Imagine a world where you consume a service but don’t receive a bill until two years later. Until July 2021, that was the accepted and standard Common Policy billing methodology for Colorado’s state agencies. Whether it was for our agencies or vendors, we knew there needed to be greater transparency and visibility into the finances, resources and assets that drive project and program decisions. We streamlined processes across the board so that everyone who needs to deliver for Coloradans can do so on time, with the information they need to be effective stewards.

Completed Projects

Implement OIT Financial Transparency: Real-time Billing (RtB)

Real-time Billing is a foundational part of statewide IT transformation, driving significant change and improvement for our customers. By eliminating a two-year billing lag time, developing fixed rates for the entire year and implementing agency representation into the process for two-way accountability, agency leaders can take ownership to strategically address their IT needs and we can focus on quality service with accurate and detailed reporting.

Thanks to Real-time Billing, we can now:

Provide more detailed and transparent invoices that reflect actual usage;
Set annual fixed rates, enabling better planning by agencies and technical staff; and
Increase agency cost control and ownership of IT costs to support their programs.

In addition, the interactive and user-friendly OIT Billing website has revolutionized OIT’s budget and billing interface. Customers can quickly and easily see what IT services they consume and what they are being charged, resulting in fewer questions and billing disputes.

“It’s helped us with transparency, prioritizing our projects and keeping an eye on our budget. Real-time Billing has enlightened us to some expenses this year and has shown us the necessity of those expenses. It has brought about great conversations to reconcile internal processes to get billing correct."

– Amelia Larson

Department of Healthcare Policy & Financing

image to show that 100% of agencies paid their bills on time in final quarter of fiscal year 22

Establish an IT Asset Management (ITAM) Program

Implementing IT Asset Management (ITAM) was a collaborative project to provide a single modern solution for OIT and agencies to track hardware on the state network. Nearly 68,000 hardware assets are already being tracked. With automated data collection, manual processes are being reduced, making it easier for agencies to see the physical and software assets currently in use. Agencies using the ITAM module within our new ServiceHub platform are able to analyze and optimize asset utilization, track compliance, achieve cost savings, and use the data for better decision-making resulting in cost savings and optimization of assets.

"Any agency struggling to manage hardware assets or create a strategy to ensure those assets remain current would benefit from the disciplined use of asset management."

– Natasha Myers

Strategic IT Initiatives Lead, Department of Health Care Policy & Financing

Mature Vendor Management

OIT’s Vendor Management Office (VMO) recognized a need for a more robust process and program for managing vendors. A risk assessment program was stood up and additional vendors and value-add resellers were added to help mature the VMO. The result is improved visibility into vendor contractual commitments, documented roles and processes, and better paths for OIT to work with agencies in managing IT vendors.

image to show that 75 risk assessments were performed

Financial Transformation

Financial transformation builds on the work we’ve done in partnership with agencies to simplify the very complex billing methodology that had been in place for more than a decade. All service billing is now completed through the new Real-time Billing model, eliminating a nearly two-year lag between service use and billing. New services and changes to current services are reviewed by the Rates and Services Board made up of OIT and agency representatives. The number of interagency agreements and direct billing has been reduced, allowing OIT to account for all service demands when setting rates. We’ve also created sustainable funding to address and prevent technical debt.

Procurement Evolution

The limitations of the Procurement Code require a creative approach to solicitations and contracting that will allow for access to high quality, reasonably priced IT goods and services while also allowing for innovation. We developed a toolkit to meet these needs and help ensure vendor and project success. With this evolution of our procurement services we are improving tracking and reporting, improving procurement lead times, expanding the availability of quality IT goods and services via enterprise agreements and improving contract outcomes through proactive risk assessments.

Streamline Enterprise & Recurring Services on Interagency Agreements

In the past, it wasn’t unusual to have several hundred Interagency Agreements (IA) with agencies each year to bill for enterprise products, services and staff augmentation. The result was an environment of siloed, fragmented and individualized service provision. A majority of IAs have transitioned into our standard service charging approach giving agencies a better understanding of the costs of these services and allowing them to better plan for consumption of services. It lets us focus on delivering enterprise IT services, as well as reducing the amount of financial administration it takes to deliver those services.