California Pesticide Electronic Submission Tracking (CalPEST) (Formerly Known as PRDMS) - IT Project Tracking - California Department of Technology - California Department of Technology

Independent Project Oversight Report (IPOR) Rating

Green
- Satisfactory, no corrective action necessary.
Yellow
- Caution, risks/issues exist. There may be a need for corrective action in the near future.
Red
- Escalated for immediate corrective action. There is a significant risk to the health of the project.
Blue
- Not enough data is available to make a determination about the project health.
No Report Available - Indicates that a Report is not available for publishing for the reporting period.

3930-012 California Pesticide Electronic Submission Tracking (CalPEST) (Formerly Known as PRDMS)

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation proposes to develop a fully integrated system to encompass the pesticide product registration process and offer online functions to external stakeholders. The system will decrease the time needed to accept, review, and process product registration materials and provide online functions for stakeholder submission of related materials and payments.

Project Details

Agency / State Entity	Environmental Protection / Pesticide Regulation, Department of
Total Cost	$26,413,043
Last Approved Start Date	01/10/2015
Last Approved Finish Date	06/30/2024
Criticality Rating	High

IPOR Reporting Period	Overall IPOR Rating
12/01/2024 - 12/31/2024	Yellow

Independent Project Oversight Dashboard

Key Questions

Is the project on track to satisfy the customer's business objectives?Yes

Is the project on track to achieve the objectives in the approved timeframe?Yes

Is the project on track to achieve the objectives within the approved budget?Yes

Project Overall Health	Comments
Yellow	During this reporting period, the California Pesticide Electronic Submission Tracking (CalPEST) Project remained in Yellow (Cautionary) status. • The project continues to align with internal milestones per the last approved Special Project Report 4 (SPR 4), while proactively addressing challenges related to time, scope, resources, and quality. • The focus areas of resources, scope, time, and quality remain in Yellow status due to uncertainties related to upcoming sprint activities, pending technical schedule adjustments, and unresolved system security documentation. • The final Full System Acceptance (FSA) remains on schedule for August 2025, reflecting an additional two months required. • While this extended timeline is unlikely to exceed the 10% threshold that would trigger an SPR, CDT oversight reiterated its advice to the project team to ensure adequate funding for the two months of the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

Project Overall Health

Comments

Yellow

During this reporting period, the California Pesticide Electronic Submission Tracking (CalPEST) Project remained in Yellow (Cautionary) status. • The project continues to align with internal milestones per the last approved Special Project Report 4 (SPR 4), while proactively addressing challenges related to time, scope, resources, and quality. • The focus areas of resources, scope, time, and quality remain in Yellow status due to uncertainties related to upcoming sprint activities, pending technical schedule adjustments, and unresolved system security documentation. • The final Full System Acceptance (FSA) remains on schedule for August 2025, reflecting an additional two months required. • While this extended timeline is unlikely to exceed the 10% threshold that would trigger an SPR, CDT oversight reiterated its advice to the project team to ensure adequate funding for the two months of the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

Focus Area/Rating	Comments
Governance Green	The CalPEST Project Governance remains in Green (satisfactory) status. • The December 2024 Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting was not held due to key staff members scheduled to be out of the office during the Christmas holiday. • The next meeting is planned for January 15, 2025. • At the last PSC meeting on November 22, 2025, the project decision-making body received an update on current progress, with a specific focus on the upcoming Interim Implementation of version 1.5. • At the next PSC meeting, key updates will be provided on the remaining 6 of the project's 34 sprints, along with essential elements of the comprehensive security framework, including the SSP and NIST Control Sheet components.
Time Management Yellow	This focus area remains in Yellow (cautionary) status due to uncertainties regarding upcoming sprint activities, pending technical adjustments to the schedule, and unresolved documentation related to the System Security Plan (SSP). • The oversight team noted no concerns with the Interim Implementation of version 1.5, which successfully went live on 12/18/24 as planned. • Stabilization efforts are progressing smoothly, with no significant issues identified. Sprint 28 is on track to begin in January 2025 following the interim implementation. • The oversight team acknowledged the positive steps taken by the project team in reviewing the schedule and aligning the Product Roadmap, including the RTM and critical artifacts, to ensure there are no deviations. • Project management, communication, engagement, and collaboration efforts are also being conducted to streamline processes and administration, ensuring that time allocation does not detract from development and testing efforts.
Cost Management Green	The Cost Management focus area remains in Green (Satisfactory) status. • The IPO Manager has no concerns with project expenditure costs to date as reported in the project status report for December 2024 Project Status Report (PSR).
Scope Management Yellow	This focus area remains in Yellow (Cautionary) status as there have been no significant adjustments to the project scope as approved in SPR #4. • The oversight team reiterated its agreement with the IV&V report’s concerns regarding the potential impact on scope due to additional sprints and user stories. • The CDT Oversight Team continues to actively track and monitor the following three (3) open IV&V Findings: - IV&V Finding #36: Gaps in security measures could lead to inappropriate user access, breaches of customer confidentiality, and loss of public trust. - IV&V Finding #7: The MERP development team has not adhered to DPR-approved coding standards or widely accepted industry practices during the CalPEST development. - IV&V Finding #38: The project faces ongoing challenges related to a high volume of defects, particularly those with Critical or High priority in the area of security.
Resources Yellow	While project resources remain aligned with the latest project approval document (SPR #4), this focus area remains in Yellow status due to pending technical schedule adjustments that may impact its progress.
Quality Yellow	This focus remained in Yellow (Cautionary) status as the project oversight team continues awaiting the completion of the SSP, initially scheduled for October 15, 2024, but now rescheduled for January 15, 2025. • The SSP and NIST Control Sheet are essential components of the comprehensive security framework. • The Oversight Manager reviewed the December 2024 post-implementation report and identified no concerns with stabilization efforts underway, which continue to show significant improvement since the deployment date. • The Oversight Manager will continue to leverage the IV&V staff's work to validate the technical quality of the System Integration vendor’s deliverables against IEEE standards and address any concerns with the Project Team.
Risk And Issues Green	This focus area remains in Green (Satisfactory) status as the project team continues to capture and track project risks and issues proactively and effectively. • While the project is addressing minor post-go-live and production incidents, the oversight team continues to actively track and monitor the following two high-critical risks and two high-priority issues that remain open: * Risk-05: Regarding design and implementation that may fail to meet requirements and business needs. Risk-60: Regarding uncertainty in the deployment's level effort for features such as metrics gathering, public search functionality, payments, renewals, and other technical complexities. Issue-18: Testing, multiple critical and high-severity defects related to system security have been identified. Issue-19: Approximately 50% of the defects identified during testing are of critical and high severity, with some being reopened or recurring in different areas. • The oversight team noted the project's efforts in strategizing and reviewing mitigation tactics as part of the ongoing Risks and Issues Management plan and meetings.
Transition Readiness Green	This focus area remains in Green (Satisfactory) status. • During this reporting period, the Oversight Manager noted no concerns in transition and readiness efforts underway. • CDT oversight also noted that the repeated delays of the Technical User Guide and Knowledge Transfer Plans remain unclear. Initially expected on 11/22/24, these deliverables have now been postponed by five months to April 2025 after several rescheduling. • The Oversight Manager looks forward to observing the next steps in the knowledge transfer process during upcoming implementations.
Conditions For Approval Green	There are currently no conditions of approval.
Corrective Action Green	There are currently no corrective action plans.

Project Approval Documents

Currently unavailable

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2025-01-23 - Release-8