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Orange County <br />Needs Assessment Project <br />Page 5 <br />proprietary systems as compared to newer, customizable open systems that are designed <br />to be vendor-neutral. <br />Example: The County desires to increase its efficiency and lower its costs through a <br />greater reliance on electronic processing and moving towards a "paperless" environment. <br />Operating in this changing environment requires that all primary business systems be <br />integrated using softwaze that capitalizes on current technology. A paperless purchasing <br />process, for example, requires that, at a minimum, the systems far purchasing, accounts <br />payable and general ledger aze tightly integrated, sharing a common database. Further, <br />paperless offices require imaging functionality, with a tailored import feature, which also <br />represents new capabilities required of the system. Due to the limitations of the legacy <br />systems' technology, enhancement of these current systems is not a viable option. <br />C. Missing functionality <br />Through our observations and discussions with management and staff, numerous <br />instances of standazd and custom functionality were identified as absent. The majority of <br />this missing functionality is due to the limitations of the existing systems: Much of this <br />absent functionality involves the ability to accept, edit and store certain needed <br />information, Other missing functionality necessitates the use of desktop applications <br />(Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.) and manual tracking to accommodate the processing and <br />archiving of information. <br />Example: The creation and maintenance of the County's budget is performed manually <br />using Excel spreadsheets. Information is keyed into the spreadsheet and forwazded to the <br />Budget Department. Next, this department reviews and makes the necessary adjustments <br />and requested changes to each departmental budget. All of this information is then <br />entered into the mainframe system. Each change to the proposed budget involves <br />massive manual adjustment by the Budget Department. All historic information is <br />updated manually to azchive the latest actual figures. A standazd budgeting system would <br />allow each department to maintain its own budget with the Budget Department <br />performing a more analytical role. As a component of an integrated solution, the <br />Budgeting system would be automatically updated with all new general ledger account <br />numbers and authorized positions. <br />D. Insufficient reporting capabilities <br />The existing systems have minimal reporting and querying capabilities. Operation of <br />these capabilities is a complex and inflexible procedure that often provides unsatisfactory <br />results. An external reporting tool is being used by some departments, however this <br />product contains limited flexibility and application Additionally, due to the non- <br />integrated system, each department is responsible for responding to requests for <br />information from their system. An integrated system with reporting flexibility would <br />allow users to extract information and create reports without the need for third party <br />intervention from a support department (Finance, Budget, Purchasing, Personnel). <br />