About Division of Computer Services (CSC)
The Division of Computer Services within the Office of the State Controller provides technology services to state agencies throughout Idaho. The Division is fully self-supporting, funded solely from funds generated by providing high quality, measured services.
The Division maintains the largest data center infrastructure in Idaho state government. Technologies and staff are available to provide development or support services on a wide variety of computing platforms ranging from desktop computing to super-server processing on the mainframe.
Both the host and server operating environments are housed in a secure, raised floor facility.
This full-service data center provides a robust and reliable computing environment twenty-four seven. Help desk and operational support services are available Monday 6:00 a.m. through Saturday 7:00 a.m. Additional weekend services for, On-Call, or On-site Overtime support is available. For cost information and scheduling of weekend services, contact Operations Bureau Chief
The State Controller’s Office has been very aggressive in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity planning.
Recovery processes on all environments and applications supported by the Division have been tested to ensure continued operational integrity. Those processes are retested and improved upon on a predefined schedule at a contracted hot site.
The Office of the State Controller has been recognized at the national level for the innovative use of technology in many customer applications developed and deployed. The availability of this sophisticated technology environment and the Division's expert technical staff contributed significantly towards the recognition these projects have received.
One of the largest organizational units within the Division is the Application Development Bureau.
This Bureau is staffed by highly skilled Information Technology professionals with experience in designing, developing and deploying large-scale business and web-based applications.
The Bureau provides technical support for mission-critical, transaction-intensive mainframe applications such as STARS, the State’s Accounting System of Record, and EIS, the Employee Information System, which processes human resource documents and payrolls for 26,000 state employees annually.
On staff are technical experts who were involved in the initial implementations of these applications. They are available to assist with technical questions and application enhancements as needed.
Project management and application development processes have been defined to ensure that best practices are adhered to. Projects are managed from inception through implementation with status meetings, quality assurance activities and acceptance testing processes scheduled at key stages throughout the life of the project.
Change management guidelines are also strictly adhered to. This ensures enhancements have passed rigid testing criteria before they are accessible in a production environment.
As each project takes shape, the development staff works closely with the application owner in the development of a comprehensive end-user training program.
Support services for technical or connectivity issues are provided through the Operations Bureau Help Desk. Application support services are typically provided by a Help Desk area established by the Application Owner. These support services can optionally be provided by the Division of Computer Services on a fee basis.
Recent application deployments have been focused around the use of the Internet as an application access vehicle. The adoption of the Internet as a standard application access method allows us to reduce cost and inconvenience associated with providing necessary government services to citizens and employees.
These large-scale, web-based applications support complex, event-driven business processes. The applications are designed to reach a large, technically diverse user community.
The application designs also incorporate technologies that allow us to meet the requirements that have been defined for compliance with the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). This makes accessibility possible to a community of citizens with physical conditions that limit their ability to take advantage of conventional software application design.
The Bureau, as with the entire Division, has a low turnover rate. This is partially attributed to the continuous training provided to staff members in the use of emerging technologies.
As new application and development environments are introduced to the enterprise, employee training is often augmented by contracting with subject matter and technology experts in initial project phases.
In these contracts, knowledge transfer is always identified as an expected deliverable of the engagement.
By utilizing this methodology, we are able to ‘jump-start’ staff productivity in initial project phases and reduce the impact felt while the staff overcomes the learning curve.
Working in concert with industry experts, the base application is developed and deployed. Responsibility for the continued evolution and deployment of the application is managed in full by the trained experts within the Division of Computer Services and the application owners and sponsors. |