SITUATION:
A major government agency that conducts and supports medical research has a vast network of peer reviewers who review speaker and grant applicants, and require efficient and correct compensation for their efforts. The agency relied on a legacy system for up-to-date payment information for its peer reviewers. The challenge with the legacy system is that it is intended for businesses, not individuals, and as such its registrations are open to the public – making peer reviewers potentially vulnerable to receiving unsolicited commercial email and other solicitations once they have registered. To address this issue, the client required a secure, private application for peer reviewers to register their payment information.
IMPLEMENTATION:
The client partnered with NetLink to develop a secure registration solution, which is an easy-to-use web application allowing agency peer reviewers to register their banking, address, and other required information in order to receive payments from the agency. Having this information in a central registry where the data can be easily updated by the recipient results in the payments being efficiently and correctly expedited.
NetLink built the new solution completely from scratch using .NET and SQL Server both on time and within budget. As this implementation involved multiple moving parts including various types of peer reviewers, banking/financial data, as well as integration with agency legacy systems, as well as an existing application that handles reviewer payment, it was a highly complex project that required both a high level of technical expertise and top-shelf project management. Unlike the open legacy systems, the new web application was built by NetLink to be closed to the public and access to sensitive data is very limited – eliminating the possibility of receiving any unsolicited commercial email due to a registration in the system. In addition, all of the sensitive data is fully encrypted, providing an additional, vital layer of security.
RESULT:
The new web application is now a fully automated, highly secure web-based system that easily and efficiently allows agency peer reviewers to register to receive compensation. Registrants can now update banking information and Social Security numbers at anytime, resulting in a reduced number of improper payments. In addition, Christopher J. Hinkle, Senior Web Architect, NetLink, received two very prestigious awards for his efforts in developing this web application.