Budget Office Systems Renewal (BOSR) Project

 What was BOSR?

BOSR was a project to replace the information systems that supported key government wide expenditure management processes, such as Main Estimates, Supplementary Estimates, Reference Level Updates and Governor General Special Warrants, with a single, integrated and secure system.  The Expenditure Management Information System (EMIS) now applies to the new budget office system.

The new EMIS integrated the existing functions of seven key, but separate, legacy systems that supported planned spending authorities and the management of resource allocation and Supply – meaning the production and publishing of Supply Bills and Main Estimates (the Blue Book), and Supplementary Estimates.

The new EMIS is expected to improve the government’s ability to provide Parliament with comprehensive, integrated financial information.   This will aid Parliamentarians in their traditional and legislated responsibilities of oversight and approval of annual funding for the government’s programs and services.  

While BOSR was focused on existing budget functions, it built the foundation upon which subsequent EMIS enhancements (priorities, results and actual expenditures) can be built.

People Affected:

There are approximately 700 people directly affected by the new EMIS, including:

• Analysts in the Expenditure Management Sector at TBS
• Analysts in the Program Sectors at TBS
• Financial and Program Analysts in Departments and Agencies across the government

Because the new EMIS supports critical Government wide expenditure management processes, there is broad interest in its success across the Government.

Timing:

The BOSR Project was organized into 4 stages:

• Project Initiation (completed in October 2006) – project scope was defined and high-level work plan developed
• Planning (completed in February 2007) – business requirements were detailed and future processes modeled in SAP and captured in a Business Blueprint
• Execution and Control (completed in November 2007) – system was configured and new business processes, training, support and rollout plans were developed and delivered
• Closing – new processes were normalized and systems move from a project to normal operations. 

Go-Live for the new EMIS took place in December 2007.

Technology Implemented:

SAP was selected as the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) product for the renewed EMIS.   Specifically, the SAP Funds Management Budget Control System (FM-BCS) was implemented.

The SAP FM-BCS is SAP’s strategic budgeting tool and supports budget planning, budget execution and funds availability monitoring.   It is the module in SAP that purposefully supports the Budgeting process in the Public Sector and it effectively supports the business of the Treasury Board Budget Office.

To enhance user experience, the application uses SAP Business Server Pages (BSP).   BSPs provides users with a user-friendly, web-type interface.