The National Disability and Insurance Agency is preparing to roll out a new Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) system for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The agency revealed that the platform was “in development” in an approach to market for a real-time claims and direct payment solution last week.
It is one of several new platforms to be deployed in the coming months to augment the NDIA's existing legacy IT systems hosted by Services Australia.
The Salesforce platform will sit alongside the agency's existing SAP CRM and companion portal Fiori, as well as a range of other SAP business systems.
The SAP CRM is currently the main system of record for participant data and is also used by registered service providers to make claims for services or products provided to participants.
But according to the NDIA it is not suited to supporting non-core business capabilities across the areas of case management, event management and campaign management.
In response, the agency late last year went looking for a cloud platform to augment the SAP CRM in preparation for the almost 500,000 participants that will access the scheme by 2025.
The two CRM platforms will sit separately initially, though the NDIA envisages integrating the two at a later date to allow information to allow for information sharing.
The new Salesforce CRM is part of a swag of new systems and services that the agency is developing to improve the user experience for participants and service providers.
These include a set of publically available open REST application programming interfaces (APIs) supported by a new Mulesoft API platform.
The APIs are anticipated to support real-time claims and are also considered the first step towards the NDIA's long-awaited digital marketplace.
The agency is also in the process of developing a mobile application for participants to access information on their NDIS plan and make claims for payments.
A spokesperson declined to comment on the new Salesforce platform and its relationship with last year's procurement process, as well as the broader program of work.
“The NDIA is committed to continually improving the digital experience for all NDISparticipants and providers,” the spokesperson said.
“Further detail regarding the upcoming digital improvements will be available later this year.”
In 2018, a parliamentary inquiry found the failure to design the NDIS-facing IT systems and the myplace portal around the needs of users had resulted in “administrative burden and additional transaction costs”.
“Having robust and fit-for-purpose ICT systems can greatly assist the NDIA in meeting its operational targets and delivering quality outcomes for participants,” the report stated.
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