RaC Customer Success Story : From Sandpit to Solutions for MAPS

Wednesday 24 July 2024

We have success. GovCMS and Salsa Digital have successfully completed the first Rules as Code (RaC) sandpit project. The project with Ministerial and Parliamentary Services (MAPS) within Finance explored how RaC can be used to determine the final entitlement amount for parliamentarians’ staff members, if the member does not win their seat in the next election, retires, or is affected by a by-election.

The project followed a four-step structure:

  1. Scoping and rules definition, including defining calculations;
  2. Rules Mapping to define flow and structure;
  3. Turning the rules into machine code using OpenFisca; and
  4. User interface build using Drupal.

The rules were drawn from the Member of Parliament Staff (MOPS) Enterprise Agreement, which outlines what each employee is entitled to based on their job role, pay point, and length of service.  This is a large dataset with a lot of interconnected this/then-that calculations, so the first step was to whittle down to a smaller set of pathways for the sandpit.

Flow chart showing part of the multi step business process for assessing the entitlements due a member of parliament staff at the end of their employment.

Having defined the smaller dataset to test, the MAPS team worked with our digital partner, Salsa Digital, to map out the rules and calculations, then the intricate work of turning the rules into machine readable code using OpenFisca. Steps 1 to 3 complete.

With the coding complete, the design aspect comes into play, displaying the outcome of the project as an interactive User Interface where test members can input their data and receive an answer in seconds. This is the best thing about working within a sandpit environment. You can explore, test, play and innovate to solution as it’s not a publicly available site.

An image showing the interactive webform for the final entitlements estimator. This is a Drupal based webform where the client uses radio buttons or drop down options to select against criteria so the rules engine can calculate final amount.An image showing the title of the final entitlements estimator web page. The page contains links to the entitlement calculator, information on Rules as Code, OpenFisca and how Rules as Code is used in other scenarios.An image showing the severance benefit due to a member of parliament staff based on the information they entered into the interactive webform. The page include a button to stat the process again and a button to see the rules which were used to calculate the benefit. The final estimated benefit in this scenario is $4359.81.

The next step is to explore options for turning this into a full-scale process, so that MOPS employees will be able to self-service at the next election to determine their entitlements and plan for their future finances.

Sandpits On-The-Go!

Working with our customers and together exploring this new RaC technology is progressing at a spirited pace. We are excited about some other RaC sandpit projects in the pipeline. These include:

  • Visa requirement modelling with Department of Home Affairs,
  • Benefits finders with Services Australia, and
  • ICT investment eligibility with the Digitial Transformation Agency.