Information Services

Joe Perzel, MIS

The Information Services (IS) Department, established in 1990, is currently staffed by a manager and nine other professionals. In addition, there is a full-time consultant working on network and help desk projects. Other consultants are utilized on an occasional basis when a project requires additional resources or a specialist.

MIS undertook several projects In 1997. Following are the major projects and a brief summary of their status:

Spectrum—The migration of our legacy COBOL software systems to an Oracle client/server environment, has completed the 3rd year of a 4 year plan. MWCIA, along with American Cooperative Council on Compensation Technology (ACCCT) members Wisconsin and North Carolina, are working with the consulting firm of Intelligent Information Systems (IIS) on this project. During 1997 Unit Statistical Reporting, Experience Rating and Unit Statistical Tracking were completed and installed. Plans for 1998 include the completion of Policy, Assigned Risk, CPAP, Employer Profile and Inspection systems.

Bureau Entry and Edit Package (BEEP)—MWCIA, as a member of ACCCT, completed the implementation of this PC based Unit Statistical reporting software package in July of 1997. A planned upgrade is scheduled for early 3rd quarter 1998. Also, there are preliminary plans to develop a Policy Data reporting system starting after the BEEP upgrade is completed.

Office Move—During the 3rd quarter of 1997 the I.S. department participated in the coordination and implementation of a move into our new office.

World Wide Web (WWW) Inquiry—Project designed to allow carriers and agents to view and print Experience Mod History, Assigned Risk Ratings, Carrier Names, Carrier Rates and Circular Letter information via the Internet. At present, DOLI is accessing the new Assigned Risk Rating sub-system. Development of the remaining sub-systems is nearly complete and should be operational sometime during the 2nd quarter of 1998.

Keyfile—Project to upgrade our existing optical documentation management system to a new version of this product is nearly complete. The system should be implemented after final testing is completed early in 1998. Plans to customize the new version to better suit MWCIA’s needs will be evaluated after the implementation is complete.

Remote User Access —Project that will allow authorized users outside of the MWCIA offices to review E-mail, faxed documents and selected production systems. At present access to E-mail and some production systems is available. Faxed document access is scheduled to be available starting the end of the 2nd quarter of 1998.

Carrier Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) —Project to implement a package software product designed to facilitate the electronic transmission of unit statistical and policy data information to MWCIA. This product has been successfully installed at MWCIA and is presently going through a test with one carrier. Final implementation is expected by the 2nd quarter of 1998.

Ratemaking & Carrier Calls —Projects to process Ratemaking information as well as enter and edit Carrier Call financial data was started during July of 1997 and are now nearly complete. MWCIA’s Actuarial department will be using these new systems to create and publish the 1998 Ratemaking information. Enhancements to the system to allow distribution to carrier sites is scheduled to start in time for the 1999 Ratemaking season.

Other miscellaneous projects, which may be started and/or completed during 1998 include:

• Disaster Recovery Planning —Project to monitor system status and create contingent plans in the event of a catastrophe is scheduled to start during the 2nd quarter of 1998.
• Office 97 Roll Out —MWCIA is planning to upgrade to Office 97 during the 2nd quarter of 1998.
  Fax-on-demand —Project to develop a custom application to replace an existing outt-sourced system. This system will provide better performance and stability by replacing an existing system that is performed by an outside vendor. This project is scheduled to start during the 2nd quarter of 1998.
• Year 2000 —Project to verify and/or upgrade all MWCIA systems to be year 2000 compliant. This is expected to be completed during the 3rd quarter of 1998.
• Unix-to-NT Conversion —The first step in converting the existing production system to a Windows NT platform is scheduled for the 4th quarter 1998.
• Internet Teleconferencing —Project to test and determine if teleconferencing over the Internet is desirable.

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