| We've got NEWS |
|---|
| Thursday, December 17, 1998 Governor Tommy G. Thompson Secretary Linda Stewart | News Media Contact DWD News Office 608/267-4400 e-mail: news@dwd.state.wi.us fax: 608/266-1784 |
Media Advisory:
KIDS System Operations
Here’s background information for reporters writing about the KIDS system and its operations:
State government’s Kids Information Data System (KIDS) for child support is one of the largest and most complex state computer systems consisting of over 700 programs and operating through electronic connections in 72 Wisconsin counties.
The KIDS system contains almost 500,000 child support cases and in the federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1998, collected $832 million in child support receipts.
The State Departments of Workforce Development (DWD) and Administration (DOA) and their vendors have made it a major priority to improve system operations and response time in 1998 and will continue to do so in 1999.
DOA will install a new mainframe computer to serve KIDS and other agency programs on the first weekend in January. This upgrade will increase system capacity. It also will reduce unexpected downtime and eliminate slow response time, both of which have concerned users in the last several months.
Other steps that have been taken during the 1998 to improve system efficiency and reduce costs include:
In addition, KIDS shares the DOA mainframe system on which it operates with users from other state agencies. These include the Department of Transportation Divisions of Motor Vehicles and State Patrol, DWD’s Unemployment Insurance Division, and the Department of Employe Trust Funds. Because of the size and complexity of the system, it is inevitable that problems will occur which affect system processing speed and availability. Problems can be attributed to:
The system relies on partnerships and sharing with a number of private and public agencies to operate. These include:
DWD has compiled a concise summary of recent system availability problems to explain the cause of problems when known, and the actions taken to correct them. This information follows immediately on the next page. DWD News Office
Hardware
Software
Human Error
KIDS Operational Issues since 10/1/98
| Date | Description | Indirect Cause | Direct Cause | Steps Taken |
| 9/30- 11/30 | Start of slow reponse time in Doc Gen. Continued all during the month of October, November | Might be at max of Doc Gen Capacity | Not determined. | Infotech had a consultant review the system and now are asking for a review of the application. Some changes being made at InfoTech, and other changes being reviewed |
| 10/2 | Checks printing slowly in counties, potentially making checks late, counties could not approve batches. | VPS Printing Mainframe problems | Infotech had a consultant review the system and now are asking for a review of the application. Some changes being made at InfoTech, and other changes being reviewed | |
| 10/2 - 12/2 | Receipt batch approval slow. Takes up to 45 minutes to approve a batch. | Might be near/at capacity for processing. | Priority setting for batch approval set too low for necessary, rapid on-line approval. | InfoTech monitored on 12/2. InfoTech has increased the size of KIDS memory allocation. Priority setting changed to higher level. |
| 10/2 | System down approx 3:30 | Mainframe and gateway problems | A new mainframe will be install 1st week of 99. System performance at program level must be reviewed | |
| 10/5 | Slow response time in KIDS applications | Might be near/at capacity for processing. | At times reaching max capability of the computer | A new mainframe will be install 1st week of 99. System performance at program level must be reviewed |
| 10/6 | Print Queue Back-up | Doc Gen problems | VPS Print Problem | Infotech had a consultant review the system and now are asking for a review of the application. Some changes being made at InfoTech, and other changes being reviewed |
| 10/12-13 | Very slow response time in Doc Gen | Loop in software | Corrected by InfoTech | |
| 10/16-28 | Slow response time | Might be at max of Doc Gen capability | System utilization at almost 100% | Survey from counties, InfoTech monitoring, secured consultant |
| 11/2 | Mainframe and Gateway problems in late afternoon | A new mainframe will be install 1st week of 99. System performance at program level must be reviewed | ||
| 11/2 - 11/19 | Clocking system-wide | Might be near/at capacity for processing. | A new mainframe will be install 1st week of 99. System performance at program level must be reviewed | |
| 11/13 | Spousal interest charged inappropriately in 4000 cases. | New spousal interest charging programming put in place. | Some counties had interest turned on for these obligations. County KIDS conversion error. | BCS and some of the affected county staff staff did manual adjustments |
| 11/18 | Payee, Payor letters to wrong participants | Service request from BCS included cases with open subaccounts, but did not specifically exclude closed cases. | Some closed cases had open subaccounts. | BCS/CR&D staff sending individual responses to +300 letters. |
| 11/24 | Check Printing Abends | Maximum capacity of mainframe met for processing | Another agency ran batch program which slowed check processing | A new mainframe will be installed 1st week of 99 to increase capacity. |
| 11/25 | Daily batch program did not run properly. Checks not available | Human error | Date parameter was not updated properly prior to nightly batch run. File open when PARM reset operation ran, date not reset. | Reran processing. Program altered to ensure this will not happen again. |
| 12/2 | Charging did not occur on 30-40% of cases. Charging incorrect on 1400 cases. Need to charge before processing payments. | Major change to program to utilize court order as basis for processing in interest charging and delinquency. Complex code changes implemented. | After an Abend during month-end batch run the program restart did not work properly due to coding error. | Charging was rerun for 70,000 cases, special programming to correct 1400 incorrect charges in progress. |
| 12/7 | VPS Print problems | Human error. | Printers accidentally disabled | Training issue/security controls. DOA reset each printer overnight. |
For an e-mail version of this news release, |