Unemployment Claim Processing

An automated, user-friendly platform based on Pega 8.x that aids in the reduction of unemployment system crashes caused by an abundance of applications and flaws in conventional procedure.

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Inspiration

Every person in the United States can request unemployment assistance through the Department Of Labor(DOL) of their local state. In February 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic, the unemployment rate in the United States was 3.5% by March of the same year 4.4% and then peaked at a high of 14.8%,

More than 14 million Americans filed for unemployment by May 2020, saturating the system of the Department of Employment Security.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/unemployment-rises-in-2020-as-the-country-battles-the-covid-19-pandemic.htm

Our Solution

Our team proposes an end to end solution using Pega platform that allows claimants to file unemployment applications that engages citizens and modernizes processes and accelerate resolutions at a record time deliverying the following benefits:

  1. Modernization of the state legacy system.
  2. Better outcome by boosting efficiency and accelerate processing of the high volume of claims.
  3. Web, email and future mobile channel to facilitate claimants application submission.
  4. Web and email channels for employer to facilitate and accelerate employment certification.

Solution Components Diagram

Application's Components

App Components

System's Components

Components Diagram

What it does

  1. Allows applicants to file for all kinds of unemployment benefits.
  2. Provides employers with an email notification and a web channel to respond wage audits.
  3. Enables Government agencies with a web portal to process and track all applications as to utilize all Pega features, gadgets and dashboards.

How we built it

Our solution is based on the Pega Platform, and we began by defining the micro-journey as the primary aim, as well as the various stages and procedures that are involved. PrimaryStages RejectionStages

Personas & Channels

  • Claimant - Mashup: Unemployment Claim The Applicant of the Unemployment benefits
  • Employer - Mashup: Update Claim The Employer who verifies the applicants work/wages history by updating the Claim case
  • DoES Agent - Pega: DoES Portal The DoES Agents who will work on the Unemployment Claim cases to take them to resolution.

Data Model Data Model

We also built a brand new - Demo - web portal for the Department of Employment Security to offer online services and facilitate the communication channels for the Unemployment Benefits Claimants and Employers, which are key to the processing of the benefits Claims. The Portal has a modern look and is built using React JS, Next JS, and Tailwind CSS running on top of a Node JS server; which is one of the top Javascript Stacks for web development nowadays. We seamlessly integrated with the Pega UCP application via Pega Web Mashup providing a channel for Claims creation for the Applicants and another channel for capturing Employer’s input as part of the Work history/Wages verification process. We are leveraging the Pega Web Mashup actions API to handle authentication and dynamic parameters to provide a secure and functional experience for the users.

Challenges we ran into

We had trouble establishing what the most critical aspects were that needed to be included in the platform in order for it to be the Minimum Lovable Product (MLP). The Pega Web Mashup integration presented a good challenge to make it work to authenticate the user and to handle dynamic parameters to allow a great experience for the Employers when providing their inputs in the process. Another tricky aspect was the Security configurations to allow for a transparent secured connection between the web portal and the Pega application via Web Mashup

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're glad that we were able to find a solution to such an urgent issue and that we were able to help folks who were going through a difficult period of unemployment find relief from the conventional procedure.

What we learned

Some of the team members were new to the Pega Platform, thus it was a good learning opportunity for them. Also, the design thinking approach for properly understanding the problem statement and narrowing down the solutions to the most relevant one. We learned:

  • Pega's Skin customizations specialized by Portals
  • Pega Web Mashup integration, dynamic parameters, and actions API
  • Pega's Security configurations for Mashup integration
  • A holistic security setup to integrate an external, modern web application with a Pega application

What's next for Unemployment Claim Processing

  • Mobile version of the application for unemployment applicants.
  • Implementation of specialized versions of the Application for other states. This will allow easy integration like duplicated searches of claims in other states.

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