Rationale | Goals | Subtopics | Outputs

Facilitated Work Session

Rationale:

• During the past 2 years, the introduction of requirements for electronic submission of data for HBS, RESULTS, FTA and ABR have required significant changes in the area of information management for both government and industry


• Government streamlining objectives and organizational initiatives are dependent on electronic submissions from, and in some cases to, industry (ie e-commerce)


• Interviews with branches indicate a continued and in some cases an increasing reliance on electronic submissions from industry


• It seems likely that current requirements and standards for submissions will continue to evolve as branches "fine tune" their business requirements based on internal needs and in some cases based on feedback from industry


• The requirement for electronic submissions, while holding promise of increased efficiency for industry, is not widely recognized as being as beneficial to industry as it has been for government


• Interviews indicate that the issue of electronic submissions includes communication about programs, business rules, data standards, timelines of programs and future directions

Goal: Education and awareness

• Through 3 short, balanced presentations from differing perspectives, on the business impact (positive and negative) of aspects of electronic submissions (ES) we hope to increase the awareness of business drivers and issues surrounding ES for workshop attendees.


• Attendees involved in current or new ES programs will benefit from a better understanding of the impact of their programs and may be able to minimize or mitigate negative aspects of their programs


• Attendees who are impacted by ES programs will benefit from understanding business drivers and the larger ES vision behind programs

Goal: Constructive dialogue among stakeholders

• The 3 presentations are also for the purpose of stimulating discussion in the form of breakout groups who will be tasked with establishing a set of guidelines or recommendations for current and future ES programs which would provide significant improvement (reduced cost, reduce impact, improve value, streamline business flow) to industry, government or ideally everyone in the sector


• A proven facilitated process, useful for the dialogue and end results we want to achieve in our workshop is called "Courtyard Café".


• The output and results of this process will be submitted to the CIO Forum and will be used as a basis for change and evolution of electronic business in the forest sector

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The steering committee has developed 5 "sub-topics" as a starting point for each Café discussion:

• 1. The existing ES system
• Note that ES "system" is not just the computer & technology stuff but includes processes, data, methodology, standards, communication etc. …the whole ball of wax.
• What works well?
• What does not work well?
• What could to be improved?
• How could your organization get better value or reduced impact from the existing ES process?
• Other thoughts and suggestions regarding the current ES system?
• Develop a priorized list (point form) of points you want make in regards to the existing ES system?
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

• 2. Professional accountability and data integrity
• In regards to the current ES system and future evolution of ES what issues arise in respect of professional accountability for data that is submitted by this process?
• Is ES a threat to the integrity of the data being submitted?
• Is the "chain of custody" of data and responsibility for data clear and unambiguous?
• List specific problems areas or give examples.
• What are the possible solutions to concerns in this area?
• What can be done to address any issues in this area?
• Develop a priorized list of points that you would like to make.
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

• 3. Data
• Identify issues with the data being submitted
• Is the correct data being requested?
• Do you understand how data is being used?
• Is it possible to reduce quantity of data being submitted?
• Is the quality of the data being submitted appropriate?
• Develop a priorized list of points that you would like to make.
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

• 4. Future implementation/evolution of ES or electronic commerce between stakeholders
• As ES and electronic transactions between licensees and between licensees and government and possibly other players (eg. Oil & Gas, First Nations, etc) evolve, could we (collectively) develop a better process to design requirements, standards, processes that would result in more value or less impact to your organization?
• What are some critical components of an improved process?
• How could communication and coordination of changes be improved?
• Develop a priorized list of points that you would like to make
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

• 5. Out of the box - brainstorm
• Discuss other aspects of ES (current & futures) which are not properly covered by other sub-topic areas
• How can industry and government both achieve efficient, effective business processes in regards to information exchange?
• Are we missing opportunities?
• What barriers need to be overcome?
• Develop a priorized list of points that you would like to make
• Record your points for reporting to the larger group

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Output from Courtyard Café

Day 1 – ESF Topic 1 – The existing ES system
Dan Battistella - Group 1 - 2 charts

• FIS bugs
• Small lic. – big! Step! Lots of challenges
• Exc. way to exchange info
• ESF tool documentation – vague
• Front end tools to "fill" ESF data requirements
• BceID timing issues - nothing over the phone!?!
• Many data requirements could be automated and no need to supply
• Overlays etc
• Better desc. of field requirements
• Business requirement not standard when systems developed
• Data additions to standard ESF requirements
• FTA 4 – delayed finalizing requirements
• Districts still operate independently
• Framework there, to allow for standards
• Training/roll-out
• T.L. splitting – overlays

Day 1 – ESF Topic 1 – The existing ES system
Dan Battistella - Group 2 - 2 charts

• improved error messages
• layman terms and why
• what generates a message
• business rule definition
• submission tracking reporting needs improvement
• FTA, RESULTS, ECAS ETAL - currently need to call someone and ask
• Progress reporting i.e. spatially accepted waiting for APPR
• Better work flow documentation
• Better management of block conflicts
• TMS – map reporting
• Need finer break down to pick and choose what layers i.e. don’t report on school district
• Ability to change gov’t corp. spatial data
• End user access
• Questions around data requirements
• POC/trav points
• ABR issues
• In itself
• BIG COST!! - Data about information, we are not required by law to report i.e. 1st 5 km or road when only built last 1 km
• Need help understanding value (no value)
• Permanent on block roads that have very short life – why report
• RESULTS is working well for the most part
• Aggregated blocks
• Communication of pending changes to ESF tools

Day 1 – ESF Topic 1 – The existing ES system
Dan Battistella - Group 3 - 1 chart

• Better integration between systems
• IRLS and FTA OGC
• FTA and HBS and ECAS
• FTA and RESULTS
• Spatial integration of FTA and RESULTS
• Improved TMS block conflicts
• No data integration checks in TMS
• FTA/ABR – poor integration and as built other
• RP rules differ
• Pipeline submission
• FIS management of roads differ from FTA/ABR
• Inconsistent data requirements by districts in FTA
• Some what whole road/some only want new portion
• Need better implementation of standards
• Not being applied consistently
• Business work flow standards needed – Provincial!

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 1* – The existing ES system
Gloria Wills - Group 1 - 1 chart

• Good – consolidate source of information (RESULTS)
• Need – better business side documentation
• New external website just released
• MoF update
• News releases
• summary what’s new every month (Fred Beinhauer)
• Decommission old/obsolete info
• Only change schemas once a year
• Good – BCeIDS working well
• Good – not asking for the same info more than once

Day 1 – ESF Topic 1* – The existing ES system
Gloria Wills - Group 2 - 2 charts

• Need complete list of edit checks and error messages in ESF for all applications
• Need a known problems list
• Should not need to submit extra documents and information
• All districts ask for different info
• Threat app processed faster
• POC/POT – redundant info tenures
• Good – TMS validation ESF
• MTO data in mapview (4) – TMS different ESF versions of mapview
• Web based alert – Q&A’s
• More communications through focus groups
• Manuals on contractor website should be on gov’t (VIVID)
• Do province-wide info sessions for licensees (something in the north east more than 6)
• Intent for use of data/actually used for
• Mandatory data not always valid in some areas
• ECAS in ESF
• ECAS - GAS - electronic out of GAS??
• Output out of GAS should be PDF

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 1* – The existing ES system
Gloria Wills - Group 3 - 1 chart

• ESF generally good
• ABR bumps
• TMS should be able to be used without submission
• Multi-tenure submissions are a lot more work
• ABR – better error documentation
• RESULTS – old data still not loaded
• If data not there (in FTA) hold till there – don’t kick it out
• ILRR/LRDW where do you get the data – from which warehouse
• Web based apps - good

Day 1 – ESF Topic 2 – Professional accountability and data integrity
Jeremey Janzen - Group 1 - 3 charts

• Licensees are data suppliers
• Format, how much goes into the submission
• Need to set standards for data quality – how to monitor, how to correct errors
• Minor data mistakes can accumulate much quicker with a database
• What is the sense of the whole community regarding where ESF is today? Ralph W. seemed happy!
• Data fed back to licensee may not be as valuable for them even though it met MoFR needs
• District staff requiring optional fields
• Don’t forget this is a continuous improvement to meet customers needs
• Needs stronger clarity between legislation and interpretation (ABR particularly) e.g. Roads not built to highway standard (will fail within 30 years) so aren’t submitted
• Poorer data quality because have rules that allow divergences e.g. Transition, existing blocks carried forward but all done to different mappings standard and different code. Now GPS but people won’t correct if causes more work (disincentive) and professional issue
• Professionals delegating data collection tasks need to ensure collection done to standard
• What allowances are appropriate as part of the standard?

RECCOMMENDATIONS

• Policy needs to be consistently interpreted by RPFs
• ISO quality management system
• All submissions and data are through one-stop shopping and therefore verification of all crown land activities are viable through the chain of custody

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 2 – Professional accountability and data integrity
Jeremey Janzen - Group 2 - 3 charts

• Chain of custody – big issue
• Clarify is it the professional or the company or MoFR or other agencies making changes (ie. Liability)
• Isn’t this the same in the paper world?
• How to ensure the people making changes have proper authority and or proper professional
• How to track what happened if it goes to court
• Different levels of accountability to be aware of - e.g. metadata includes professional signature
• People submitting data on behalf of someone else (e.g. GIS for RPF) RPF’s sign off, give to clerk and clerical mistake made - RPF is still responsible but no electronic stamps back to RPF
• Need a means to audit/monitor the submission system – and should not be able to "go back and fix mistakes"
• Woodlot owners use service providers – no way for MoFR staff to know how far the business relationship goes (or if it even still exists), no idea what MoFR’s/gov’t’s legal accountability is in these cases
• Service providers get BceID’s on clients behalf, access to data, etc.
• Validation process before ESF submission goes thru? (standards at front end) to get higher data integrity
• Spatial errors (blocks slightly inaccurate) very hard to see
• New data standards (eg. Prepending 2 zero’s) – need to update/convert existing data in database, and, need to ensure all data submitters are updated/know about
• Submissions by different people may have different accuracy (e.g. 20m vs. 50m)
• Balance between business value of "good enough" data accuracy vs. everything absolutely perfect

RECCOMENDATIONS

• Train people professional accountability and need for data integrity
• Define security roles/functions e.g. Accountability matrix

Day 1 – ESF Topic 2 – Professional accountability and data integrity
Jeremey Janzen - Group 3 - 2 charts

• Chain of custody is ambiguous
• Data flowing from private companies to gov’t back to general public/industry and who is accountable for what, when?
• BCTS surveys submitted, check polygons etc gets put through, if gov’t chooses to change, they are accountable
• But, historical data is a problem
• System tracks data fine; it’s the process behind where breaks down, need to allow time for all stakeholders to prepare/learn and coordinate use
• FCI data vs. GPS – don’t agree and orthophotos and satellite imagery the accountability rests with the person making the latest submission
• There aren’t processes set up to get these obvious or "old technology" errors corrected ie. so the next submission won’t have the same problem
• More lead time before new systems come in – businesses and gov’t doesn’t get the warning they need to prepare for change before the change happens

Summary

• Theme 1
• Current situation – need to clarify accountability between professional, service provider, company, gov’t and how to ensure who has proper authority
• Theme 2
• Historically collected data e.g. FCI vs. new more accurate technology eg. GPS – we have better data on a piecemeal basis but no natural update process

• Observation
• We’re on a continuous improvement path – it was worse before, getting better, not where we want it yet, but improving. Keep as a goal.

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 2* – Professional accountability and data integrity
Mark Todd - Group 1 - 1 chart

• Accountability for submission of data – has professional accountability changed
• Variation from one district to another district
• Who gets to alter data? Cut block boundary into lake? When is this discovered, need rules for this
• Imprecise data
• Better data checking at time of submission
• Better validation methods to ensure good data in entered
• Issue for smaller firms to follow the established rules
• Issue with gov’t minimizing BCeID’s
• need signature to accompany BCeID
• issue - transfer of licensee/responsible for submissions
• opportunity – hierarchy of validation, rules with tenures/results

Day 1 – ESF Topic 2* – Professional accountability and data integrity
Mark Todd - Group 2 - 1 chart

• Use of BCeID/IDIR
• Licensee assignment of "license to submit"
• Due diligence tracking
• Data does not meet validation
• Spatial controls seem to control the spatial accuracy
• Aspatial data - more introduction to human error
• Spatial data collecting
• Tight chain may meet closing error but be positionally 30m shifted
• Addressing errors in Base (old) data
• Replace with new traverse or other method
• Standards?

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Standard validation process
• Consolidate "the" block
• Spatial metadata requirement

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 2*– Professional accountability and data integrity
Mark Todd - Group 3 - 1 chart

• Legal requirements for getting BceID
• Relationship between BceID account and persons collecting data – "SmallTenure"
• Who is who from MoFR point of view
• Transfer of tenures "clouds the water"
• Accountability on all levels
• Best practices: assign varying levels of access
• Who is accountable for data

Day 1 – ESF Topic 3 – Data
Mary Lester - Group 1 - 1 chart

• Audit
• Who did what and when
• Can be expensive – cannot maintain all historic data
• VRI
• Update with ESF submissions
• WTP
• Need data to support objectives
• Data request can be very expensive
• To collect
• To store
• To submit
• Does it already exist in a format that can be used
• Make sure you really need it!
• Reviews of info collected – is it still relevant? and is it still being used?

Day 1 – ESF Topic 3 – Data
Mary Lester - Group 2 - 2 charts

• External from Gov’t – increase access to LRDW layers and imagery
• If you use the data, the quantity of data submitted will improve
• Need a process to get errors fixed in LRDW
• Don’t ask for data you already have or that can be derived from existing data
• New data compromised to match old/existing data
• Need to have consistent standards for data between Districts
• WTP’s included or excluded
• Data quality – old FTA data that is incorrect
• Geo-referencing
• ABR some data may not be useful (only 4 are mandatory)

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 3 – Data
Mary Lester - Group 3 - 2 charts

• We submit too much data
• Not being used
• What do you really need
• Why are we submitting info twice or more?
• For data collected
• Justification ( process/legislation)
• Can you get it somewhere else
• Publish it to everyone
• Corporate reporting system
• Value of submitting information will improve with useful reporting
• WTP’s – definition is different in RESULTS and FTA
• WTP – not in FTA (tenure)
• Inconsistency in dealing with WTP’s
• RESULTS – "the block"

Day 1 - ESF Topic 3 – Data
Nelson Lah - Group 1 – 1 chart

• Time it takes from regions to LRDW
• Not seeing all the data in one area
• FTA data "out of sync" until it is updated/approved, being "sat-on"
• Resolution of data different form licensees e.g. Small, med, large polygons "lumpers vs. splitters"
• Data quality issues around roads – differences between gov’t and industry
• TRIM roads over/under shoot with other data
• What are we doing with these data?
• Building digital road atlas – TRIM, ABR etc
• Streamline processes e.g. ECAS, FTA, linkages and dependencies between them
• Amend block requires resubmitting all blocks (many) within the permit
• Can get data out of the systems
• Still backlog of paper – map conversion
• Next
• FSP data
• Spatial for silv activities
• Newly submitted data conflicts with existing especially due to resolution change (e.g. more/less accurate)

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Day 1 - ESF Topic 3 – Data
Nelson Lah - Group 2 – 2 charts

• One submission for everything
• Utilization of data
• Decrease time form submission to being available
• Approach to deal with ‘legacy’ data
• A lot of operational database don’t exist
• How do you access overages (seamless)
• Have not been "rollup" yet sitting in local offices, not widely available
• Generally working well
• ABR data needs 2-3 months to get it right
• Data asking for already sent in via paper
• Reconcile "road name" and "section id" – renaming roads, who will do that?
• Matching up gov’t and industry data/database same thing to both sides
• Data clean up e.g. deletions etc
• FIA funding needed
• Stabilize the "quantity" to improve "quality" (ask for less)
• Approving fast enough
• ABR not about permitting "but C&E" (questionable)
• Not clear understanding on use of data and systems
• ECAS and FTA should need a relook what comes first? Not stop production processes
• Consistent ministry/biz model
• 10 character limit on "road name" going to 30 characters in FTA ver 4.0 (Oct 16)
• Interpretation of data by different people leading to different objectives
• ILRR vs. Mapview vs. LRDW vs. IMAP

Day 1 - ESF Topic 3 – Data
Nelson Lah - Group 3 – 2 charts

• Quantity, quality, costs
• Who owns the data? Unclear who is custodian
• Why all the data are requested e.g. ABR
• Not communicate
• Not relevant to gov/industry
• Look more closely on minimum data, yet meet the needs maybe different data
• Data provide to UBC how is it being used, how do we control its use, would we?
• Accuracy, resolution etc using data "wrongly" for decisions
• Is there data management plan in place
• Access, frequency of update etc
• Collecting data in advance/future (managed for uncertainty)
• Luxury item vs. benefits
• Make direct link between data and benefits e.g. sustainability
• Focus on core data to support core business drivers not summarized data
• "No" costs until you impose a "standard"
• Data is data - do we care how it is being used
• Legal, risks, due diligence, "costs"
• Confidential items vs. generally available
• Combining data 30 years old and some done today
• Old doesn’t mean it is inaccurate
• Compensating for errors
• Accuracy vs. precision
• What is the consequence of being wrong?

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 4 – Future implementation / evolution of ES or electronic commerce between stakeholders
Alan Newbert - Group 1 - 1 chart

• Oil and gas and wind and coal – data integration with MoF
• Lots of referrals
• no spatial
• no status info
• impacts on timber supply
• coal
• wind farms

Day 1 – ESF Topic 4 – Future implementation / evolution of ES or electronic commerce between stakeholders
Alan Newbert - Group 2 - 1 chart

• Use ISO principles in future ESF
• Responsible for data coming in and out
• Future impl
• Advanced warning
• Publish data standards
• Forum for users to have input
• Oil and gas – process required for interaction
• Do not move data – enable viewing between gov, forest, oil and gas
• Neural network
• Woodlots – low volume tight margins, low tech approach

Day 1 – ESF Topic 4 – Future implementation / evolution of ES or electronic commerce between stakeholders
Alan Newbert - Group 3 - 1 chart

• FRPA - FSP’s – digital submission
• Design criteria
• User group input
• End users gov’t and industry
• Smaller businesses – in on design
• Expand process wider in gov’t
• Digital submission of cruise data for CP
• Digital submission of all appraisal backup data
• Advance notice of new systems

Day 1 – ESF Topic 4 – Future implementation / evolution of ES or electronic commerce between stakeholders
Will Robins - Group 1 - 2 charts

• Standards around management of information required
• What are the best practices we have from implementation to date. These influence standard growth development
• Steps to provide data distribution
• Who are the players in making standards?
• How do we get agreement
• A forum that fosters
• Id of stake holder needs
• Comms plan strategy
• What does that forum look like
• Advisory group to provide guidance/recommendations to Gov’t for decisions
• Market the benefits of ES (promote)
• Show benefits through business case development
• Education and showcase operations that are using it
• Develop tools to address resistance to change
• Identify champions within user community of organizations

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Biggest selling point is access to collected data
• Market it, show them business value
• Develop business case, it will help in marketing development

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 4 – Future implementation / evolution of ES or electronic commerce between stakeholders
Will Robins - Group 2 - 2 charts

• Better two way communication back and forth between gov’t and industry
• Gov’t needs for data are being met. How to we look to meet licensees and small licensees requirements
• Communication around training to use system developed
• Improvement for ECAS/appraisal
• Electronic submission for cruise data
• Database sync between ministry and industry
• Related/work/use data in life format
• Live measured in minutes
• Formalized structure/working group to address issues. Focus efforts to improve and bring benefits to whole group
• One stop shop for data exchange i.e. TUS, Caribou habitat
• Data sharing partnerships
• Licenses to licesnsee
• gov’t to licesee
• get away from cost recovery

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Teamwork as whole industry and gov’t
• Standards (more)
• Better/improved access to data
• Two way data flow

Day 1 – ESF Topic 4 – Future implementation / evolution of ES or electronic commerce between stakeholders
Will Robins - Group 3 - 2 charts

• More attribute collection from overlay. Remove requirement to supply data that can be derived
• TL and CPs better handling of data submission
• What/how can we improve data sharing
• Decrease barriers critical as we move to FSP environment
• Continue to develop working relationships between industry and gov’t
• Better documents about system requirements linked to business and systems rules (leg/policy)
• Work towards convergence of data decrease diversity in data
• Error threshold for rejection can be changed 0.1 ha?
• FSP process will drive/encourage more sharing/improving
• Generic template sharing i.e. differ org census data common format is XML/GML
• Use ESF submission to correct/influence data quality improvements for existing data that is found to have/suspect errors (i.e. admin boundaries – parks, TFL’s, etc)

RECOMMENDATIONS

• ECAS/FTA integration
• Data standards – publish and communicate them

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 5* – Out of the Box - Brainstorm
Dave Andersen - Group 1 - 2 charts

• Sharing more data (lic./FN etc)
• Who should we share with
• Different levels of access
• Owners of data control how it is used
• Electronic data needs to be filed in a way that is it s easy to find/access
• Website to access data
• Formalized data standards
• Information given away can come back as a "club"
• Cost recovery for data sharing (company may have collected the data at their cost)

Day 1 – ESF Topic 5* – Out of the Box - Brainstorm
Dave Andersen - Group 2 - 2 charts

• BCTS – data interface between info and how its used
• No consist how info provided on websites (need standard format)
• Integration of appr map
• Is there a forum that covers what has been done, status of project etc
• Standardization of submissions
• Standardization across districts
• Supplemental info to submission
• Different timeframes for processing from office to office
• XML definition dictionary
• No reason to centralize data
• Come to get rather than pushing out data
• Terminal server available for small companies (ezilink, arc etc)
• No FIA funding for woodlot holders for maps etc
• More than one level of elect submissions
• Communicate how to access data in LRDW
• Reconcile cadastre data
• GENUS community license (for WL holders for example)
• One submission ECAS/ FTA
• BceID application online, but documents get mailed ? application
• BceID from Front Counter BC or Gov’t agent
• Update LRDW in real time

**There appears to be no group three though there are no titles or names on the charts, the division used between group 1 and group 2 appears to be a natural break between groups, there is no third division though.

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Day 1 – ESF Topic 5 – Out of the Box - Brainstorm
Pete Partee - Group 1 - 2 charts

• Industry access to ortho and SPOT – free
• Stream line data share agreement
• Bypass geomatics in the FTA process operate in audit mode
• Delegate data management to Reg/district level (local?)
• Real time update of core spatial layers
• Upfront data quality
• Live access from industry to get data sets for validation
• …approach to data access for analysis
• digital submission of base cruise data not summarized data

Day 1 – ESF Topic 5 – Out of the Box - Brainstorm
Pete Partee - Group 2 - 2 charts

• How far do we take the digital exchange of data?
• Cruise data
• Site level assessment
• Link with other industries
• Military
• Province to come up with high resolution digital elevation model for all users
• List of data sets we are required to manage
• Stream inventory standardized and made available
• Single data base for both gov’t and industry
• Free data exchange
• Single digital source for all data for gov’t and industry
• Focus on data standards and data completeness
• Collect sort info as part of cruise
• Harmonization of measurement of volume and qualtity species

Day 1 – ESF Topic 5 – Out of the Box - Brainstorm
Pete Partee - Group 3 - 2 charts

• BceID – report (?)on what applications a user has access to
• Email notification contains the app the email is coming from
• Ability for licensee to view FTA data
• Web access to GAS
• FTA to check for spatial conflicts
• Road map to government systems
• how systems relate
• what feeds what
• Redesign website for easy access and correct broken links
• View access to LRDW from mapping app

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