From SFC2007 to SFC2014 Luis Velasco DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion 16.01.2013

From SFC2007 to SFC2014

Luis VelascoDG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion16.01.2013

1. Introduction

2. What remains from SFC2007

3. What changes in SFC2014

4. Next Steps

Agenda

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SFC2007

• SFC2007 is the official channel for data transmission, giving legal value to electronically signed and submitted data and documents – to and from both Member States and the Commission

• 6 years of operation, 10 funds, >6000 users in the EU institutions, 27 Member States and 3 accession countries

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European Regional Development Fund

(ERDF)

European Social Fund(ESF)

European Agricultural Fund

for Rural Development

(EAFRD)

European Fisheries Fund

(EMFF)

SFCEuropean Cohesion

Fund(CF)

Instrument for Pre-Accession

Assistance (IPA)

DG Home Funds (Asylum and

Migration)

SFC2007 is the one stop shop for Shared Management for the period 2007-2014 and SFC2014 will be its successor for the new period

SFC2014

• Is the replacement of SFC2007 for the new programming period• New regulation• Modified processes

• Efficiency and user-friendliness• Information quality• Technological advances

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Legal Basis for SFC2014• COM(2012) 496 final - 2011/0276 (COD): Proposal for a "REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND

OF THE COUNCIL" laying down common provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund covered by the Common Strategic Framework and laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006. (RPC)

• COM(2011) 752 final - 2011/0367 (COD). Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL laying down general provisions on the Asylum and Migration Fund and on the instrument for financial support for police cooperation, preventing and combating crime, and crisis management. (AMF)

• COM(2011) 750 final - 2011/0365 (COD). Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL establishing, as part of the Internal Security Fund, the instrument for financial support for external borders and visa. (ISF)

• COM(2011) 627 final/3 - 2011/0282 (COD). Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). (RD)

• COM(2011) 804 final – 2011/0380 (COD). Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. (EMFF)

• /* COM/2011/0614 final - 2011/0275 (COD) */ Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on specific provisions concerning the European Regional Development Fund and the Investment for growth and jobs goal and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1080/2006

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Regulations and implementing acts still in discussion

So…IT Requirements are yet subject to

some changes

What SFC2014 aims to bring to MS• Focus on content: the new system will reduce the discussions on

procedures and will focus more on content.• Improved reporting• Content accessibility: the new system will improve the data management

by increasing the amount of structured data compared to unstructured office automation documents (i.e. Word, PDF, etc.). Benefits are foreseen in the content delivery, in the data management, in the monitoring and reporting activities, in the access to specific information.

• User specific views: the new systems will allow checks, searches, validations and aggregation of information provided by applicants depending on the needs of the user. A dashboard will at any time reflect the status of the processes and the tasks requested from the user.

• Simplified data manipulation: the system will reduce the overall workload of business representatives in the EC and in the MS.

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What SFC2014 aims to bring to the European Commission• Single implementation of the rules on Programme management for all

participating actors• More automation:

• automatic controls of information• automatic calculations• automatic decisions based on content (No need of a Commission Decision for

non essential fields in the OP – those not part of Commission Decision)

• Less administrative burden:• no more physical document shipping resulting in reduced shipping times• on-line status tracking resulting in more transparency• faster pay-out thanks to electronic payment claims

• Streamlined workflows for administrations with less paperwork• Generation of annual reports, official documents, decisions in one-click• Improved reporting from day 1• Improved interoperability with other systems in the Commission (ABAC, e-

GREFFE, WFS, EFFONT, RDIS II, Ares …)

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Agenda

1. Introduction

2. What remains from SFC2007

3. What changes in SFC2014

4. Next Steps

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•Partnership Agreement•Progress Report on implementation of PA•Strategic Report on implementation

•Interim Payment Application•Annual Accounts and Clearance•Interim Payment Acceptance

•Final Payment Application•Final Payment Acceptance

•Proposal Preparation•Proposal Decision Management•Proposal Modification

•Annual/Final Implementation Reporting•Report Acceptance Management

•MS Audit Reporting•Mission Follow-up•Financial Corrections•MS Audit Report

•Ex-Ante Evaluation MS•Ex-Post Evaluation EC

Strategic Planning

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Programming2

Monitoring3

Execution4

Audit6

Closure7

Evaluation5

Reporting

Financial Management

Support Processes

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The Business Model is basically the same with some modifications

Member States

Local/Regional/National Portals Central

SystemMS

European Commission

Web InterfaceUser

WebServices

Front Office SFC2014

ECWorkflow system

EC Document Registry

ECFinancialSystem

WebServices

SFC2014 allows a streamlined communication of information between National authorities and EC systems via (i) Web service interface (ii) Web services

Architecture remains similar

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Architecture is very similar (Cont.)

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User Roles do not change

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Use of WebServices in SFC2007

• Only 9 of the 27 Member States have implemented some of our web services (CY,CZ,DE,ES,GR,IT,NL,PT, SK)

• Only Payment Request service is implemented by all 9

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Use of WebServices in SFC2007 (Statistics)

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Use of WebServices (Objectives SFC2014)• Increase of web service clients. More Member

States should try to implement our services and link their local systems with SFC2014

• Increase in the number of services implemented. Member States should at least try to implement services of recurrent procedures like Payment Forecasts, Payment Requests, Annual Recovery Statements, Annual Implementation Reports …

And many other things will remain with slight improvements

• Notifications• Self-Registration to events• Improved USM for National Liaisons Officers• Automatic Document Registration• Reporting Wrapper• Scheduler• …• The same development team

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Lessons learned from SFC2007• Advantages

• Single shared repository• Transparency• Better overview• Faster processing• Webservices improved greatly efficiency

• Weaknesses and shortcomings• Still some duplication of data in different systems in the EC and

MMSS• Limited reporting and analysis possibilities• Minor modifications are cumbersome• Searching could be improved• Need of improved guidance

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Agenda

1. Introduction

2. What remains from SFC2007

3. What changes in SFC2014

4. Next Steps

SFC2014

• Build on SFC2007 experiences and overcome the weaknesses of SFC2007

• Streamline the workflow• Enhance the data quality• Seek long term efficiency gains• Improve performance• Improve Time to market• Improve user experience (in particular search and

access to information)• Improve usefulness of the system (Reporting)

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All information to be included in a Decision should be

provided in structured form

Principles for the form based approach• Everything is structured

• Data fields and tables• Lists• Check boxes + yes/no• Text fields

• Documents are optional and for information• Complete reference documents are produced by

the system based on the data • Changes compared to previous versions are

identified automatically

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Principles for the form based approach• Additional validation of data entered will be included in the

application and this will allow to improve data quality. A balance between flexibility and data quality rules should be struck

• Free Rich text fields exist and will allow copy paste but with some limitations:• Limitation on size. Let´s use copy paste but only to

provide relevant information• Text will be reformated to ensure "uniformity" of the

presentation. It will remain bullets, bold, underline and italics

• Images and Tables will not be allowed inside free text fields but could be uploaded separately in attached documents

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Better Performance

• SFC2007 has provided reasonable performance but in specific dates (June and December periods) the results have not been optimal

• We have improved that during the last years but it is not enough

• For SFC2014 we are going to opt for a clustered architecture that can be scalable and where more capacity can be added on demand

• In the same context, we are going to use virtualized environments with dedicated resources both for processing and database

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Other measures for performance

• Implementation of lazy loading (only download what you need and not full objects, query results …)

• Simplification of security model to reduce the number of objects to be loaded in memory at a given time

• Use Java 6• Use latest version of Weblogic, DB…

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Better time to market

• The new development architecture will allow the generation of the WS interface almost at the same time than the web interface

• Better development tools• Standard frameworks (Vaadin, EJB, JPA)• Better use of Rational suite in data modelling• More automated testing (specially regression)

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Modern Clean User Interface

• Use of Last generation UI framework• Proven and well supported• Good community of developers• Fast development of advanced interfaces• Very good user experience. Ajax and Partial Page

Rendering guarantee an improved user experience

• Good performance

• Include the new visual identity of the European Commission

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Reporting Functionallity from day 1

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User from

MMSS

Security ModuleReport Engine

WrapperBusinessObjects SFC2007 Data

Depending on the profile access is

restricted to some specific

reports

SFC2007

The user can dynamically select some

parameters for the execution of the report

The report is executed in background

and the response is sent back to

the user

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How this happens After logging in Utilities, Reports the user can see the reports available to

his/her profile

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How this happensThe user selects a report

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How this happensThe user selects the parameters for

execution

…and which output he/she prefers

• Requirements for the system are still in progress. In particular templates for the new programming data models are still under discussion.

• The first functionalities for SFC2014 have just started being developed

• Workload to develop the systems both at EC and in MMSS should not be underestimated.

• System will become operational in time for the first Partnership Agreement and OP submissions (est. summer 2013)

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Status of Developments

Support And Contact• Support for SFC2007 and SFC2014 web

applications• sfc2007-info@ec.europa.eu• ec-sfc2014-info@ec.europa.eu

• Support for SFC2007 and SFC2014 Web services

• empl-sfc2007-ws@ec.europa.eu• ec-sfc2014-ws@ec.europa.eu

• Conference web site• http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/conferences/sfc2014/agenda_en.cfm

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SFC2014 Front-OfficeDemo

Eric KilianDG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion16.01.2013

1. More detailed view on changes

2. Screen examples of new features

3. Demo

Agenda

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• Roles were related to a DG which caused problems for • The MS who deal with Funds and not with Commission DG's • Security authorization mechanism when a DG manages more than 1

Fund (ex. REGIO: ERDF, CF and IPA)Improvement: Roles will be used in relation to Funds allowing fine grained authorization.

• Login• Use of nominative Ecasnames • Migration to be started already in SFC2007• Same Ecasname for SFC2007 and SFC2014• But separate Access Requests to be issued by MS Liaisons for SFC2007

and SFC2014Improvement: Single Sign-on+ More personalized Access

• Certificates for Web Services: No changes• New User and Security Module to request access in line with

• New UI of SFC2014 Front-Office• New Roles' structure

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Changes in Security and User Management

• Users can have different Profiles. Each Profile has his own set of Roles and is defined against a Node.

• The Node hierarchies currently in place will be copied over to SFC2014. If changes are needed, please let us know.

• It will be possible to delegate his Roles to another User defined on the same Node for maximum 2 weeks. If the grantee needs these roles for a longer period, they have to be requested via the MS Liaison.

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Changes in Security and User Management

• The MS Liaison officers will continue to play a key role in keeping the users that have access to the system updated

• Each MS is responsible to ensure that an appropriate security policy is applied in order to strictly restrict the access on a "need to know" basis

• When your systems interact with SFC, they should have similar security assurances as the ones applied in SFC

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But remember Security is not alone a responsibility of the SFC application. The main responsibility is in your side

• The Workflow Node Hierarchy determines how information is transmitted via the system

• Node Skip can be defined per Node, Object Type and CCI

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Bidirectional or Unidirectional Node Skip

Commission

National level

Regional level 1 Regional level 2

Commission

National level

Regional level 1 Regional level 2

Bidirectional Skip of National Level Unidirectional Skip of National Level

• New format: YEAR CC DG FF TP SEQ • Year = Start Year of the Programme/Object• CC = Country or Geographical Region • DG = Numerical code of the DG chef de file • FF= Character code for the Fund(s) covered by the Programme/Object• TP = Type of Object• SEQ= Sequence

• One extra character for FF to cover the increasing number of Funds and Fund combinations in the Programmes.

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CCI Common Code Identifier

CCI code length from 14 to 15 characters

• In SFC2007• Every action on an object generates an event• Officials in charge of the object are automatically notified by email• Every user can request to receive notifications of groups of events for

certain Countries and Funds via an Excel form.

• In SFC2014• Same event and notification mechanism• Self-registration within the SFC2014 application, not only by group of

events, but if needed per specific event type.

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Event notification self-registration

• Authentication still via a Certificate• Web Service operations for the Member States will be mostly the

same (read, validate, save …)• Object Types and their structures will be different• SFC2007 WS development uses JAX-RPC (Java API for XML-based

Remote Procedure Call)• SFC2014 WS development uses JAX-WS (Java API for XML Web

Services)• Java stubs not constrained to Oracle Weblogic anymore, but

usable with any JE6 certified Application Server

Better interoperabilityFaster development

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Web Services

1. More detailed view on changes

2. Screen examples of new features

3. Demo

Agenda

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Screen examples for a programme

• Disclaimer:• The following screens do not resemble the final product

• Build based on draft regulations available last November• User Interface features still need to be streamlined

• They are used only for demonstrating the principles of the structured data approach and of some new features in the web application

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• Navigation via standard menu or via direct CCI search

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• Possibility to open multiple tabs with different OPs or OP versions

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• Edit without the need to navigate away from the display page

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• Rich text editing for big text fields

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• Inline edit for numeric tables

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• Compare against previous versions integrated in each screen

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• Compare also exists for rich text

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• Possibility to dialogue/observe/communicate between users within an object

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• Dashboard: quick overview of tasks, upcoming events, delays, news, risks, ….

1. More detailed view on changes

2. Screen examples of new features

3. Demo http://158.166.232.190:7001/sfc2014/frontoffice

Agenda

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