Case study: Replacing a legacy background check system

How does one approach replacing a legacy system that is crucial to public welfare when the previous five attempts had failed? Treinen was up for the challenge and finding the right solution with its client, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS).

When Treinen was hired to develop a new Background Check System (BCS), the legacy Criminal History System (CHS) was 20 years old and long past end-of-life. CHS was no longer sustainable from both a maintenance and security perspective. The BCS system processes over 300,00 background checks annually for DSHS. The background checks are required for people working with vulnerable populations like home healthcare workers, nursing home staff, foster families, caregivers, etc. Background checks are passed through the Washington State Patrol’s (WSP) Washington Access to Criminal History (WATCH) system and constitute more than 70 percent of the total volume of background checks processed by WSP annually.

Treinen provided project management, business analysis, development, system/database design and testing resources for the project. Over a period of two years, Treinen staff performed custom requirements analysis, design, development, and testing to deliver a new Background Check System for DSHS.

In the first few days of the project, the Background Check Central Unit (BCCU) staff showed the Treinen project team the fax machines used to receive background checks and the stacks of physical mail that were scanned into computers for staff to process. It was abundantly clear that modernization was necessary.

This project would be a custom development effort, following an Agile methodology using the Scrum framework. Budget was limited and multiple stakeholders were involved with different priorities. With the large volume of background checks processed every year, protection of vulnerable people as well as jobs for qualified people were at stake.

Starting a project always involves some storming and norming, but this was a unique situation where numerous solutions had been tried and failed before Treinen was involved. Understandably, the agency’s trust factor was extremely low and the Treinen team encountered heavy resistance to connecting the project team with the business users. This raised as a major risk early on. An inexperienced Product Owner and Scrum team that had never worked together increased the people challenge. The Treinen team had to work hard to establish trust, build relationships and overcome the loss of several client team members key to the vision of the new system.

“We never lost sight of the overall goal: to deliver a better background check system for our client and their customers,” said Will Treinen, CEO of Treinen. “There were several times our team had to sit down and put our heads together, but we stayed solution-focused to get the job done.”

Part of the BCS team collaborating on solutions at the Olympia Treinen office.

Treinen rolled up its sleeves and got to work. One of the first things the team had to do was evaluate the client’s assumptions regarding usability of legacy components. One key assumption was that the existing legacy database design could be leveraged for the new system. Treinen’s Solution Architect determined the legacy database design was not reusable as originally thought which necessitated an entirely new database design.

Next, the Business Analysts worked with the product owner to transform and update years’ old requirements into use cases for the iterative development cycles. Meanwhile, the Scrum Master coached the Product Owner in grooming and prioritizing the Product Backlog. The development team was flexible to the changing needs of the system and its end users. The testing team was committed to quality to ensure the system did its job matching people to potential records. Finally, the management team worked closely with the client on change requests and a resulting schedule change, sharing the commitment to success.

What Treinen delivered to DSHS is a web-based application for applicants, requesting entities and other requesting agencies that is Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS)-compliant. The application was developed and tested on a Microsoft technology stack and the team used Team Foundation Server (TFS) for source control, managing releases and tracking releases. BCS uses RESTful API’s to interface with six different systems, four of which are external to the agency.

The application consists of three main parts: a public applicant form submitted by the applicant; the main BCS application that public and private entities use to request background checks on applicants and that BCCU uses to process the background checks; and an administrative site for managing users and the system itself. Features include an electronic signature for applicants, scanned documents, auditing features, reports, notes and notifications.

BCS had rigorous security requirements due to the private data and criminal history displayed in the system. The system also receives fingerprint information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which added a layer of security to ensure it was Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) compliant. Both BCCU and entity users have different layers of permissions depending on their CJIS training status, proficiency with processing checks and the administrative group in which they belong.

The turnaround time to get background check results to a requesting entity has dropped since BCS was implemented. With the legacy CHS, processing time for background checks was about five days. Now with BCS, the business staff is processing checks in about 1-2 days. In addition, the new system refined the algorithms used to present the best potential matches to background check applicants, for staff to do their reviews more accurately and timely.

Since going live, the Treinen team has continued to work to enhance the new system to meet changing business needs, as well as to provide in-depth knowledge transfer to the client’s Information Technology (IT) team to maintain the system going forward.

Now in the middle of a global pandemic, the new Background Check System has allowed all of the staff in the Background Check Central Unit to safely and efficiently work from home while providing a vital service for potential caregivers.

“BCS is just one example of our consultants’ unwavering commitment to our clients and their success. Despite numerous challenges, I am very proud of our team for delivering a system that will serve the agency, small businesses, and vulnerable populations for years to come. That kind of positive impact is what drives us to find the path forward on every engagement,” said Treinen.