GENERAL MANAGER REPORT

We are preparing to launch 3 new services including Rapid Renewal, Interactive Corporate Records, and Professional Licensing. The summer and the month of September have all been focused nearly entirely on delivering these services. With these, and the subsequent Violations application, we truly believe InforME’s service menu can compare favorably with any state in the country.

The State of Maine portal was selected as an honorable mention recipient in this year’s Best of the Web awards. We’d like to thank each member of the Board for working so painstakingly with us on the development of the new page. Your attention to detail, grasp of the "big picture" and encouragement were invaluable in the process. We feel all who helped us develop the site can enjoy this notoriety.

Although the execution of Rapid Renewal has taken longer than expected, we have been more than satisfied with the interactions we’ve had with the participating towns. Many of the towns had little Internet experience before joining the pilot; and others, while experienced, had delays and frustrations working with their electronic registration software vendors. Yet despite the hurdles, great progress has been made towards what will truly be a landmark success for government in Maine. The InforME team has visited pilot municipalities in the pilot to provide training as requested.

NEI has signed a contract with NPC to provide the Virtual Pay electronic check service to applications on InforME. The first implementation of the service will be Rapid Renewal. This payment option will be offered soon after the launch of the service. Electronic checks are far less expensive to process than credit cards and will be an excellent option for citizens and businesses in high dollar volume transactions such as business or property taxes.

The Governor has asked InforME to review and offer assistance in the revision of the online campground reservation system. The InforME team has met with the agency and plans to outsource the development of a proposal (target date of October 1^st) to see if a viable solution can be reached before January 1^st. InforME hopes to outsource the entire project so as not to impinge upon existing plans to execute services.

InforME will be generating three reports based on three customer surveys. Each survey targets a specific customer base. Our customers are State web portal visitors (http://www.state.me.us), Agency partners, and eGov subscribers. This month we will be reporting on the level of satisfaction of the State web portal visitors. This report will be based on the portal feedback.

We are proud of the fact that InforME has received "honorable mention" from the Best of the Web competition. This means that the State of Maine portal is judged to be one of the six best websites in the Nation. Thanks to the InforME Board for the helpful feedback during the design stage.

Projected launch for the new and improved InforME web pages is October 15^th. We will be conducting a subscriber satisfaction survey to measure customer satisfaction with InforME eGov services and customer service after the site goes live.

Phase II, "find a licensed professional", discussions have been completed and project steps defined. Development will begin once phase I is complete.

We have met with each of the four bureaus to discuss the template and to receive feedback for revisions. Revisions have been completed. We are waiting on further feedback from Department.

Initial information gathering with the agency team has been held, followed by the project quote and its acceptance. Team will begin work on this piece.

The website has been built and content is being added. Once content is complete, we will conduct a series of tests to ensure ADA compliance, HTML check, link check, Meta tagging, and make all final revisions.

Initial information gathering with the agency team has been held. Team will gather information.

We presented the completed CSHP website to the program committee. Feedback was very positive. Website completion is waiting on content from various Departments.

Website is in its final design phase before being given to the Department team to content fill.

We have assisted with the design and photography of this website. This website is one of the most frequently visited sites on the State of Maine portal.

Initial meeting to discuss redesign completed. Agency team is gathering information.

We have met with the Maine Arts Commission to discuss the redesign of their current website. The Commission team is completing the workbook.

Offered free consultation on their website, and have continued to offer technical assistance with ADA Compliance and design theory.

We continue to offer on-site website maintenance training to Agencies upon request.

8/10/00 — Legislative Branch — excellent meeting with both house and senate staff regarding bill status, site design, and overall InforME services.

8/16/00 — Jerry Dube U Maine Internet Service — discussion of connectivity options.

8/22/00 - State Webmaster Retreat — Wolf Park, Freeport — Guest speaker from LLBean discussing eCommerce and making the most of your website. Excellent presentation, rather sparsely attended.

8/23/00 — Blue Ribbon Commission on Internet Policy — presentation, update of InforME progress.

8/28/00 — Gary Nichols & Marilyn Lutz — discussion of InforME role in the Maine InfoNet initiative.

9/18/00 — Clareon — Chris Bozek — new Maine company offering B2G electronic payment services.

Rapid Renewal SLAs have been approved by all the participating Municipalities. The web interface has been revised to reflect the suggestions and valuable input received by the pilot Municipalities and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. These changes have significantly improved the look and feel of the application and we are confident the intuitive nature of the Service will be easy to follow will be well received.

We are well into the programming phase of the Rapid Renewal Project. This is easily our largest single programming effort to date. The in-house testing has proceeded steadily, though slowly, and has uncovered several issues that have been resolved along the way.

The Municipalities have been conducting their alpha testing (using ‘dummy’ records) the past few weeks. A high level of commitment and cooperation from most of the towns has maximized the effectiveness of this testing period.

We anticipate alpha testing to conclude shortly, whereupon the Municipality identified beta testers will join the effort. These individuals will renew their actual registrations online and will mark the final confirmation of the Service’s viability prior to official launch.

The Corporations, Elections and Commissions (CEC) Interactive Corporate Service prototype has been submitted for review and we are in the process of incorporating the suggested changes. Much of the programming is complete. The remaining formatting and programming work should support an October launch.

The CEC Corporate, UCC and TradeMark bulk database Services continue to be well received. The subscriber base continues to expand, as does overall general interest. We currently have four monthly Corporate bulk database customers, two monthly UCC bulk database customers and one quarterly Mark bulk database customer.

The SLA for the Judicial Branch’s on-line Violation Payment Service has been approved. A web-based interface has been added to the FRS to compliment the telephone-based interface. Several technical discussions have been conducted with the NIC Technologies Division that have enhanced the FRS and will help expedite the programming and secondary development phases of the Service. The FRS has been submitted to the Judicial Branch’s Violations Bureau for approval.

Initial discussions have been conducted with the Department of Conservation to deploy their Entomology database online. Continued information gathering and programming will be coordinated to support a January, 2001 launch.

Significant testing has been conducted on the Office of Licensing and Registration Service. We are quite satisfied with the test results and anticipate a live launch very soon (to be coordinated with the agency).

InforME has been working with the Department of Education on a Higher Education Survey. Once finalized, this survey will be distributed to every public, private and technical institution of higher learning. Anticipated launch of the survey is fall semester. The survey is intended to compile information on Maine student preferences, especially regarding their confidence in the Maine job market.

Conducted another, more detailed information gathering session to determine the viability of developing and launching an improved web-based Campground Reservation System by the end of 2000. Essential action items have been identified and assigned. Should the viability study warrant, intensive discussions and project management efforts would ensue to support the aggressive schedule. An online system incorporating the System’s functionality requirements, guidelines and regulations will definitely empower the Department with a valuable tool yet will require some creative development and problem solving skills of all involved.