In a request for information (RFI) released March 10, the Employment Development Department requests responses from vendors to assist it in an AutoCES (Current Employment Statistic) Modernization that would update its Labor Market Data Collection and Reporting System. EDD’s AutoCES, a “monthly payroll survey of business establishment,” finds its origins in 2001 and “produces tables and reports of labor market statistical data for monthly and annual publication and dissemination.” Among the takeaways:
- The AutoCES is a “critical automated data processing system” the state uses to publish required labor data estimates — considered “one of EDD’s critical data products.” But the system is aging and “is now unreliable and requires significant EDD support resources.” Breakdowns that can’t be fixed “require labor-intensive manual keying of thousands of lines of data in order to process the monthly jobs and labor force estimates in a timely fashion.” During the past few years, EDD’s Labor Market Information Division (LMID), the state source for labor market information, has had to delay data release when AutoCES has broken down. EDD proposes replacing it “in order to modernize the labor data collection and reporting system.” The department intends to stand up a “single integrated data collection and reporting solution that provides customers with a consistent, intuitive, single entry into the EDD’s services.” Doing so, per the RFI, “will result in an agile, responsive solution that can respond to mandatory legislative and Department of Labor changes.”
- The existing AutoCES offers a “secure data repository” for all reports created by LMID’s Current Economic Statistics Group. Its technological origins include a Visual Basic “front-end” for Microsoft Excel macros, developed in 2001 and used to produce monthly files; Microsoft’s .Net framework, introduced in 2003 to boost automation; and ACESWeb, an Oracle-based application hosted in Washington D.C., utilized since CES retired its mainframe production system in 2009 — and which necessitated a rewrite of assorted file loading components.
“Despite all of the changes outlined above, the AutoCES’ foundation is still based upon the original Excel charting macro and its iterations,” the RFI says, indicating it produces more than 540 files monthly during a two- to three-day production window. Before automation, this typically took a week. - EDD’s objectives are gathering information on “current statistical data collection and reporting solutions”; determining what’s available in commercial- or modifiable-off-the-shelf or software-as-a-service solutions; securing information on industry standards and best practices around data collection and reporting solutions that are available; and refining and finalizing its technical requirements for an AutoCES replacement. Functional mandatory requirements for the new system include the ability to “reconfigure historical data input or output variables, based upon business needs” in five days; the ability to let authorized users “reference key data elements to produce documents in various formats for ad hoc requests and special projects”; the capability to store data dating back to 1976 and the option to “purge single or multiple outdated output files”; and the ability to “provide an integrated, digital user help guide based on the role of the authorized user.”
- The value and duration of any eventual contract are not specified. Responses to the RFI are due April 23; the exact timing of any confidential discussions, if requested by the state, isn’t specified.
