The State of Minnesota, led by an interagency team from the departments of Administration and Finance (now MMB), conducted a feasibility study for an accounting system upgrade in 2006. This, along with a technical risk assessment on the entire Minnesota Accounting and Procurement System (MAPS), was the impetus for the MAPS replacement project. Because of its age and lack of vendor software updates, MAPS was deemed to be at significant risk of failure. The interagency team also reviewed the experience of many other states in order to estimate the possible costs and benefits of a new system for Minnesota. The result of this analysis was that the state had a significant opportunity to improve the effectiveness of government operations by changing its business processes and replacing MAPS with a state-of-the-art, integrated system.

In January of 2009, funding for the MAPS replacement project was included in the Governor’s budget recommendations and a Request for Proposal was released. Following a competitive bidding process, Maximus, a consulting firm specializing in large system implementations, was hired by the state to implement a new integrated statewide financial and procurement system. In 2010, Maximus was acquired by CherryRoad Technologies, which has continued the project.

The project structure includes an executive committee, steering team and core project team. Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter is the project executive sponsor and Jim Manion is the SWIFT program director.

The project began on August 9, 2009, and the new name, Statewide Integrated Financial Tools (SWIFT), was chosen in October 2009. The team is composed of financial, procurement, technical, project management and change management experts. At its peak, more than 140 people were working on SWIFT project teams and another 177 have served as subject matter experts. State agencies are also contributing approximately 170 staff members as project sponsors, project managers and readiness coordinators, and many others participate as part of agency implementation teams.

The new system went live on July 1, 2011. Work continues on Procurement enhancements, which will be rolled out over time and are scheduled to be completed by December 31, 2012. The SWIFT Data Warehouse work is ongoing and scheduled to conclude by April 2013.

Project Scope

The SWIFT project team, state agencies and CherryRoad Technologies are working together to achieve the State of Minnesota’s goals for the SWIFT Project:

• implement a web-based accounting and procurement system;
• obtain better vendor pricing through e-procurement;
• expand functionality to meet the state’s changing business needs; and,
• improve reporting

Documents

Business Case

Project Charter

Summary Report