Development on this project started this summer. The Sustainable Waste development team, CPCN program staff, and the DOIT SimpliGov team are meeting every Thursday to review progress, address blockers, and determine next steps. Moving forward, I start adding comments regularly to this Jira Project to keep the project status up to date.

sometime in spring 2025, Jim’s team laid out the pieces needed to build this and were generally available for support. Program is empowered to develop as needed/possible.

A meeting on Jan 15th included:

Jensen, Knute [DEP]
McHenry, Kyle [DEP]
Bi, Rudy [DEP]
Loftus, Connor [DEP]
Krause, Neal [DEP]
Dues, Corey [DEP]
Pellegrini, Nicole [DEP]
Zola, Michele [DEP]
Bridgewater, Jim [DEP]
Gerchman, Michael [DEP]

We all acknowledged that this is not a high priority given the work is being completed although with great effort. This led to SimpliGov and some self-help work to get it done. Jim reiterated his concerns for exploring the necessary modules for the first outwardly facing SimpliGov solution.

See attached email for approach. Generally, the team was asked to work toward understanding what it would take. Jim framed it like it might take a couple of months, but not years. We will seek an update in February.

A second meeting took place December 16th to review the details of the process.

A loop notes page with actions from Dec 16th is carried over to the next meeting on Jan 15th: RE Interest in SimpliGov for Sustainable Waste Management.loop

A recoding from Dec 15th is here:

RE_ Interest in SimpliGov for Sustainable Waste Management-20241216_130337-Meeting Recording.mp4

and this is an AI summary of the Dec 15th transcript:

The meeting transcript outlines the business processes and steps involved in managing CPCN (Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity) submissions. Here is a summary of the process:

1. Submission and Form Filling:

   • Companies download a CPCN annual report from the https://www.nj.gov/dep/dshw/swpl/cpcn.html website. The report is available in two types: one for collectors/transporters/brokers and another for disposal companies.

   • Users fill out the form, ensuring all required fields are complete. The form includes functionalities like locking fields when certain conditions are met and checks to ensure all required data is entered.

2. Signing and Notarization:

   • Once the form is filled, the user signs it using Adobe E-signature functionality. The form is then notarized via a Zoom call, where the notary verifies their credentials.

3. Submission to CPCN Team:

   • The completed and notarized form is submitted to a shared inbox (SW utility) managed by the CPCN team.

4. Processing and Data Management:

   • The CPCN team transfers the submitted forms from the inbox to a designated V Drive using Visual Basic code to extract attachments from emails.

   • Java programs are used to organize the files by year and type, and another program extracts data from PDFs and imports it into an Access database. This database is used by the CPCN team for analysis and billing.

5. Billing:

   • Billing is conducted either manually by the CPCN team or through a batch process managed by the program.

   • For batch billing, data is exported from the Access database, processed through SQL Developer, and imported into NGEMS (New Jersey Environmental Management System) for billing.

   • The process includes several steps involving batch processing tools in NGEMS and communication with DMU for data import into production tables.

6. Follow-up and Improvement:

   • Discussions are ongoing about potentially using SimpliGov to manage CPCN submissions to streamline the process and reduce manual steps.

   • SimpliGov offers a possibility for external users to access and submit forms, which could potentially integrate with NGEMS via APIs, though this pathway is still being explored.

The meeting also touched upon the challenges and potential improvements in the current system, including the possibility of using SimpliGov to create a more efficient workflow by automating data submission and integration with NGEMS.

AI-generated content may be incorrect

meeting today with DOIT (Connor, Knute, Michele Z., Neal Krause) and CPCN program staff (Mike G., Kyle McHenry, Corey Dues) looked at potential to employ SimpliGov, convert existing Access DB to MS SQL Server or leverage RSP/NJEMS. The short meeting took a high-level view of current CPCN process with its many points of breakdown and heavy manual effort. We agreed to two further meetings:

1. DOIT internal meeting to consider the factors that decide a solution pathway including acknowledging bottlenecks and backlogs for enterprise paths. (Michele Zola to schedule)

2. A repeat of today’s meeting to dig into more details of the current process and ultimate use of the data that can inform the pros and cons of competing solution paths. (Knute Jensen to schedule)

We may need to also confirm the priority of this effort among competing AEMS projects before going too far.

CPCN was used as a pilot to test UIPath bot for reading fillable pdfs and entering that data into NJEMS. UIPath built the bot to search the pdf by location in the document and not the field tags which were set up by BIS and SW. A contract will not be signed with UIPath as the product is not usable as delivered and would not be reusable. Project closed and other alternatives for CPCN submissions will be evaluated.

Hi Joe,
I’d like to congratulate you on a completion and I’m confused about this one as I heard we were killing off UIPath. How did it turn out? Did we swap to another solution?

CPCN - Compass is a separate issue on the SR side

Trial on UIPath was done in the CPCN space. Which issue is this rerally? COMPASS or CPCN.