Commentary: FI$Cal Onboards CDT and DOR, Recognizes 10-Year Milestone

The following commentary first appeared in FOCUS, the newsletter of the Financial Information System for California.

I am pleased to announce that on July 1, the California Department of Technology (CDT) and the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR) will join the family of departments using the FI$Cal system for their budget, accounting and procurement needs. The total number of departments in the system fluctuates, however, as of this month, CDT and DOR bring that total to 149 FI$Cal departments.

We are excited to transition these new FI$Cal departments from planning and onboarding, to official users of the system. FI$Cal will be providing them with continued support through a dedicated functional sponsor, user support labs, training, and ticket resolution.

The road to success for new departments onboarding to the FI$Cal system has been paved by hard work and collaboration that started over a decade ago. The latest departments benefit from lessons learned through the experiences of our staff, users and business partners. The challenges they faced, along with the solutions they developed, significantly improved the FI$Cal system, the onboarding journey, and user support.

Looking back on prior waves and releases, much has changed. I am amazed at how much we have all grown alongside the system. Together, our accomplishments are many! It is fitting that CDT and DOR go live in FI$Cal on the 10th anniversary of onboarding the first wave of departments to the system. Ten years ago this July, FI$Cal, with the assistance of our partners and contractors, onboarded nine departments to the system.

We celebrate those departments that took the first steps in transforming the state’s budget, accounting and procurement processes. The onboarding experience of these first departments was much different than that of CDT and DOR. Much of today’s functionality was still in development and we were all learning together. They were instrumental in helping us shape today’s FI$Cal system.

After Wave 1 in 2014, the system and the state’s business processes went through several changes, including the onboarding of control functionality for the State Controller’s Office, State Treasurer’s Office, Department of General Services and Department of Finance. We also implemented several enhancements to improve efficiency and functionality of the system. All of these changes occurred while continuing to onboard departments.

In June 2021, we deployed the final functionality of the FI$Cal project. Since then, we have continued our mission to serve FI$Cal departments and their users by improving the system and processes and providing superior customer support. These significant accomplishments would not be possible without the invaluable support from our users, partners and contractors who paved the way.

We look forward to assisting CDT and DOR as they begin transacting in the FI$Cal system and look forward to working with the remaining deferred departments in planning their onboarding journeys.