The dictionary defines "epic" as "events that happen over a long period and involve a lot of action and difficulty". Another definition states that "epics" are "large-scale productions". Although both of these definitions are applicable when describing the latest Financial 2000 application of the same name, in this case EPICS is the acronym for the Employee-Position Information Collaborative System.
The process of developing an integrated position control system began with the design of the Legacy "MAGIC" System in early 1990's. This "Multiple Access Global Information Control System" was designed to provide a position control system that would be used by Human Resources, Budget, and Payroll departments. It was rolled out in 1993 with the Human Resources requirements in mind and was quickly followed by the interface to Budget Development in 1995 and in 2002 the first districts went "live" with the MAGIC generated new payroll system. Even prior to the deployment of payroll it became evident that this integrated system was not meeting all the business requirements for all the departments. In addition, technology had changed significantly during this time period which led in 2001 to the development of Personnel/Position Control 2000 (PC2000) written in the latest client server architecture of that date. Although well received initially by the Human Resource departments, the flexibility embedded in the application came with a cost, performance wise.
The performance issues shadowed the new design features and resolution was not available in the current architecture. And so once again in this epic development story…redesign and rewrite began in 2006.
EPICS has moved away from the client server architecture to a web-based application written in the .net architecture using SQL Server 2005 development tools. The application is now in the Quality Assurance phase of development and is meeting all performance benchmarks for quick and easy access and data entry. In addition to the improved performance, some of the additional features of EPICS are:
Yes, it is true that EPICS has been a series of events that has happened over a long period of time, often accompanied with difficulty. But this is a system of epic proportions that contains and maintains all employee data and drives both payroll and budget. It interfaces with the County Credential System and any student system for the purpose of CSIS reporting. This application will be worth the wait!