Software Development Under Control
Customer: Miami Dade County Public Schools
Miami Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) is one of the largest public school districts in the United States . They service over 400 learning facilities throughout Dade County and have one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation. The school system encompasses K-12, adult and vocational education programs, and specialty magnet schools.
At Issue:
MDCPS has hundreds of locations and tens of thousands of employees. Due to government regulations, all prospective employees must submit numerous documents and go through a rigorous screening during the hiring process. All final processing must occur on their IBM mainframe system, so the Human Resources department was stuck doing double data entry, or copying and pasting information into the Mainframe via terminal emulation. This was very inefficient and was a bottle-neck to reviewing needed applicants.
The Solution:
Using Microsoft's ASP.NET, an external Internet site was created to allow prospective
employees to begin their applications online.
An additional internal Intranet portal was created that allowed Human Resources
managers to log in and review all incoming applications, and approve of these application
for automated transfer to the mainframe.
The specific technologies used were: Microsoft ASP.NET 1.1, SQL Server 2000, DTS,
and Visual Basic.NET.
The Human Resources Manager can search for applicants on several different criteria,
from name, social security number, application date, birth date, or incomplete application
age.
Once the search is performed, a list of the results are presented. The Manager can
sort the list or page through the result set, and select a single application for
drill down detail.
Within the detail, the Human Resources Manager can make changes to the record or
flag several different status codes to affect processing on the mainframe, as well
as set it ready for transmission to the mainframe.
On a nightly batch, those records that are ready for transfer are moved into the
mainframe where final processing will occur.
This system saves hundreds of hours of Human Resource Manager's time every month.
This system was written in about four months, giving MDCPS return on investment
in under six months.