Child Care Administrator’s Improper Payments Information Technology Guide

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B. Descriptions of the Technical Approaches (continued)

2. Commercial Off-the-Shelf Systems

COTS systems are developed commercially and then tailored to specific uses, some times with little customization. COTS products exist for many common business processes used by child care programs. Examples of these processes include reporting, data warehouse for analysis of program data, invoice and payment systems to facilitate payment to providers or participants, claims processing to assist in recouping overpayments, and content management systems that enable State-sponsored Web sites, and Intranet sites to more easily keep program information up to date. Typically, COTS products can be integrated into an organization’s environment by different vendors or qualified individuals (which can include State staff), not only by the COTS product owner. The level of customization required to make a COTS application work successfully within the State’s environment can vary considerably based on the COTS product and the State’s technical environment. If considerable customization is necessary, a State should carefully compare the cost of adopting the COTS application against in-house development or contracting out to a third party for systems development.

Even with the many advantages of using a COTS solution, each State needs to determine whether this approach aligns with its technical and business direction. A State also needs to consider training, licensing, system upgrades, and service agreements when analyzing this technical approach.

Enterprise framework COTS solutions have emerged in the human service arena in the last decade. These products provide certain functionality out of the box, but they enable the user to customize the application without needing to make any changes to the underlying code. These products typically provide eligibility, case management, reporting, accounting, and vendor management functions, all of which can be customized by the State business analyst or program staff. Although purchased as COTS products, framework solutions offer some of the advantages of in-house development, including the ability to customize the application. States that purchase a COTS framework application or any other COTS product must dedicate resources for its maintenance.

The following table describes the advantages, challenges, and key considerations related to using COTS products.

Table 2 – Using COTS Products