Vision and Strategy

Current State of CMS Portals

CMS has many gateways of information that are not unified or interrelated with one another. Many of these independent gateways do not fully leverage portal technologies to support integration, collaboration, or advanced user interface features.

These information gateways have been separately developed as independent systems addressing specific needs of a given program or user community. Because CMS lacked enterprise-wide portal standards for branding, style, and architecture, this collection of CMS information gateways has the following drawbacks:

• No single entry point exists for accessing the CMS resources and environment.
• Multiple log-ins, using multiple userIDs, are required for those who need access to different areas of the CMS system.
• Multiple systems exist for user self-service account management.
• No aggregation or correlation of information and services exists between multiple CMS sources at the user interface level.
• No ability exists for users to navigate or search across all enterprise content.
• Users experience inconsistent CMS interface design and branding.

The CMS Portal Vision

The CMS vision is to develop a one-portal strategy creating consistency in user identity, CMS branding, and user access. Users would have one userID and one entry point to all CMS content and gateways of information they are permitted to access.

The phrase “one-portal strategy” does not mean that CMS would have only one portal, but that CMS users would need only one CMS portal to locate and access all CMS content and services relevant to them. Portal technology makes this possible by rendering the user interface as an “Integration Glass” for user access to CMS information and services. As shown in The Portal as an “Integration Glass” , an “Integration Glass” renders and combines content for display from multiple applications and data sources, supports users with navigation and personalization, and implements simplified sign-on, permissions, and some security functions.

Key elements of this Portal Vision include:

• One enterprise-wide portal strategy
• A shared vision of the portal—the “Integration Glass” through which users access CMS information and services
• Links directly to CMS’s mission and goals
• Leveraging of existing governance bodies
• Alignment with the CMS Business Reference Model (BRM) in classifying audiences and Communities of Interest (COI)
• Alignment with and leveraging of the CMS Shared Services Strategy for leveraging applications and services

CMS Portal Strategy Business Drivers

The desire for a common portal strategy across the CMS enterprise is driven by:

• Rapidly expanding interaction between CMS, CMS business partners, providers, beneficiaries, and the public as well as CMS’s increased reliance on portals to support those business interactions

• Increased demand for information sharing and collaboration across CMS and the federal government that supports cross-domain / cross-agency trust, improves access to data, and provides semantic interoperability

• The need to contribute to a more efficient government by finding ways to mutually leverage public and private sector investment to drive business and mission improvements while, at the same time, responding to fiscal constraints through effective use of the Agency’s IT budget (i.e., fostering reuse of existing capabilities and assets)

• The effort to increase security, transparency, and resilience by ensuring that:

  • Information and data exchanges are secure
  • IT and business assets are available, understood, and governed
  • Continuity of operations is preserved

CMS Portal Strategy Goals

The CMS Enterprise Portal Strategy has the following goals:

1. Simplify access to government services while supporting Agency integration and growth. Reduce complexity of service-providing processes. Enable intuitive, continuous customer interaction directly through one high-impact channel, promoted and identified by a single agency brand.

2. Provide a well-defined portfolio of business services. Align all CMS portals to provide users with a full suite of services (e.g., eligibility, enrollment, customer service, and identity management) across business domains.

3. Enhance productivity for all users. Support role-based contextual services and information filtering, collaboration within and outside of the Agency, and self-service for customers, employees, and partners. Enable users to find relevant information more quickly and, through collaboration, to leverage collective experience and reduce cycle times.

4. Reduce help desk costs by providing self-service account administration for all CMS portal users. Self-service account administration is defined as an “Online user interface by which a user may reset forgotten passwords, request access to application resources, update some identity information such as location and contact information, and view corporate and organizational identity information.”

5. Improve internal business agility to more rapidly respond to changing demands.

6. Deliver new critical mission capabilities more quickly and with less cost by minimizing IT rework, alleviating duplicate efforts, and sharing a single infrastructure.

7. Provide secure, shared, and governed services by continuously ensuring that content and services accessed through portals and managed across government organizational boundaries are protected and available.

CMS Portal Strategy Objectives

Stakeholders responsible for each CMS portal and for CMS portal content should align their tactical planning and designs with the following objectives:

• Charter and define all CMS production portals serving the public, beneficiaries, or healthcare providers according to purpose, content scope, and user community.

• Standardize on one web content management system product for all CMS portals and all content other than web applications. Other WCMS tools may be used when appropriate or advantageous to CMS.

• Allow only one original source within CMS for each collection of content to ensure consistency of that content on all portals.

• Provide all end users of CMS portals with:

  • A single point of access: one Universal Resource Locator
  • Self-service identity management
  • Role-based access with content and service filtering
  • A common navigational model, look and feel, and branding

Tactical Challenges

CMS must address four tactical challenges to implement the CMS portal vision:

• Obtaining the buy-in and sponsorship of senior CMS leadership
• Developing the requisite governance and standards
• Continuing to expand and join CMS user identity and authentication capabilities to support CMS user portals across the enterprise
• Developing migration plans for legacy CMS portals as opportunities to migrate become available

Tactical Recommendations

Stakeholders responsible for CMS portals and for CMS portal content should consider the following recommendations in their tactical planning and designs:

• Leverage and extend existing CMS portal technologies and standards as well as the CMS Shared Services Strategy, the CMS TRA, and the CMS Business Reference Model.

• When appropriate, use an incremental approach to extend and integrate with existing CMS portals and websites.

• Leverage CMS enterprise services for identity management and access control.

• Leverage industry best practices and standards, enabling efficient and flexible architecture and supporting enterprise-wide collaboration and reuse.

• Ensure that CMS portal-related standards, governance, and business performance measures differentiate between different portals models and are appropriate within the context of the models for which they are intended.

Benefits of the Portal Strategy

With the adoption and implementation of one enterprise-wide Portal Strategy, CMS lines of business would realize benefits from:

• Enhanced productivity for all portal end users
• Increased adoption rate of new services
• Cheaper and faster deployment of new service channels
• Reduced number of costly channels to maintain
• Reduced disruptions from having to patch or upgrade multiple portal implementations
• Saved money on recouped hardware and administration