ADS unveils new intake process and flags potential automation projects including background checks

The Agency of Digital Services described a new project intake process intended to replace an older ITBC form and to produce fuller business cases earlier in a project’s life cycle.

"We recently, in the last 6 months, adopted a new intake process that replaces the ITBC form process," Stacey Gitsis Granfield told the committee. The intake process collects business outcomes and allows ADS to perform capability modeling, determine if a project can be done internally or requires procurement, and build a business case including cost workbooks.

Granfield said the intake has already captured roughly 60 new initiatives. She and committee members discussed the potential to use that intake process to identify manual processes across government for automation (for example, a background‑check process described as painful and manual). Granfield noted such cross‑government automation is a project in itself and requires funding to hire staff and execute.

On background checks specifically, Granfield said the digitization effort is in an RFP process and the timeline will depend on vendor selection; she described that project as "on track" in the intake pipeline.

Committee members and ADS staff also discussed the potential to standardize data fields and use APIs so modern (cloud) systems can integrate, while acknowledging legacy systems may not support modern APIs without replacement or significant work.