Efforts to streamline, simplify, and rationalize the picture of existing intergovernmental information systems in New York State are very desirable but they present their own complexities and challenges. Any transition to a more integrated and coordinated way of working adds new demands for planning, management, design, operations, and resource allocation. Figure 2 illustrates some of the elements that need attention. The horizontal axis of the figure represents increasing degrees of integration and notes key features of integration (common interface, single sign-on, integrated data, and integrated processes) necessary to achieve each higher level. As shown in the lower left, individual stand-alone systems represent the absence of integration.

The first true feature of integration is represented by a common Web interface that can be adopted for standard use by multiple stand-alone systems. Single sign-on, which requires identity management and role-based access, represents the next level of integration. It allows users to have secure access to some or all of the systems associated with their work by signing on once. When this feature is in place, users begin to experience the benefits of integration, but designers and system operators must accommodate higher levels of coordination and standardization.

Integrated data represents a significant increase in integration, whether that data is integrated across programs or units of a single organization or across multiple organizations. With this step, a wide variety of data management challenges must be addressed. These include agreement on data standards, quality control, stewardship mechanisms, and access and change rights.

Figure 2. Integration features, applications, and effects

The most advanced level of integration is represented by process integration, where organizations not only share and integrate their data, but revise their work processes to accommodate and capitalize on shared work processes and business practices.

The vertical axis of the figure represents increasing difficulty, complexity, and cost. As integration initiatives move from low-level efforts to co-located independent systems through a single Web interface, to single sign-on mechanisms, to creating integrated data repositories or applications that share data, to the very demanding applications that integrate both data and business processes, the cost, complexity, and difficulty rapidly increase.

The shaded boxes in Figure 2 place selected kinds of development efforts at the intersection of degree of integration and level of difficulty, complexity, and cost. The white boxes illustrate these types with applications from this project. For example, two of the individual applications in this project (Dog Licensing Application and Parcel Transfer Verification Check Application) were adaptations of existing non-Web applications. By revising them for the Web, the developers adopted a common Web interface. By contrast, the Contact Repository Application represented a new application that integrated data from multiple organizations into a single authoritative new source. This application was much more difficult and expensive to build. In the third example, the single sign-on feature of the Gateway Prototype allowed these different applications to be brought together in a single interface accessible with role-based identity mechanisms. This represents a middle-level of integration and resource investment. All of these examples are more fully discussed in Chapter 2.