Public version: Finding Source of Truth for VSO Addresses

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

Update 02/20/2019

Our original hypothesis was that the address that OGC associates with VSOs would be the best source of truth. This is because OGC accredits VSOs. Exploration of the validity of this hypothesis is on hold until OGC updates their database to Salesforce ~ May 2019.

Background

The Corporate Database/BGS currently only stores addresses for Power of Attorney holders who are Private Attorneys or Agents but not VSOs. There is no system, that we know of, where VA stores VSO addresses. The Board's work around for this is VACOLS and (I think) an Excel file the Interactive Decision Template (IDT) pulls from. Slack Thread

Hypotheses

Initial Hypothesis: Storing these address in CorpDB/BGS is the best path forward.

Learnings documented below helped us understand that while CorpDB is capable of storing these many to many addresses, BGS is not capable of serving them up at this time.

Next Hypothesis: The Office of General Counsel (OGC) would be a good place to store these addresses since they are responsible for accrediting VSOs ~~Representatives~~. Update 1/29/2019: learned that OGC accredits organizations not individuals.

OGC has a database called GCLAWS that initially appeared promising, however (as is common with most OGCs) they are reluctant to be the source of truth for any data the business will use day-to-day, in this case VSO ~~Representative~~ Addresses.

**Latest Hypothesis for comments/ discussion

VSO address information is stored in VACOLS today and updated by BVA staff.
- This allows BVA to control access to this information as well as its accuracy.
This may have to become Caseflow functionality in the future:
- it involves being able to print out properly-formatted labels
- Allyce's comment below is a guide to understanding which users need this functionality and what the functionality is. (This exploration will be captured in a MURAL linked in the private version of this issue).

mc-usds commented 5 years ago

Notes from BGS meeting: There is a business rule for no address being stored in corpDB for National/Regional/State POAs. They can have multiple locations and it was agreed that instead the address of the Regional Office in the Veteran's jurisdiction would be used for mailing correspondence. VSOs have an office or mailbox at the Regional Office accessible to the VSO representative.

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

Notes from Melissa's conversation with BGS/VBMS (Troy and Geoffrey were also there)

There's a hand-shake agreement between BGS and the business (we're not sure who exactly the "the business" is) that BGS that National, State, and Regional VSO addresses would not be stored in CorpDB because there are multiple addresses.
CorpDB has indicated that they could store them. The database does not have any constraints on storing multiple addresses for one entity. (Melissa to share email details in private version of this issue.)
The constraint (via the handshake agreement above) is at the service level i.e. BGS/VBMS, as far as we understand.
Consensus is that the Regional Office address would be used.
It would be a little more complicated than just a list of addresses.
JoshQ was also a resource.

What folks are using now:

Excel spreadsheet is used by the Board.
Access database is used by OGC. They're planning to move to Salesforce. They have a UI currently and there might be an API. There are 2 consumers of OGC information: eBenefits and OGC website.
Next step, talk to OGC about this after touching base with Holtz:
[x] Touch base with Holtz on this. He suggested reviewing this research conducted with OGC in 2017.
[x] Touch base with Allyce.
[x] Reach out to Lara.Eilhardt@va.gov. See call notes below.

Takeaways

Melissa thinks the source of truth should not be Caseflow
Both ChrisG and Melissa think that: OGC is the business source of truth so should be the data source of truth as well

allyceh commented 5 years ago

One of our main goals is increasing the accuracy of mail and decreasing returned mail. If we zoom out further, we're trying to get the right information into the hands of the right people without delay.

An exercise that could be helpful to make sure we're storing the right address data could be:

Who uses VSO addresses in Caseflow? What do they use them for? Example: BVA dispatch team: mails copy of decision letter Privacy/FOIA team: mails correspondence to the veteran's rep when a privacy or FOIA request comes to the Board AOD team: mails copy of AOD grant/denial to the rep (??)
What type of VSO address do they need? At which address do VSOs like to receive correspondence? Example: BVA dispatch team: the VSO location/person who reviews copies of the decision letter Privacy/FOIA team: HQ? AOD team: HQ?

As you can see, there are a lot of ? marks. Doing this exercise could show us that VSOs like to receive mail at the same address. Or, it would show us if there are any variations.

If there are too many variations to manage in the DB, do we send all mail to ONE VSO address and then solution around how to get it to the proper person for review from there? I.e, can reps receive a digital copy to view the letter in Reader and they don't need the physical copy?

Marvo's edit: An exploration of these questions is captured in a MURAL linked in the private version of this issue.

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

This is very helpful framing Allyce. Thank you!

Sounds like I should schedule some time with each of these teams (or simply stop by their desks) to get answers to these questions, at least as a starting point. I'm guessing I should also ask them if they know who else might need VSO information, beyond the teams already on this list.

Teams to talk to about VSO Addresses:

[ ] BVA Dispatch
[x] Privacy: There's only 1 use case when the Privacy team needs to mail something to a VSO (PoA and Private Attorneys are a different story): some Veterans ask for claims file to be sent to VSO and they'll include a VSO Address. Otherwise VSOs have access to VBMS so the Privacy team never finds themselves looking up a VSO Address.
[x] AOD: Email response from Charlene Evans:

VSO’s located in our building (in-house) we don’t mail out to them because they opted -out on receiving the AOD letters, they are able to review letters in VBMS. State representatives we mail to the addresses listed on the BVA homepage as State Directors of Veterans Affairs. Private atty’s we use what is listed of record in vacols and verify from the BVA homepage under accredited representative search. All AOD motion mail we respond to is not only just grant or denial letters. We also have other letters we use depending on the location of the appeal at the time the motion is submitted to BVA.
[x] Hearings

MeredithStewart commented 5 years ago

Hearings Management Branch will take over scheduling all Veterans (legacy and AMA) beginning February 14, 2019. This includes sending the hearing notification letter to the Veteran/appellant and their representation. The creation of and sending these letter has currently been done by Regional Office staff. The Hearings Management Branch needs as much accuracy as possible in the addresses of the rep, so that the rep receives timely notification of the hearing. Otherwise, the likelihood of requests for reschedules is going to rise. Already this has been a trend where Veterans request to reschedule because their representative is unavailable.

@marvokdolor-gov -- When you are ready to sit down with Justin Madigan in hearings, I can arrange and be there to talk through this issue. Let me know if this week works.

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

Notes from call with Lara Eilhardt and Jonathan Taylor 11/29/2018

Contact info: Lara.Eilhardt@va.gov; Jonathan.Taylor2@va.gov

Goal: learn the status of Salesforce as the source of truth for VSO Addresses. Email that initiated this call:

Hi Ms. Eilhardt,

My name is Marvo Dolor and work with the Digital Service team at the Board of Veterans Appeals.

We’ve been looking into VSO Addresses and the best source of truth for them. I’ve reviewed the POA research our team did with OGC last year and wanted to follow-up with you if you have some time this week. In particular, I’d like to learn more about your team’s plans to use Salesforce for VSOs (and other representatives) information.

How do you access VSO Representative Addresses now?

They store these in GCLAWS (G-C-Laws) uploaded by paralegals in accreditation program. Address is tied to VSO main office or chapter.
GCLAWS can be accessed via the accreditation website where you can search for a representative - https://www.va.gov/ogc/apps/accreditation/index.asp | https://www.va.gov/ogc/accreditation.asp
Folks on their team who know how it works from a technical perspective (Margaret Talbot, who also joined the call about half-way through).
Changes in GCLAWS get pushed to the website every night. It's an overnight batch process from a staging server.
Another source for maintaining addresses that makes the process complicated is the VBA CorpDB which is separate from GCLAWS as far as Lara knows.
POA Form 2122 has a business address that is entered into GCLAWS. We're not sure how often this information is updated. Guess is that it's not updated. The paralegals would know this.
For VSO reps, address is used for accreditation.

Thoughts on the best place for VSO Addresses to be stored IAM is doing an onboarding solution. Check with Joseph Shelley

MeredithStewart commented 5 years ago

Notes from conversation with Justin Madigan 11/28/18:

Meredith's Notes

VSO addresses in VACOLS, from the VACOLS 3 main menu. See VACOLS screen shot. It’s called “VSO Reference File Update”
Today for CO HearingsFor co-located in the Building — They send them an email to say the schedule has been updated.
Different people have different sheets and different labels pre-populated in the R drive - VSO Labels at the Board. He’d pull a label template and confirm the address is the same. The few times he uses it, it’s been the same.
Jed updates the VSO Reference File Update (VACOLS address); Option for State Service or Other. Note: When a user selects, “print label,” it changes who updated it, even though it has not been updated.
VMBS Letter Creator - just pulls in the Service Org, not the address. He would go back in.
IN VACOLS they can print the label for the private attorney — if he double clicks on the attorney, you select “Print label” and it prints it out in the format the envelope.

Marvo's Notes

To get to VSO Addresses: VACOLS3 Main Menu -> Reference Tables -> VSO Addresses
Hearings Branch doesn't send letters to colocated VSOs
Another source of information - the Admin Folder has multiple spreadsheets pre-populated with VSO Addresses
Who updates VSO Reference? Jed | Mail Team
VBMS Letter Creator pulls VSO name not VSO Address
VACOLS allows printing of Private Attorney addresses onto a sheet
VSO Information in VACOLS has been reasonably accurate
- so while VBMS is the authoritative source for other information, VACOLS is authoritative source for VSO Address
- also uses Google to find VSO addresses if need
OGC (Accredited Rep Search) doesn't provide a full address.

lpciferri commented 5 years ago

@marvokdolor-gov - i'm curious about the first two comments on this thread, that the "Consensus is that the Regional Office address would be used."

do we know of any BVA branches (dispatch, hearings, etc.) using the RO offices as a way to contact National/Regional/State VSOs?

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

Going to have to punt on these: @mc-usds any clarification on John Dell's cryptic communication here? @MeredithStewart do I have it right that Hearings Branch sends information to "colocated" VSOs or is that the Mail Team sending information on behalf of the Hearings Branch?

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

Quick pull-up meeting with Melissa C. Chris G. and Meredith

12/6/2018

Plan BVA Staff will continue to use VACOLS for VSO Addresses in the near-term. In the medium-term a read-only replica of the VSO Address table could be created in Caseflow. This would include a name and email address for someone to touch base with for any needed updates.

[ ] Marvo: Explore who this person will be. We think it should be one person responsible for updating VSO Addresses.
[x] Marvo: Continue to explore OGC's possible role here. Try to get a meeting scheduled between a technical person working on GCLAWS and Chris G.

Rough summary of discussion We discussed what their thoughts were on Caseflow creating a VSO Address data source from an engineering perspective. This would need to have an interface for Board staff to update these addresses. One caution is that this would duplicate the current functionality they have in VACOLS. In any case, this approach is far from ideal, and would require development effort that we simply cannot afford in the near or medium term. Another option would be going back to OGC and understanding GCLAWS current and desired functionality. We could then more fully explore improving and using the tools they already have, which keeping Caseflow out of the address-owning business. A final and much more arduous option would be working on getting BGS to back down from their stance that they can't provide access to multiple addresses from CorpDB. This would be a much more long-term play and we'd have to deal with the "fast-moving train" that is the BGS development cycle.

mc-usds commented 5 years ago

Regarding John's explanation, the example he gave was the St. Petersburg RO where a VSO (don't remember which one) has an office there and their correspondence gets sent there. Also, he said in some cases a VSO will have a mailbox at the RO and a representative will go to pick up mail. I'm not sure if this setup is the exception or the rule.

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

Update 12/17/2018

Reached out to Joseph Shelley mentioned above. I'll be chatting with him and his team 12/20 at 11:30am.

He shared the following documents about the work to connect GCLAWS to Salesforce:

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

Update 12/20/2018

Call with Joseph Shelley and team mentioned above, Jonathan Taylor (OGC), ChrisG, MelissaC, Marvo

Goal: Explore the possibility of Caseflow having access to accredited representative address information being stored in Salesforce.

Key Takeaway: This Onboarding Solution Team is not the best one to work with to achieve the goal articulated above.

Next Step:

[x] Marvo: discuss goal (articulated above) wth OGC Team working on getting their data into a new system called GCMATTERS which has a Salesforce backend. Scheduled for 01/17/2019 at 4pm.

Other notes: MVI just changed to MPI, Master Person Index which is the same acronym it used to be Master Patient Index

marvokdolor-gov commented 5 years ago

Update 01/17/2019

Call with GCMatters Team: Ken (kbeecher@acumensolutions.com); dsheehan@acumensolutions.com; (Melissa) mwaid@acumensolutions.com; hkalla@acumensolutions.com

Goal: Explore the possibility of Caseflow having access to accredited representative address information being stored in Salesforce.

Key Takeaway: This team has been working with OGC over the past 6-7 months. They won't get to the accreditation portion of this work until Aug/Sep 2019. So they won't be able to answer our question about getting access to Accredited Representative Addresses for a while. They did suggest reaching out to Alex re: APIs though. If I'm able to do that, will drop notes here.

Next Steps:

[ ] Touch base with Alex Loehr (Deputy CTO) about his API team's work with Salesforce.
[ ] Reach out to the folks listed above in May 2019 to see where they are in the process of migrating from GCLAWS to GCMATTERS.

lpciferri commented 5 years ago

Older, related ticket about POA addresses: #2311

department-of-veterans-affairs / caseflow