By Loretta Burns
Maintaining a balance between FSA program delivery and developing the MIDAS solution can be difficult, but the MIDAS team is continuing to make great strides, pressing toward an Acreage Reporting solution with GIS integration for the 2013 crop reporting cycle.
In March and April, a contingency of IT staff traveled to New Orleans to work with our Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) and National Finance Center (NFC) partners on the technical architecture to address topics including the integration of the FSA Web farm, GIS, and NFC FMMI environments to support MIDAS. The Technical Architecture Group will continue to work over the coming months to ensure a seamless operation of the end-to-end technical environment. In addition, the Solution Architecture Group comprised of business and IT representatives from FSA and OCFO, are focused on addressing integration issues of the MIDAS/FMMI business processes. Collectively, these two working groups are addressing the spectrum of business and technical issues to protect the scope, schedule and budget of the modernization initiatives.
Looking ahead to Deployment 1.1, MIDAS Business Partner will replace SCIMS as the system used for maintaining customer data. SAP’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capability will bring FSA closer to the industry standard for managing customer relations. Blueprinting will continue this summer to complete the business requirements for Business Partner and to support Marketing Assistance Loans (MAL). Deployment 1.1 will not only provide a modernized MAL business process but also will bring us one step closer to retiring the AS400/S36. The accomplishments of the integrated DC and KC team are driving MIDAS forward on its path to deliver a modernized, high quality solution for our customers in the field offices, farmers and ranchers.
