Michigan bets on cloud-based content management
Connecting state and local government leaders
The Michigan Gaming Control Board is working with Unisys to replace more than a dozen legacy systems with a single, cloud-based application.
The Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget is streamlining the state’s gaming regulator’s 19 digital systems into one enterprise application and moving operations to the cloud.
Traditionally, the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) operated several legacy systems for managing the licensing regulation of casinos, horseracing and charitable gaming.
MGCB will work with Unisys to digitize the agency’s records and documents so employees can easily capture, manage, store and access any content, regardless of its data structure or origin. The Unisys solution also uses CSDC Systems’ AMANDA case management and compliance software to integrate all of MGCB’s systems into a single platform.
The enterprise content management system, hosted in Microsoft’s Azure Government Cloud, provides a secure environment for the highly regulated gaming operations, protecting personally identifiable information and payment card industry data and complying with the FBI’s criminal justice information systems policy.
“All governments used to manage paper in the same way, where you collected data via form,” Mark Forman, global head, vice president and general manager for public sector at Unisys, told GCN. “In the digital area, there is so much more intelligence” agencies can extract from scanned documents, he said. They can even “take a picture of a form or receipt to use in the approvals or licensing process,” he added.
“Like other case management initiatives, it allows for a more business-centric view of the data and allows you to configure the business legal and statutory requirements for that type of business,” Forman said. “You can do it all within the same system so you don’t need to have a different system for each regulatory requirement.”
Forman said the cloud-based platform also cuts down on costs.
"The MGCB has worked diligently to improve internal processes, but multiple legacy systems limit our progress," MGCB executive director Richard Kalm said. "The new information management system will enable our agency to make many more process and customer service improvements.”
Unisys also runs the Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System for the Michigan Department of Human Services, which allows state employees to track the cases of approximately 15,000 children involved in the state’s foster care and adoption programs.