Topic: Phoenix Pay System - crap's Horrible

[NSDreamer]

I wonder if anyone has said "Yes this was a good idea" ...

[Lightguns]

I wonder if anyone has said "Yes this was a good idea" ...

I worked on AITIS Project from 1995 to 2000, 1993 to 1999 was building a working prototype in stages adding the first users in 1997.  1999 to 2008 was building the system as a functional model that reflected the organization of army training and could be multi platform.  Even now it is not perfect BUT it just moved to ACIMS (SharePoint) from Documentum as I retired so it did fit as a multi function platform.  Talking with the AITIS folks, the move was very smooth and the Army National Calendar is finally part of AITIS (which was planned in 1994).  But that gives you an idea how long it should take to make a successful custom application on an enterprise scale integrate smoothly.  One thing we did do was reams of user training, much of it in user location and face to face for the initial training. Training should always be a lot of hand holding.  Now if they would only build the infrastructure to serve every training video from a central location, we could say mission accomplished. 

[Lumber]

I worked on AITIS Project from 1995 to 2000, 1993 to 1999 was building a working prototype in stages adding the first users in 1997.  1999 to 2008 was building the system as a functional model that reflected the organization of army training and could be multi platform.  Even now it is not perfect BUT it just moved to ACIMS (SharePoint) from Documentum as I retired so it did fit as a multi function platform.  Talking with the AITIS folks, the move was very smooth and the Army National Calendar is finally part of AITIS (which was planned in 1994).  But that gives you an idea how long it should take to make a successful custom application on an enterprise scale integrate smoothly.  One thing we did do was reams of user training, much of it in user location and face to face for the initial training. Training should always be a lot of hand holding.  Now if they would only build the infrastructure to serve every training video from a central location, we could say mission accomplished.

ACIMS.... I shudder every time a link takes me to that..."thing". It's even less user friendly that the new standardized web pages for the rest of the military (such as the new Defence Team and RCN home pages).I could write a whole page of complaints about ACIMS, but I don't want to hijack this thread.

[Good2Golf]

Uh-oh...   "Houston?  We have a problem!"

"Phoenix Down..."
Reproduced under the Fair Dealings Act

Phoenix pay system down across federal public service
Public Service and Procurement Canada investigating cause of outage, spokesperson says
CBC News Posted: Sep 20, 2016 9:36 AM ET Last Updated: Sep 20, 2016 10:00 AM ET

The troubled Phoenix pay system is down in all federal government departments, CBC News has learned.

Public Service and Procurement Canada spokesperson Nicolas Boucher said the department is investigating why the pay system is down. It's unclear if this was a planned outage or a technical problem.

• Judy Foote says 'there was no going back' at time of Phoenix launch

In late July, the department said it had ended the practice of turning off the ability of employees to view their pay stubs in Phoenix a week before pay day.


The centralized payroll system was launched across the public service in April.

Public service unions warned the federal government not to go ahead with the full launch of the system and that it wouldn't be reliable.

In June, the government admitted 80,000 people had experienced some pay problems, including being underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all.

On Monday, Public Services and Procurement Minister Judy Foote was before a meeting of the government operations and estimates committee investigating problems with Phoenix.

She said the backlog had been reduced to 67,500 and it would be eliminated by Oct. 31.

[Journeyman]

Public Service and Procurement Canada investigating cause of outage, spokesperson says

Perhaps someone brought in an outside contractor...... www.dyingwithdignity.ca   

[Occam]

The website is not user-friendly. It is user-belligerent. It must have cost a lot more money to design something that hideous.

If that holds true, then I'm sure I'd be gobsmacked at how much DRMIS must have cost us.

[Lightguns]

If that holds true, then I'm sure I'd be gobsmacked at how much DRMIS must have cost us.

Neither are websites, they are content management systems designed to serve documents not propaganda.  There is simple user paced training for both which should be mandatory but again isn't, so some folks have issues doing their jobs in ACIMS/DRMIS. 

[Colin P]

Websites became a real pain to deal with. It’s almost impossible to change things in a timely manner and getting everything translated costs huge amounts of time and money. Funny yesterday, looking at a 125 page document with almost no maps, apparently all the title blocks need to be translated, even when the maps are submitted by an outside proponent, so it’s easier not to have maps to get the document posted, except that maps really help the end users who on this coast don’t give a crap about the French. I spend a great deal of time trying to help clients find stuff on our website. Many of our pages are just endless loops. The only good thing they did was to make them google friendly.

[MCG]

It is surprising that there has only been one lawsuit launched so far.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-lawsuit-ottawa-darrel-delisle-1.3766028

[dapaterson]

CBC is reporting that, given two independent reviews of Phoenix prior to go-live, the staff at PSPC decided to give the minister the rosier one. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/minister-not-briefed-on-independent-phoenix-analysis-1.3773148

In reading the CBC story, it appears that at go live the system had never been tested end-to-end; there was no detailed test plan; and there was no fallback plan if rollout didn't work.

Anyone with project management experience feel free to chime in, but that does not sound like anything that respected PMBOK.

[daftandbarmy]

CBC is reporting that, given two independent reviews of Phoenix prior to go-live, the staff at PSPC decided to give the minister the rosier one. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/minister-not-briefed-on-independent-phoenix-analysis-1.3773148

In reading the CBC story, it appears that at go live the system had never been tested end-to-end; there was no detailed test plan; and there was no fallback plan if rollout didn't work.

Anyone with project management experience feel free to chime in, but that does not sound like anything that respected PMBOK.

Sadly, this is pretty standard for big IT projects from what I've seen.

Only yesterday, in fact, I was having coffee with one of the 'little people' in a giant systems project going on right now, that we have been involved in from the periphery. She was brought in to act as the 'voice from the field' but has been steamrolled by all the suits with the letters after their names. The Project Manager, of course, has tight timelines to meet so is ignoring pretty much anything, like what the field and clients actually need, because it interferes with the 'milestone deliverables' (there's a free buzzword for you).

She is convinced it will be a train crash when, and if, it gets launched. Price tag? 10s of millions of $ of course.

If they had only hired us https://www.berlineaton.com/blog/how-to-lead-great-big-it-projects-4-tips-for-project-champions-

[Lightguns]

CBC is reporting that, given two independent reviews of Phoenix prior to go-live, the staff at PSPC decided to give the minister the rosier one. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/minister-not-briefed-on-independent-phoenix-analysis-1.3773148

In reading the CBC story, it appears that at go live the system had never been tested end-to-end; there was no detailed test plan; and there was no fallback plan if rollout didn't work.

Anyone with project management experience feel free to chime in, but that does not sound like anything that respected PMBOK.

Funny, we cant get a thing past the departmental RFC committee without a back out plan in place. 

[c_canuk]

yeah, cause you're a little person who can only see the little details, those in the ivory towers can see everything so they don't need to follow the rules. bigger view is always better, never mind the loss of detail, they can see everything![/sarcasm]

also, this seems about right with the finger pointing.

http://dilbert.com/strip/2013-09-20

[Colin P]

So my Manager just advised me that no one is getting their acting pay, because if they add your acting pay for say a 1 week period, your pay will completely stop once that 1 week period ends. The local compensation clerks are keeping records they will input when Phoenix is fixed..........

[dapaterson]

Thus far, my experiences with Acting Pay have been different.  I have seen:

1. Retro acting pay put on a separate payment, where pension contributions were deducted, but the retro pay not paid out.

2. Acting pay at the base rate of the higher classification for the acting period, which is less than the substantive rate of pay.  Or, in other words, do the job of the boss and take a pay cut.

3. Acting pay at a higher rate of pay that does not exist anywhere on the pay table, because they are applying the 4% rule instead of the "next higher incentive with a minimum increase" rule.


Of course, pay statements don't show your annual rate of pay, so if you're not conversant with the conversion factor from biweekly to annual, you may not notice that your pay rate is wrong.

[milnews.ca]

Meanwhile, to play on the old saying, technical briefings will continue until morale improves ...

Members of the media are invited to a technical briefing on the latest steps taken to address issues with the Phoenix pay system.

Date: February 8, 2017

Time: 11 a.m. (EST)

Location: National Press Theatre
150 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario

Senior officials will deliver remarks and answer questions from the media ...

[dapaterson]

So how, exactly, does someone get a one-time payment in error of $662,777?  Are there no reviews in the system?  Did no one look at that number and say "Hey, maybe there's something wrong here - let's investigate before we click OK?"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-overpayments-ottawa-70-million-1.3969455

[Remius]

I love how they are saying to just hold onto it for now.

It affects taxes just a bit I would think...

On the flip side you could just let it sit and gain interest I guess.

What a fiasco.

[Oldgateboatdriver]

So how, exactly, does someone get a one-time payment in error of $662,777?  Are there no reviews in the system?  Did no one look at that number and say "Hey, maybe there's something wrong here - let's investigate before we click OK?"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-overpayments-ottawa-70-million-1.3969455

The real issue here is: How come FINTRAC didn't automatically clic in and wonder where that money was coming from and started an investigation into the Federal government for money laundering? 

[tree hugger]

I've had a host of personal issues with phoenix/pay centre.  MY current problem is being paid approx. $400/pay less than I should (since mid Nov).  When you call the pay centre, they are glorified message takers and cannot provide any info.  The "compensation advisors" are mysterious people who know one knows and you just have to believe they'll call you back....eventually....

[Eye In The Sky]

The "compensation advisors" are mysterious people who know one knows and you just have to believe they'll call you back....eventually....

Oh, you are assuming they are people...

[Occam]

I live in Ontario, and work in Quebec.  These are the final pay statements for the 2015 and 2016 years, showing YTD totals.  Phoenix took over in early 2016.  The Phoenix team assures us that Phoenix did not change anything regarding tax deductions at source and that all is well...we beg to differ.

[dapaterson]

Overall, the amount looks about the same (roughly $15K in taxes); it's just the apportionment that's different.  And since you put it all on one return, it should be (more or less) a wash.

[dapaterson]

And now, Phoenix performance and service standards:

http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/paye-centre-pay/mise-a-jour-phenix-phoenix-updates-eng.html

My take on it: They are claiming a capacity of 100K transactions per month.  In January, there were about 77K extra-duty payments processed.  Therefore, there is capacity to reduce the backlog by 23K transactions per month.

There are currently 290K transactions backlogged beyond the service standard date.

Therefore, to clear the current backlog will take 290k / 23K months, or 12 1/2 months - in other words, the current backlog will not be cleared until March, 2018.

[Occam]

Overall, the amount looks about the same (roughly $15K in taxes); it's just the apportionment that's different.  And since you put it all on one return, it should be (more or less) a wash.

That's what we're hoping.  It's the Phoenix team claiming that they didn't touch deductions of taxes that has us shaking our heads.  Someone broke something in the transition...