The CHALLENGE:

Replace a legacy Oracle Forms application used to deliver member services and process financial transactions with a modern, scalable platform capable of supporting current and future business requirements.

The OUTCOME:

The client successfully modernized a mission-critical business system, replacing a legacy technology platform with a modern enterprise application that supports key member services and processes high volumes of financial transactions.

Beyond preserving essential business functionality, the new solution introduced enhanced workflows, expanded capabilities, and a more intuitive user experience. The modernization improved operational efficiency while strengthening the organization’s ability to address evolving requirements for security, reliability, integration, maintainability, and long-term scalability.

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BUSINESS CASE: 

ARC had an established relationship with the client for several years before being invited to participate in a preferred vendor procurement process. ARC successfully secured preferred vendor status and has continued to provide technology services to the organization since that time.

The client relied on a legacy Oracle Forms application to support a wide range of critical member services and financial processes. The platform incurred significant licensing and support costs and did not provide the flexibility and capabilities available through a modern .NET technology stack and application architecture.

Modernization provided several key benefits:

• Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem and Azure – Supporting alignment with the organization’s Microsoft-first strategy and integration with technologies such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, Azure, and Power Platform.

• Modern, decoupled architecture – Providing a scalable and maintainable architecture with API-based integration for existing and future systems.

• Modern browser-based experience – Allowing users to access the application through standard web browsers without requiring a Java runtime.

• Enterprise identity and SSO – Supporting centralized identity management and organization-wide single sign-on.

• Improved observability – Enabling structured logging, tracing, metrics, health checks, and integration with enterprise monitoring services.

• Reduced skills and resourcing risk – Reducing reliance on increasingly specialized legacy Oracle Forms expertise.

• Greater platform flexibility – Using the widely adopted .NET platform to provide greater flexibility for future integrations and hosting options.

• Modern DevOps and release management – Supporting automated builds, testing, deployment, and CI/CD pipelines.

• Modern development tooling – Providing development teams with actively maintained tools for debugging, testing, source control, code analysis, and ongoing application development.

BUSINESS SOLUTION:

ARC developed a modern enterprise application to replace the legacy Oracle Forms solution and establish a sustainable platform for future business capabilities.

Existing business processes and rules were analyzed, validated, and reimplemented while identifying opportunities to improve functionality, usability, integration, and maintainability.

Requirements were established and refined through ongoing collaboration with business units and subject matter experts (SMEs), supplemented by reverse engineering of legacy application functionality, source code, and data structures.

The solution included the following mission-critical modules:

• Accounting – Supports financial configuration and workflows for incoming and outgoing funds, refunds, overpayments, invoices, tax documents, banking transactions, reconciliation, and integration with the client’s accounting system.

• Membership – Supports annual membership renewals for thousands of members, including eligibility rules, application management, and external registration and billing data.

• Liability Reimbursement – Processes imported data used to generate and evaluate claims for reimbursement benefits.

• Committee Expense Program – Manages expense claims, rate calculations, financial transactions, disbursements, and tax calculations for members participating on boards and committees.

• Insurance – Supports applications, policies, coverage, invoicing, annual renewals, eligibility rules, and data exchange with underwriting organizations.

• Health Benefits – Processes health and dental claims and member/dependent coverage using automated workflows, auditing, external integrations, and premium collection.

• Physician Locum Services – Supports onboarding, applications, assignments, claims, complex payment rules, and disbursements associated with locum services.

• Parental Leave Program – Manages member-submitted and internally entered parental leave claims through an eligibility engine and auditable workflow.

• Continuing Medical Education – Manages annual education allotments and claims through eligibility rules and auditable workflows.

• Additional Benefit Programs – Provides the ability to efficiently introduce smaller modules for importing and processing data into physician disbursements.

The application also integrates with several cross-cutting enterprise systems, including:

• Member Portal – Exchanges information between the application and member-facing dashboards, claims, and program services.

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Provides CRM contact and organization information used across application modules while receiving specialized data generated by the application.

• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) – Supports server-side reporting and client access to reports.

Transferrable Experience:

This project demonstrates ARC’s ability to modernize complex, mission-critical legacy applications while preserving essential business rules, financial processes, integrations, and operational continuity.

The experience is particularly transferable to organizations that:

• Depend on aging or highly customized legacy applications.

• Need to migrate from specialized or difficult-to-support technology platforms.

• Process complex financial transactions or benefit programs.

• Require integration with Microsoft enterprise technologies.

• Need to modernize without losing decades of embedded business rules and functionality.

• Require scalable platforms capable of supporting future business requirements.

ARC’s experience analyzing legacy source code, data structures, workflows, and business rules also provides a strong foundation for modernization projects where existing documentation or access to original system developers may be limited.

Technologies Used:

Key technologies, platforms, and delivery approaches included:

• Microsoft .NET

• Microsoft Azure

• Microsoft Dynamics 365

• Microsoft SQL Server

• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)

• API-based integrations

• Single Sign-On (SSO) and enterprise identity management

• CI/CD pipelines

• Automated testing

• DevOps practices

• Agile and incremental software delivery

• Visual Studio

• Modern browser-based application architecture

Lessons Learned:

Several important lessons emerged from the project that ARC can carry forward into future legacy modernization initiatives:

• Business participation and availability are critical. Business stakeholders need sufficient capacity to participate in analysis, requirements clarification, validation, and joint application development sessions. Reverse engineering requirements from application screens, source code, and data is considerably more time-consuming and introduces additional risk.

• Legacy-system SME availability should be treated as a key project dependency. Access to people who understand the existing application can significantly improve development velocity and reduce incorrect assumptions and rework.

• DevOps automation enables rapid feedback and continuous delivery. Automated delivery of functional iterations to QA resources and business stakeholders supports tighter feedback loops, earlier issue identification, and more efficient use of developer resources.

• Early estimates should be treated as forecasts rather than commitments. Estimates for large bodies of legacy functionality contain inherent uncertainty and should be progressively refined through detailed analysis, sprint planning, implementation, feedback, and collaboration.

• Implementation should remain incremental and Agile. Even where detailed up-front requirements are necessary, backlog prioritization, regular sprint planning, demonstrations, code reviews, velocity monitoring, and continuous stakeholder feedback help identify roadblocks and validate assumptions before issues become significant.

• Automated testing requires deliberate investment but delivers long-term value. Automated testing reduces regression risk and provides an important safety net as applications transition from project teams into ongoing operations and support. The necessary development and DevOps capacity should be included as an intentional part of the delivery strategy.

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