The most difficult task in designing an evidence solution is to define the required evidence and model the evidence solution. This includes the modelling of all the real world events and circumstances which must be captured in order to determine eligibility for benefits and services.
The task of modelling an evidence solution works best as a shared project. Business analysts understand the business requirements, and thus the evidence that must be captured to determine case eligibility. The architect bridges between these business requirements and the technical components of the evidence solution.
There is no one way to go about modelling evidence solutions; however, there are certain high level considerations that must be addressed as part of designing an evidence solution. They are as follows:
- Gather Rules from Legislation
- The purpose of this task is to gather the rules required to determine case eligibility using as many primary resources as possible, e.g., government forms. This is a time consuming process which requires business analysts with knowledge and experience working with legislation.
- Design Rule Set
- The initial design of a rule set tends to be based on legislation research. It can be advantageous to have a rules architect involved in the designing of rule sets from as early on in the project as possible. The rules architect bridges between the rules legislation and the development of a rules set in the application.
- Determine What Needs to be Captured to Return Rule Results
- During this stage of a project, the focus starts to shift from rules to evidence. Each rule in the rule set will require some piece or even several pieces of evidence to return a rules result. Using a simple example, assume that an income support benefit has established income limits such that any person whose income exceeds this limit will not be eligible for income support. Based on this simple example, it makes sense then that the income amount over time must be captured for all claimants.
- Perform Gap Analysis
- The purpose of the gap analysis is to determine what information is already captured in the application and what information still needs to be captured.
- Create LDM and Page Specifications
- A logical data model based on the business requirements is constructed. It includes the evidence entities for capturing evidence as well as the categories for these entities and any relationships between them. From this LDM, pages can be designed to capture and maintain the information. The page specifications can also include navigation to related evidence.
- Check Soundness of Model
- Before the evidence requirements are implemented in the application, a technical architect can review the business requirements and check the soundness of the logical data model. This includes reviewing the rule set and checking whether or not the page specifications and navigation can be used to build a user interface.
In summary, the above tasks include three milestones in designing an evidence solution: the completion of a rule set, a logical data model, and a document with page specifications.
There are two additional tasks that are recommended as part of modelling the evidence solution: mapping evidence to products and identifying evidence relationships, both of which are described in this section.