented Phase IV development of the entire eGrants
system upgrade to ASP.NET. |
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Prototyped and implemented Phase V development which standardized grant application
templates in ASP.NET enabling users to manage application publication. |
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Composed all training manuals and conducted training classes.
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Prepared routine reports on the progress of assigned tasks,
identifying and resolving project constraints. |
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Prepared test plans and executed all levels of
Unit, Integration,
User Acceptance and Operational Acceptance
testing using test cases
to prove that the system conform to specifications of business
requirements and meet market driven quality requirements.
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Worked with project manager to create annual business cases that
included development estimates and planning. |
Results :
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Saved the agency
hundreds of thousands in time, effort, materials (primarily paper), postage,
and storage space. |
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Reduced the cycle
time to process and approve grant application forms by
50%. |
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Gained significant
productivity and cost savings by enabling operation with fewer
resources. |
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Provided a system
that is easier and faster for customers to use. |
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Project implemented as scheduled May 1, 2003.
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Phase II implemented as
scheduled October 1, 2004.
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Phase III implemented as scheduled July
1, 2004.
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Phase IV implemented February 2007.
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Phase V implemented June
15, 2007.
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"The person who says it cannot be
done should not interrupt the person doing it."
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“The only sure way to
avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas."
--
Albert Einstein
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