Elevating Technology —
Pivotal Solutions In Practice.

The VA needed to update automated business services across its hybrid digital infrastructure, including improving workflow automation, orchestration, and resource provisioning. Specifically, they wanted to replace their legacy systems with commercial cloud services and solutions that could integrate seamlessly and meet all business needs across the VA.

This initiative would require Pivotal to conduct system assessments and plan, design, and execute cloud migration, integration, and application development, resulting in the implementation of 21 technology systems to cloud technologies.

To aid the VA in effectively managing and prioritizing activities during the transition, Pivotal prepared a monthly work plan that included information on all activities each month. They conducted a risk management plan (RMP) to manage change, activity, issues, actions, risks, and other product data as prescribed by VA standards and processes. They also created project and product artifacts in the Configuration Management repository, which showed active and past histories of the check-ins and check-outs of all software components, data, and software project engineering documents.

Pivotal solved the challenge using a cloud-based DevSecOps approach that included continuous exploration, integration, deployment, and the release of on-demand activities during the development and production lifecycle. The team migrated applications to SaaS and PaaS environments, designed and operated databases, configured low/code no code environments, tested, deployed, and ensured security and operations support for cloud and hybrid environments. In total, Pivotal migrated 21 technology systems across the Department of Veteran Affairs to the cloud.

Pivotal delivered new applications replacing VA legacy applications in low code/no code cloud environments such as Salesforce, Dynamics, and ServiceNow. In total, 21 technology systems across the VA were successfully migrated to cloud technologies. These technologies enhanced security and privacy and increased scalability, agility, and cost-efficiency, enabling the VA to streamline operations through more innovative automation practices.

There was a great need for the VA to improve its IT infrastructure, specifically the systems of the Veterans Health Administration. IT systems needed modernizing, cybersecurity measures required updating, and data and applications needed to be migrated from on-premises servers to cloud computing. The upgrades needed to be implemented on a variety of applications and products according to the VA's Cloud Migration Description Guidelines while protecting the VA’s network of healthcare digital systems, fortifying the overall infrastructure, and maintaining data integrity during all stages of the process.

Pivotal delivered legacy system decommission analysis documents, migration support plans, migration test plans, and migration test summary reports on over ten VA applications and products. They investigated the technical and security viability of migrating systems to the cloud while confirming that the cloud environment can securely support the applications and products as needed.

Using a DevSecOps process, they delivered a SAFe implementation plan that included OWASP's top ten recommendations, NIST Secure Software Development Framework coding principles, cloud and hybrid configuration management planning and migrations, and all other VA IT initiatives. Pivotal also provided guidance and instruction to VA development, security, and operational teams on the topics of proven and secure cloud approaches and how to provide secure cloud-based services, data models, analytics capabilities, and reusable cloud integrations.

Pivotal’s efforts improved the efficiency, security, and overall user experience throughout the VA's health services offering without project delays. They ensured each project component was developed and deployed securely and efficiently by combining DevSecOps practices, implementing SAFe, adopting NIST-based security controls, and migrating to the cloud following all applicable laws, regulations, Executive Orders, OMB Circulars, and professional standards.

Veterans can be reimbursed for travel to a VA health facility. In some cases, VA will reimburse for travel to non-VA facilities. The VA faced the growing challenge of receiving, organizing, processing, and paying millions of travel claims annually. Their system needed to be optimized to handle the increasing demand in a user-centric way while defending against fraudulent claims.

The VA sought to improve its travel program to elevate the program beneficiaries' experience, open new methods of communication between Veterans and the VA and decrease the turnaround time of travel reimbursements — giving the Veterans the financial support they deserve. These program improvements also needed to introduce an updated rules engine and an approval workflow that automatically approved most mileage-only claims and prevented fraudulent ones from moving through the system.

Pivotal improved the travel program with a cloud-based self-serve solution. Through the integration of a multifaceted and customized SaaS solution, Pivotal created a responsive, user-facing portal. Veterans now use the portal from their mobile devices to request reimbursement for travel to VA appointments. The solution also included a robust rules engine created to expedite the disposition of reimbursement requests, integration with various source systems, and cloud implementation.

Through Pivotal’s implementation of the cloud-based self-serve solution, Veterans can now submit reimbursement requests on any device and receive reimbursement through electronic funds transfer (EFT) within 1-2 days. The new system also includes an administration interface for travel clerks and VA administrators to review and approve requests. Many mileage-only requests are approved automatically to save money and time, forgoing travel clerk interaction and saving the U.S. government more than $63 million annually.