Policies and Procedures on the Identification and Recommendation of Enhancements to the ITS/IAS Application Systems

October 9, 1997 REVENUE MEMORANDUM ORDER NO. 55-97 TO : Process Improvement Project Committee, User Support and Training Maintenance Team, Forms Review Committee, Correspondence Review Committee, Security and Access Committee, Template Committee, Operations Manual Project, Implementation Assistance Team, Regional Offices (ROs), Revenue Data Centers (RDCs), Revenue District Offices (RDOs), Project Steering Committees (SCs), All Enhancement Project Managers, BIR Project Management Office (BIR-PMO), and Other Internal Revenue Officers, System Users and Employees Concerned SUBJECT : (a) Policies and Procedures on the Identification and Recommendation of Enhancements to the ITS/IAS Application Systems under the BIR-Philippine Tax Computerization Project (PTCP) (b) Designation of Appropriate Stakeholders (c) Designation of Approving Officials I. Objectives/Scope In line with the BIR-Philippine Tax Computerization Project (PTCP), popularly known as Systems for Philippine Internal Revenue Information Technology (SPIRIT), this Revenue Memorandum Order is issued to achieve the following objectives: (a) to encourage all Internal Revenue employees to identify potential enhancements to the Integrated Tax System (ITS) and Internal Administration System (IAS) Application Systems ; (b) to provide policy guidelines and procedures for all Internal Revenue employees in identifying and raising enhancements pertaining to the ITS/IAS Application Systems ; (c) to set the criteria for enhancements which may be proposed ; (d) to ensure that proposed enhancements meet the Bureau's changing requirements with reference to the ITS/IAS Application Systems ; (e) to designate stockholders among Internal Revenue officials and personnel who can review and validate proposed ITS/IAS enhancements pertaining to their respective areas of concern ; (f) to designate the specific approving officials . Any enhancements to be proposed must satisfy the following criteria: (a) enhancements should add value to the ITS/IAS Application Systems ; (b) enhancements may involve Application Systems which are already in Production (RDC, RDO or NO) and/or Application Systems still under Development ; (c) enhancements may cover the System Software and/or Architecture components of ITS/IAS ; (d) enhancements should meet at least one of the following prescribed categories : II. Roles and Responsibilities A. System Users/Operators of Applications in Production Primary Responsibility : The System Users/Operators are responsible for identifying potential enhancements which may add significant value to the ITS/IAS Application Systems. They are not acting on behalf of any special committees/groups when identifying enhancement proposals. 1. Constantly identify potential enhancements in the ITS/IAS Application Systems. 2. Raise the proposed enhancements to the Help Desk by using the Help Desk form. 3. Discuss details of proposed enhancement with the Enhancement Management Team (EMT). 4. Follow through the status of their proposed enhancements in Help Desk. 5. Join review committee workshops/meetings to provide an ITS/IAS development perspective on the feasibility of enhancements. B. System Users/Operators of Applications Not in Production and Technical Acceptance Team ( TAT ) Primary Responsibility : The System Users/Operators and Technical Acceptance Team are responsible for identifying potential enhancements which may add significant value to the ITS/IAS Application Systems still under development. They are not acting on behalf of any special committees/groups when identifying enhancements proposals. 1. Identify potential enhancements in the ITS/IAS Application Systems under development. 2. Raise the proposed enhancements to the Enhancement Management Team (EMT). 3. Revisit the proposed enhancements when the application has rolled out to Production by initiating a meeting with the EMT, to weed out proposals already addressed by the roll out. 4. Discuss details of proposed enhancement with the EMT. 5. Follow through the status of their proposed enhancements in Help Desk. C. Member and/or Head of Special Committees/Groups ( e .g. Forms/Correspondence Review Committees, Process Improvement Project Committee, etc .) Primary Responsibility : The Committee/Group drives the entire enhancement identification process within its jurisdiction, from conceptualizing proposals up to the logging of proposals with the EMT. Each review cycle should be limited to a time period of one month. 1. Invite designated stakeholders ( Refer to Section D ) to workshops, meetings, and interviews in order to identify, review and approve potential enhancements for the ITS/IAS Application Systems; 2. The committee secretariat should log enhancement ideas that are raised during the review. 3. The output of such workshops are: (a) Approved Enhancement Log (b) Approved Review Log (c) Approved Change Requests (as necessary, i.e. changes need to be explained in a level of detail that cannot be captured in Enhancement Log) 4. Obtain approval of the enhancements from the appropriate DCIR ( Refer to Section E ). 5. Endorse the approved Enhancement Log to the EMT using the template specified in Annex F . NOTE: Once the Enhancement Log has been submitted to the EMT, any other changes should be part of the next round of review, approximately one month later . 6. Provide copies of the signed Enhancement packet (Enhancement Log, Change Request Forms, Review Log, etc.) to the following: (a) Stakeholder of affected application (b) Committee Head (c) Enhancement Management Team (d) Project Management Office (PMO) 7. Keep one set of the approved packet on file. 8. Follow through the status of approved enhancements with the Help Desk. 9. Discuss details of proposed enhancement with the EMT. D. Stakeholders Primary Responsibility : The stakeholders are the system owners and/or expert users of specific applications. Their role involves validating the feasibility and business value of proposed enhancements. They ensure that the enhancements conform to acceptable standards, do not inadvertently contradict any existing policies of the Bureau, and add value to existing systems. 1. Review proposed enhancements and raise relevant issues when appropriate. 2. Identify policy changes and recommend escalation to BIR Management Committee (MANCOM) as necessary, i.e., whenever funding or major policy issues are involved. 3. Render decision pertaining to the approval/disapproval of proposed enhancements. 4. Follow through the status of the approved enhancements in Help Desk. E. Management Primary Responsibility : Specific members of BIR management will provide the final, official approval of proposed changes for enhancements, depending on the category of the enhancement. 1. Review output of special committee meeting, adding comments as necessary. 2. Sign relevant portion of the Approval Certificate. 3. Whenever funding, major policy issues or multi-category enhancements are involved, the DCIRs may choose to raise the proposed change to MANCOM. In such cases, the Commissioner should also sign the relevant portion of the Approval Certificate: F. Enhancement Management Team Primary Responsibility : The Enhancement Management Team (EMT) will be under the System Investigation Division (SID) of the Application Maintenance Office (AMO) of ISDS. The team manages and evaluates the proposed enhancements, from the time a proposal is logged in the Help Desk until it is prioritized for implementation by the appropriate groups. 1. Periodically send out Memos informing all BIR employees concerned of current and future deadlines for submitting enhancement proposals. 2. Retrieve all logged ITS/IAS enhancement proposals from Help Desk. If enhancements are directly endorsed to the EMT, for consistency, the EMT will be responsible for logging them with Help Desk. 3. Maintain inventory of all enhancements. 4. Conduct high level analysis on logged enhancements. 5. Obtain final approval of proposed enhancements which were raised through the Help Desk. 6. Endorse the approved enhancements to the relevant development team at the proper time. 7. Inform Help Desk of enhancement status. 8. Compile enhancement proposals for an application system under development until within one month after it has rolled-out to Production. The proposals shall be revisited by the Technical Acceptance Team in order to weed out enhancements already addressed by the application system roll-out. G. Application Support and Maintenance Team ( ASM ) Primary Responsibility : The ASM Team will be under the Software Maintenance Division (SMD) of the Application Maintenance Office (AMO) of ISDS. The team is responsible for developing approved enhancements and performing quality tests. 1. Conduct detailed analysis on approved enhancements. 2. Develop enhancements and perform appropriate quality assurance tests. 3. Inform the EMT of enhancement status. 4. Inform Help Desk of enhancement status. H. Project Management Office ( PMO ) Primary Responsibility : The Project Management Office maintains records of ITS/IAS activities. 1. Receive packet of proposed enhancements from the special committees/groups. 2. File the documents. III. Guidelines and Procedures A. Policy/Guidelines for Special Committees/Groups 1. All enhancement proposals must be logged in the Help Desk once they are identified. 2. Responsibility for validating and obtaining approval of logged enhancements will be as follows: (a) The EMT will be responsible for enhancements which are directly logged the Help Desk by System Users/Operators in the pilot sites. (b) Special committees/groups will be responsible for enhancements which they identified. 3. Only enhancement proposals which are logged in the Help Desk will be processed by the EMT. Valid proposals which were referred directly to the EMT by review committees will be logged in Help Desk by the EMT. 4. An Approval Certificate must be completely signed prior to endorsing the proposal to the EMT. The certificate should be required by the EMT in order to assign the enhancement to the appropriate groups for development. 5. Procedures for enhancement identification and validation are prescribed in Annex A-1 " Special Committees Process Flowchart ". B. The following documents are attached for the guidance of all concerned : 1. Special Committees Process Flowchart (Annex A-1) 2. Application Users Process Flowchart (Annex A-2) 3. Enhancement Log (Annex B) 4. Change Request Form (Annex C) 5. Review Log (Annex D) 6. Approval Certificate (Annex E) 7. Memo for New Enhancements (Annex F) C. Post-Development Validation After ASM develops the enhancement, the Information Planning and Quality Standards Service (IPQS) will manage the User Validation process prior to migrating the enhancement to production. For more information on this, refer to the RMO on Validation of Enhancement Deliverables . This Order takes effect immediately. LIWAYWAY VINZONS-CHATO Commissioner of Internal Revenue ANNEX A Special Committees Process Flowchart ANNEX A-2 System Users/Operators Process Flowchart ANNEX B Enhancement Log ANNEX C Philippine Tax Computerization Projects Change Request (CR) ANNEX D Review Log ANNEX E Philippine Tax Computerization Project Bureau of Internal Revenue Approval Certificate Date:___________ To: The Review Committee We, the undersigned, confirm that the proposed enhancements (as listed in Attachment A - Enhancement Log) conform to acceptable standards and the changes proposed are feasible, relevant and add value to existing systems. We recommend that these changes be implemented as soon as possible. ______________________________ ______________________________ Committee DCIR ______________________________ ______________________________ Date Date (For major changes only) Noted by: ______________________________ Commissioner ______________________________ Date ANNEX F {Committee Name} PHILIPPINE TAX COMPUTERIZATION PROJECT BIR COMPONENT ____________________________________________________________________ Memorandum DATE: {Date} TO: {Name} {Title} Enhancement Management Team FROM: {Name} {Title} CC: RE: Approved Enhancements A {Committee Name} review workshop was held {Date} and {No.} of new enhancement proposals were discussed and approved. We hereby turn over the proposals to the Enhancement Management Team to coordinate the development of these enhancements and their subsequent release to Production. Kindly keep our committee informed of their status through {Name of Person and extension}. Please find the ff attachments: 1. Enhancement Log 2. Change Requests {No/s} 3. Approval Certificate 4. Review Log