Project Updates

Third Quarter 2025

Effective May 22, 2025, the department's American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grants, which were awarded under the prior federal administration, were terminated by the U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. DOL). With the termination of U.S. DOL grants, DWD has revised modernization plans to best meet the holistic needs of the system in these unanticipated circumstances. To best position ,itself to modernize the interconnected UI systems, DWD will be focusing on converting to modern code on UI's current servers, or “on premise,” rather than in the cloud. To this end, DWD has begun a series of projects on premise with a focus on modern coding language that is more flexible and adaptable:

• Manual Processing Reduction: DWD teams have taken up automation of a process that addresses claims that the current system cannot support. Early work has focused on a prototype calculator that will allow developers and subject matter experts to validate that the current claims are coming through.
• Code Language Upgrade: DWD is in the process of soliciting vendor support to perform a code language upgrade to the Claimant and Worker Portals, which are external facing for claimants, and UIBNET, which is internal facing for UI staff.
• Employer Portal: While the intended work on the Employer Portal included developing a new application in the cloud, DWD was forced to modify the plans after the termination of federal funds. The revised project focuses upgrading all coding language previously planned enhancements to the current application, submission capability for commonly used tax form, and secure messaging for direct electronic communication between employers and UI staff. Development work has begun and DWD is pursuing vendor support to perform code language upgrades and to provide the user experience for screen designs.
• UI Account Number Expansion: The IT tax system requires each Wisconsin employer to have a discrete UI Account Numbers assigned to it to track that employer and ensure proper payment of unemployment taxes. UI is projected to run out of unique UI Account Numbers within three to four years as old employer account numbers cannot be reused. Developers will be expanding number of characters to assign UI account numbers to employers to allow for an increase in the number of employers participating in Unemployment Insurance.

Second Quarter 2025

DWD continues work on improving employers' experience with UI. Unfortunately, effective May 22, 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. DOL) – without prior notice – terminated $29 million of DWD's modernization grants as part of a larger effort to terminate $675 million in ARPA grants awarded to UI programs in more than 30 states and territories. As a result of U.S. DOL's action, DWD was forced to pause work on the UI Employer Portal.

During the pause, DWD teams pivoted to prioritize items that need to be supported by remaining funds. This includes evaluating the work that has already been done to identify what can be repurposed, what needs to be modified, and which features can be completed under the new circumstances. DWD remains committed to delivering more effective and efficient tools for Wisconsin employers

First Quarter 2025

DWD continued work on the following key components: the employer portal, UI dashboard enhancements, and COBOL-based UI System Replacement.

• Employer Portal: Focused on the foundational elements that allow the new system to talk to other applications, provided sufficient security and supporting infrastructure to meet current and future needs, enhanced the initial registration process design, and began initial development for secure messaging between employers and UI staff.
• UI Dashboard: Enhanced data visualizations to provide an internal Demographic Dashboard for select staff to view claimants' demographic information by demographic characteristics.
• COBOL-based UI System Replacement: Discovery concluded with Google Public Sector (GPS) to understand the scope of work remaining for the build-out, integration, testing, and deployment of a fully modern UI system. Given the complexity and associated timeframes with this approach, GPS is exploring other technology that could be used to accelerate development of code and deliver performance features that continue Wisconsin's leadership in UI customer service.

Fourth Quarter 2024

DWD continued work on the following key components: the employer portal, UI dashboard enhancements, and COBOL-based UI System Replacement.

• Employer Portal: During the fourth quarter, DWD continued its development efforts for the initial system with a focus the foundational elements that allow the new system to talk to other applications, has sufficient security and supporting infrastructure to meet current and future needs, and establishing the guidelines for the application look and feel. Employers can find more details about what to expect from our new employer portal.
• Enhanced Identify Verification: DWD has implemented additional steps to verify and protect the identities of the claimants.
• Customer Service Manager: DWD has implemented a tool that centralizes the communication with constituents for better tracking inquiries and the responses to ensure timely and accurate responses.
• COBOL-based UI System Replacement: Discovery continued with Google Public Sector to understand the scope of work remaining for the build-out, integration, testing, and deployment of a fully modern UI system through fourth quarter of 2024.

Third Quarter 2024

DWD continued work on three key components of the project: the employer portal, UI dashboard enhancements, and COBOL-based UI System Replacement.

• Employer Portal: During the third quarter, DWD began to develop the initial system with a focus on creation of the integration points for communication between the existing system and development of initial workflow particularly around employer registration and file upload. In addition, DWD and its vendor have completed a technical roadmap and tasking exercise that best aligns all the resources for completion of this project.
• UI Dashboard Enhancements: DWD completed an additional enhancement to the UI Statistics page with added functionality that includes interactive displays of UI claims by industry based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code associated with a claimant's separating employer.
• COBOL-based UI System Replacement: As previously reported, DWD's work with Flexion concluded in early July. The department is continuing the build-out, integration, testing, and deployment of a fully modern UI system with Google Public Sector. DWD will take advantage of rapidly evolving technology to accelerate development of code and deliver performance features that continue Wisconsin's leadership in UI customer service. During the third quarter of 2024, discovery was undertaken with the new vendor to understand the scope of work remaining for all of the components.

Second Quarter 2024

DWD continued work on three key components of the project: the employer portal, legal notifications library, and benefit calculation and liability engine.

• Employer Portal: During the second quarter, DWD and its vendor completed technical discovery to identify the roadmap and tasks required to replace the existing employer portal. The goal is to add functionality that improves communication between DWD and its customers for tax and wage reporting, employer information and support, responding to submitted unemployment insurance claims verification, and appeal activities. To understand features that would be important to the users – Wisconsin employers – DWD held a series of focus group sessions to collect feedback from employers on the proposed design.
• Legal Notifications: Also during the second quarter, the team focused on development of a legal notifications library. While the legacy system requires legal notifications to be sent manually, the modern system will automatically suggest logical notifications for adjudication staff to include with the final determination.
• Benefit Calculation and Liability Engine: Work on the benefit calculation and liability engine has involved establishing a secure cloud infrastructure, implementing additional security protocols, identifying dependencies within the mainframe to avoid customer disruptions, and developing a benefits calculation engine that accounts for the complex rules associated with Wisconsin's UI eligibility requirements. During the second quarter, the UI Modernization team focused on sending correspondence to claimants and employers and displaying and updating the amount paid and the amount remaining on a claim.

Fourth Quarter 2023

DWD continued work toward eliminating manual processes and increasing efficiency and accuracy in the UI program through modernization activities, including:

Benefit Calculation and Liability Engine: The work in this quarter included answering the most common questions posed by UI Claimants for limited circumstances, including the status of a claim, the amount of the claim, identification of missing wage issues, and resolution of these issues.
• Overpayment/Fraud Reduction Initiatives: DWD has been working to improve the quality and accuracy of filed claims thereby reducing overpayments, including fraudulent overpayments, by identifying earnings and misreported earnings more quickly and implementing honesty prompts for claimants who have previously provided false information on a UI claim.
• Modernized IT cloud Infrastructure work: Additional improvements were made to the security of the new system's applications. DWD is building cloud-based containers to segregate different elements of the system to ensure a secure data structure to support the process.
• Employer Portal: DWD began the early page designs for a new streamlined, secure employer portal.

More information about the progress was provided in the DWD Unemployment Insurance (UI) Modernization Update - Dec. 27, 2023.

Third Quarter 2023

DWD continued work toward eliminating manual processes and increasing efficiency and accuracy in the UI program through modernization activities, including:

• Benefit Calculation and Liability Engine: All components needed to process a claim in the modern system have been identified, including generating required correspondence, displaying and updating the total amount paid and the remaining amount left on the claim, and refining the data displayed to ensure that UI staff have the necessary information to process the claim.
• Adjudication Workflow Prototype: A prototype workflow has been created for one type of issue that requires a formal decision. The workflow walks the adjudicator through the process step-by-step and prompts the adjudicator to provide the appropriate supporting materials for that item. Additional development work is needed to establish the full process.
• Adjudication Scheduler: The adjudication scheduler is a tool that allows automatic case assignment and routing based on the issue type, adjudicator skill level, and resource availability. During this quarter, development was completed, and the tool was being tested prior to full implementation.
• Modernized IT cloud Infrastructure work: Additional improvements were made to the security of the new system's applications. DWD is building cloud-based containers to segregate different elements of the system to ensure a secure data structure to support the process.

DWD/DOA Legislative Update Oct 31, 2023

Second Quarter 2023

DWD's work has laid the foundation to eliminate manual processes and increase efficiency and accuracy. Having that foundation in place has allowed DWD to make substantial progress on several key projects, including:

• The Benefit Calculation and Liability Engine, which will determine the amount of benefits a claimant would receive once in production.
• Improved capabilities to submit required reports to the federal government.
• Adjudication prototyping, which begins development on a guided workflow for cases that need manual review and intervention to ensure all steps and documentation have been completed.
• Modernized IT infrastructure.
• A new adjudication scheduler to assign adjudication in a more automated fashion.
• Additional ID proofing techniques and a dashboard to prevent or stop potential fraud attempts.
• Accessibility assessments to improve user experience.
• A knowledge-based tool that centralizes policy and process so it is more searchable and accessible to staff at all levels within UI.

DWD will continue working on these enhancements in the coming quarters. DWD also will focus on an end-to-end demonstration that tracks the processing of a sample claim through UI's modernized systems.

DWD/DOA Legislative Update July 31, 2023

First Quarter 2023

The UI modernization project continued to focus on adding increasingly complex calculations necessary to determine the amount of an unemployment insurance claim. A first iteration of a web-based user interface has been developed. As additional calculations are added, the display and functionality will change to address the changing needs. The work to secure and manage the cloud continues to advance with a focus on a safe and reliable cloud environment.

DWD has prioritized eliminating manual processes in some key areas to maximize the impact for staff and other end users, resulting in timely payment of benefits. Over the coming quarters, DWD will continue to focus on building the systematic components to determine benefit eligibility, accurately calculate benefits, and charge the benefits to the appropriate employer(s).

DWD/DOA Legislative Update April 27, 2023

Fourth Quarter 2022

During the fourth quarter, the UI modernization team collected feedback to fine-tune the new Benefit Estimator Calculator. The Benefit Estimator tool is the foundation for the Benefit Calculation and Liability Engine, which will determine the amount of benefits a claimant would receive. The UI modernization team will continue programming work for this system.

In addition, significant work was accomplished toward establishing a secure and efficient cloud environment to support applications being developed. Having applications that result in working software supported in a cloud environment is a major step in retiring a legacy mainframe application.

DWD/DOA Legislative Update January 30, 2023

Third Quarter 2022

The Department of Workforce Development's Unemployment Insurance system modernization efforts are taking another step forward with the implementation of its first product in the form of a Benefit Estimator. With this release, a modern benefit estimator is available with a comparison tool validating the results to the existing system. The UI Modernization team will continue to expand the benefit calculation engine to address increasingly complex unemployment insurance claims. On September 20, 2022, DWD released the Benefit Estimator Calculator video, which showcases the value of the development work underway.

The recent implementation of the new benefit estimator is a successful first step in helping DWD staff members more quickly, accurately, and effectively support Wisconsin residents now – and into the future.

DWD/DOA Legislative Update October 31, 2022

Second Quarter 2022

During the second quarter, the UI modernization team continued the foundational work that occurred in the first quarter for designing the cloud architecture and the supporting protections for data protection and overall system security. As with any new build, this foundational work will continue to build over time a strong, solid foundation to support new applications. This quarter delivered an initial vulnerability plan, an automated workflow, an initial communication mechanism between the legacy and modern systems, implementation of a strategy for de-identification uniquely identified data, and early implementation of a data storage approach.

Also in progress, initial work was underway to establish a tool that could perform a benefit estimate for staff to use in working with claimants. Before moving into production, all infrastructure needs will be evaluated, including secure communication methods, data security, and vulnerability management.

DWD/DOA Legislative Update July 27, 2022

First Quarter 2022

The initial focus of the UI modernization effort is claims processing. The current system cannot address all case types resulting in a significant amount of manual processing. The UI modernization team began the task of building the early stages of the cloud infrastructure with the appropriate security and controls and initial system development with a focus establishing claimant eligibility and employer charging. This work included continuing research on our existing system, exploring options for extracting and storing the existing data, and developing technical mechanisms for connecting the State of Wisconsin-controlled data center to the cloud.

DWD completed the transition of the existing call centers to the cloud-based contact center, including the integration of the voice-based chatbot on the UI main telephone number after hours. The voice based chatbot is able to answer frequently asked questions in English and Spanish. In addition, a chatbot was implemented on the website that can answer questions in English, Spanish, and Hmong

DWD/DOA Legislative Update Apr. 28, 2022

Fourth Quarter 2021

The UI modernization team, composed of DWD and Flexion staff, held an initial kick off meeting and began the discovery process to establish a common understanding of the existing Unemployment Insurance (UI) systems.

This work was focused on developing the team working protocols and language; obtaining access to DWD systems and environments; and obtaining sufficient understanding and knowledge about the data flows, code execution flows, the new cloud-based environment, and policy and business processes.

DWD implemented the first phase of the cloud-based contact center with a subset of the call centers fully using the new cloud-based contact center. Work was completed in phases to meet both the programmatic needs and to ensure a smooth transition over time.

DWD entered into an agreement to develop a chatbot that will serve on both the DWD Unemployment Insurance (UI) website and through a voice feature on the call center. Work has begun to identify the frequently asked questions that will be included in this effort.

DWD/DOA Legislative Update Jan. 31, 2022

Third Quarter 2021

DWD began preparations for the initial kick off meeting with the UI modernization vendor, Flexion.

DWD contracted with Nice CXone, a cloud-based Customer Contact Center, through the NASPO ValuePoint Contract to provide call center services. The outcome of this contract is to establish a new cloud-based call center to increase the scalability of the solution to meet the changing needs of DWDs programs. In addition, the solution offers seamless integration of a telephony system with

DWD/DOA Legislative Update Oct. 29, 2021

Sept. 29, 2021

DWD has signed a contract with Madison-based Flexion that involves integration of off-the-shelf software and cloud-based solutions along with significant custom software development. Flexion brings a unique combination of programming expertise and user-experience insight to power DWD's unemployment insurance system modernization efforts.