Client Name

Third Judicial Circuit Court, State of Michigan

Description of Services Provided

PRWORA Project

Protech began its work with the Third Circuit Court in July 2000 by assisting the court in complying with federally required welfare reform distribution and reporting requirements. The Wayne County Friend of the Court (FOC) is operated by the local court and serves as the IV-D Enforcement Agency for Wayne County under a cooperative agreement with the State of Michigan. The FOC automated system was not federally compliant. Protech Solutions worked with the State on distribution compliance and federal reporting.

To address the long-term needs for automated support of the FOC IV-D agency in Wayne County, in the absence of a statewide system, the Third Circuit Court contracted with Protech to redesign the FOC on-line system and migrate the database to new technology compatible with the State of Michigan. This project required the development of a new certifiable child support enforcement system for a caseload of 300,000 cases.

OASIS Project

The Third Circuit Court of Michigan serves the citizens of Wayne County and is the nation's third largest court system. Through the years, multiple databases had been developed to support the different divisions and support operations of the court. However none of these databases shared information with each other. The Third Circuit Court contracted with Protech to assist the in-house Information Technology Services Bureau (ITSB) in designing and developing an integrated system and to migrate the old technology to a new open environment that would provide users with shared data and a user-friendly interface that would allow the court to operate more efficiently and effectively in the 21st century.

Due to the complexity of the multiple databases that support court operations and the need to re-design and integrate systems, the in-house Information Technology Services Bureau (ITSB) required assistance to manage the extensive projects and to maintain support of the existing systems. This project required not only the development of a court-wide system but also reengineering and program support. Protech provided project management and programming support to ITSB and the administration of the court.

The OASIS project required the analysis and design of all court divisions and functions. This incorporated criminal, civil, juvenile, child support, traffic, and license issuance and violations as well as other court support services including counseling services and support of financial operations. The project was a massive development due to the size and wide variation of services provided by the court, in addition to the differences in technology. Protech provided analysis and design services for this project.

OPTS Project

While evaluating the technical environment for the Third Circuit Court, it became evident that the existing modifications being made on the multiple and disparate systems as well as the court's new Oracle database were not structured, controlled, planned, or tracked. System modifications were being undertaken upon user requests and at times overlapping to the point where ITSB had more work identified than it could possibly successfully complete.

The administration of the court requested Protech to assist the county Information Technology System Bureau organize their efforts and generate a means of receiving requests, addressing issues and monitoring progress. Protech's resolution was the development of a project management tool for monitoring of time by projects, tasks, and individuals. The progress made toward completion was also captured so the user and the management of the information technology organization could re-assign tasks (if necessary), monitor progress, and provide billing information in addition to managing issues that might present a risk to successful completion of the project. The result was successful and many projects were closed out. The tool worked so well that Protech also adopted the tool as a part of our project management methodology in absence of a similar tool employed by the state. This tool provided documentation of project status and is utilized by Protech for documentation of billing our customers for services rendered.

The application was built on an ORACLE database, which was housed in a Compaq GS140 running TRU64 Unix. The application server was an Internet application server using Apache Listeners. The front-end application was constructed using JAVA and JSP with a middle tier of EJB. Development tools were JDK, ORACLE Procedure Builder, and ORACLE Designer for database design and documentation.

Technologies Employed

Thin-Client/Browser Based, J2EE using Apache, Oracle, GTA Security Model, Solaris Operating System Environment Pro-COBOL, Oracle Developer 6, Designer 6, PL/SQL, MS Project 98, Visio 2000, Novell Netware HTML, XML, JavaScript, VBScript etc

Time period of the project and / or contract

1997 - December 2001

Testimonial

Hon. Michael F. Sapala - Judge State of Michigan - Third Circuit Court

"...We have worked with Protech Solutions, Inc. since February 2000, and we were extremely pleased with their performance. Without the development of a creative technical solution built by the company's knowledgeable and professional staff, the problems which confronted the Wayne County Friend of the Court and the State of Michigan could have resulted in the loss of millions of dollars in federal non-compliance penalties and incentive monies. Even more importantly, Protech created a new concept in case management for the local IV-D agency that resulted in an improved User Interface, and improved services to the custodial and non-custodial parents of the local child support enforcement agency..."