There are two ways silent failures can occur in the Claim Status Tool (CST)
when Veterans upload evidence (DocumentUpload)
when Veterans tell VA that they've finished submitting evidence and to proceed with their claim (RequestDecision aka a 5103 waiver)
Both requests are currently handled asynchronously via EVSS services. Although both are captured in this ticket, the focus of remediation will be on the document upload failures.Why?A 5103 waiver allows a claim processor to pick up a claim before the suspense date, but it doesn't always happen that way. We're unsure how the National Work Queue (NWQ) prioritizes 5103 waivers, if at all. If the claim isn't picked up upon 5103 waiver submission, it will be at the end of the suspense. We do not need to notify Veterans about past failed 5103 waivers that are over 30 days old.
DocumentUpload failures
The benefits management tools (BMT) and mobile team use the same EVSS service to upload documents.
Logging was added in March 2024
Since March 2024, there have been ~2000 evidence upload failures for va.gov and mobile (out of ~900k upload attempts).
While we have access to all ~2000 failed uploads (the job IDs) in DataDog, we only know who the affected Veterans & files were for ~900 of them. The additional information is available in the Sidekiq Job Death Queue, but those jobs are only retained for x days (also, the queue contains all failed Sidekiq jobs, not just the evidence upload ones)
List of failed sidekiq jobs is stored in Sharepoint, contains PII.
Documents are retained in a S3 bucket for up to 2 years; it may be possible to get documents >2 years from Glacier
Open Questions
Are we sure logging prior to March doesn't exist?
Are we sure we know who the affected Veterans & files are for only ~900 of the jobs?
When a user uploads a document and it does not make it to VBMS, what can the user see? Do they see it in the file/recent activity section?
Can we use other data points to confirm that the file didn't make it to the VBMS eFolder?
RequestDecision failures
Since March 2024, there have been ~200 RequestDecision failures
Risk to Veteran and their claim is low. If VA doesn't receive their request, the VA will continue to process their claim once the "tracked items" suspense date is reached
amylai-va
commented
1 month ago
Summary
There are two ways silent failures can occur in the Claim Status Tool (CST)
Both requests are currently handled asynchronously via EVSS services. Although both are captured in this ticket, the focus of remediation will be on the document upload failures.
Why?
A 5103 waiver allows a claim processor to pick up a claim before the suspense date, but it doesn't always happen that way. We're unsure how the National Work Queue (NWQ) prioritizes 5103 waivers, if at all. If the claim isn't picked up upon 5103 waiver submission, it will be at the end of the suspense. We do not need to notify Veterans about past failed 5103 waivers that are over 30 days old.DocumentUpload failures
Open Questions
RequestDecision failures
Useful links