BEST Program Timeline

Phase One

Project Activities

May 2025

Comptroller McNamara at a podium in front of a large screen with a title slide that says MASSBUYS introduction to Mosaic

Mosaic at MASSBUYS

Mosaic took the stage at the annual MASSBUYS Conference at Gillette Stadium!

During the workshop, Comptroller McNamara and members of the BEST Functional team outlined the transformational benefits of SaaS software and some of the features users can expect to experience on Day 1 of the new solution to a record-breaking 300 attendees.

Participants received a sneak peek at the Mosaic interface and left the session with a fact sheet depicting some of the biggest changes and improvements users can look forward to in the Commonwealth’s new financial solution.

March 2025

Mug on napkin with Together Everyone Achieves More with letters TEAM circled

First CAN Forum

We held our first Change Agent Network (CAN) Forum on March 20 attended by nearly 200 Change Agents from across the Commonwealth. We discussed how CAN members will partner with the Readiness Team to develop agency readiness plans for the transition from MMARS to Mosaic.

January 2025

Introducing… Mosaic!

The name Mosaic was chosen by BEST Program stakeholders and reflects the user-friendly interface of the new application: it is a “mosaic” of the various financial and business processes encompassed in the single solution.

Mosaic logo: mosaic in all caps surrounded by blue squares in a gradient going from light to dark

November 2024

Change Agent Network (CAN) Kickoff and Onboarding

In late November, the BEST Program onboarded its first cohort of Change Agents. These agency representatives will be key partners in ensuring a seamless transition to the new financial solution. Change Agent onboarding continued through March 2025 and consisted of four cohorts of Change Agents.

August 2024

Interface Working Group Kickoff

Over 35 Commonwealth agencies interface with MMARS. The BEST Program’s Technical team has worked with these agencies to establish a network of Technical Interface Contacts (TICs) and Business Interface Contacts (BICs) to support the review of interface specifications.

July 2024

Beginning of Change Agent Recruitment

Change Agents are agency representatives and key partners in supporting the change journey; they work directly with their agencies to help end users understand why the change is happening, what’s in it for users, and what the benefits are for users and the Commonwealth. These individuals provide knowledge about current processes, tools, and procedures within their own agencies, as well as information on organizational culture.

May 2024

Completion of First Conference Room Pilot

Sprints bring together the expertise and input of agency FIEs participating in Workshops and Sprint Reviews. Sprint participants attend Conference Room Pilots (CRPs) at the end of each Sprint cycle, providing opportunities to see real-time demonstrations of Advantage 4 components, functionality and capabilities which will be configured in the new system. This represents the completion of the first of what will be seven Configuration Sprints, each occurring over a five-week period through January 2025.

April 2024

Beginning of Configuration Sprints

Beginning of configuration and testing activities based on requirements confirmed by the BEST Program’s Functional Team and Financial Implementation Experts (FIEs) during Business Requirements Validation into action. This phase determines how opportunities for system improvement will be realized in the new Advantage 4.0 cloud-based application as it is implemented in the Commonwealth. Configuration Sprints will run through January 2025.

March 2024

Completion of Business Requirements Validation

Beginning in January 2024, Financial Implementation Experts (FIEs) from agencies across the Commonwealth collaborated to identify opportunities to improve our current financial business processes and describe functionalities that they would like to see configured in the new Advantage 4 system. Hundreds of user stories were developed by FIEs to represent important financial capabilities for agencies across the Commonwealth. These stories included opportunities to enhance the functionality in the new financial management system.

February 2024

Image of virtual white board with different post it notes with text

Phase 1: Project Kick-Off

Formation of Governance Bodies
Business Process Alignment
Requirements Validation
Human Centered Design

January 2024

Expansion of PMO & Subject Matter Experts

The Program Management Office expands to 25 staff members and onboards 80 Financial Implementation Experts (FIEs) from across Commonwealth agencies.

Launching the BEST Program

2023

Due Diligence Activities & Agreement Negotiations

Agreement negotiations commence in Spring 2023. Partnership with CGI for Phase 1 announced Winter 2023.

2022

Procurement of Financial Management & General Ledger Functionalities

Executive Sponsors release RFR for Software and Systems Integration services (combined) for Phase 1 Financial Management & General Ledger.

2021

Combined RFR Activities

Executive Sponsors release Request for Response (RFR) for a single ERP Software for combined Financials & HCM/Payroll functionalities. Evaluation Committee and Executive Sponsors determine that “best value” for the Commonwealth may need to be achieved through two separate Procurements for the replacement of MMARS and the replacement of HR/CMS.

2020

Image of the Operational Work Groups discussing functionalities in MMARS.

Inter-Agency Outreach & Formation of Operational Work Groups

Executive Sponsors release Request for Information (RFI) for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) replacement of MMARS and HR/CMS. Outreach conducted through Operation Work Groups (OWGs) with 159 agencies to gather information on current MMARS and HR/CMS opportunities for improvement.

2019

Visioning

Key Program stakeholders defined and expanded on BEST Program goals, objectives, purpose, and scope, which included the drafting, review, and finalization of use cases and other deliverables as part of the development and implementation of a broader strategic plan.

2018

Research & Requests for Information

PMO conducts RFI for SW/SI vendors of SaaS ERP solutions to replace MMARS and HR/CMS and develops first iteration of an RFR for single ERP solution based on Advisory Committee recommendations.

2017

Advisory Committee & PMO Set Up

The Office of the Comptroller forms interagency Advisory Committee for new ERP solutioning and begins establishment of the BEST Program Management Office (PMO).

History of MMARS & HR/CMS

2015

MassCareers Established

Introduced in 2015, MassCareers is the e-recruitment SaaS solution used by the Commonwealth’s Executive Departments, and by certain Independent and Constitutional Offices and Higher Education entities. There are inbound and outbound nightly interfaces with HR/CMS to both pull in foundational and employee data as well as to send candidate data for hiring transactions.

2004

NewMMARS

Introduced in 2004, The Massachusetts Management Accounting & Reporting System (“MMARS”) is the financial system of record for the Commonwealth. MMARS is the Commonwealth branding for CGI Advantage Version 3.9.1, a web-based system for agency users to record all accounting transactions of the Commonwealth. MMARS interfaces with users across all 159 departments in all branches of government to perform a wide array of financial and labor cost management functions. MMARS was moved to the AWS cloud in 2020.

2000

HR/CMS Established

The Human Resources/Compensation Management System (HR/CMS) is the Commonwealth’s payroll services application first introduced during the early 2000s as highly customized, licensed software hosted on premise at a Commonwealth facility. Since its implementation, the customization of HR/CMS has been reduced considerably from periodic upgrades made to the system. In 2019, the HR/CMS application was moved to the AWS cloud with no changes to the software’s core code.

1992

Establishment of the Commonwealth Information Warehouse

Introduced in 1992, the Commonwealth Information Warehouse (“CIW”) is a central data source gathered from the Commonwealth’s financial, HR and payroll systems: MMARS, HR/CMS, and LCM. Agency users can run custom queries and export data to Access or Excel. It is a critical source of financial and payroll data from which data are extracted to feed department-specific applications or to meet user needs.