ICF

The Medicaid Enterprise Systems (MES) Hub, developed for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), represents a transformative solution for managing state funding requests and tracking multi-agency initiatives. Built on the Salesforce platform, the MES Hub leverages both out-of-the-box (OOTB) and custom Salesforce architecture to ensure secure, scalable, and efficient operations. The MES Hub successfully launched in March 2025, with over 200 Decision Packages created and a high adoption rate among internal users. This reflects the system’s usability, reliability, and alignment with stakeholder needs. Throughout the project, ICF’s Salesforce engineers were commended for their technical excellence, proactive collaboration, and high-quality deliverables across development, testing, and documentation in support of Medicaid. Their deep understanding of Salesforce architecture and commitment to CMS’s mission were instrumental in the project’s success.

The scope of this project included Help Desk Services to support two of our systems. The scope included supporting requests from both external (Community) and internal (licensed Salesforce) users for these two systems. This is a project that is renewed annually. ICF provided help desk staff that were extremely skilled (technically) and very professional. The assistance that they provided our users was very effective. They built and maintained reports relevant to help desk metrics, and produced reports and dashboards to show compliance against our metrics. We received numerous compliments about their help desk service, especially during peak times.

For the scope of this project, ICF planned, collected requirements, designed, built, tested, deployed, and documented all enhancements and changes needed in support of our Salesforce system as they applied all seven of our federal programs, including post-award compliance and reporting services. All services were implemented in the Salesforce Government Cloud. This work is renewed annually. ICF worked effectively with our program users. They consistently excelled with what we consider our two biggest challenges: (1) eliciting complete and correct requirements, and (2) managing concurrent teams with each program being in a different part of their round. ICF used an Agile (i.e., Sprint) process to work with our program and IT staff. For one of our program rounds, significant last-minute changes were needed, and ICF was able to redesign the code being deployed to meet these changes despite an aggressive deadline. In the end, ICF produced quality system products along with quality system documentation.

The scope of this project was to plan, collect requirements, design, build, test, deploy, and document compliance and reporting services for a new program – the CDFI Economic Relief Program (ERP) - in our Awards Management Information System (AMIS). ICF worked very effectively with our compliance staff. They leveraged their knowledge of our other program compliance processes to solicit requirements and help facilitate discussions about approaches and solutions. The timing of this project was complicated by the fact that there was a delay needed by our program staff in the middle of the project. ICF worked around this delay such that all compliance schedule requirements were met. In addition, different ERP compliant reports were due by ERP recipients at different times, so ICF performed two separate deployments to meet our schedule needs. Even with the challenges of implementing a new program compliance process and new compliance reports, ICF produced a quality system product along with quality system documentation.

For the scope of the Project, ICF planned, collected requirements, designed, built, tested, deployed, and documented all enhancements and changes needed in support of the CDFI Fund's Awards Management Information System (AMIS). AMIS supports 11 CDFI Fund programs through each phase of the programs’ life cycle. All services were implemented in the Salesforce GovCloud Plus. ICF worked effectively with our program users with what we consider our two biggest challenges: (1) eliciting complete and correct requirements, and (2) managing concurrent teams with each CDFI Fund program being in a different part of their round. Scheduling for this Project is challenging, because our programs have at least four releases annually. Certification services are ongoing, as are compliance services, so their releases must be added to an already complex schedule. Then, there is tech debt that must be addressed as well. Despite these interconnected complexities, ICF met their schedules such that our programs never experienced a delay.

The scope of this project was to plan, collect requirements, design, build, test, deploy, and document a suite of backlogged compliance- and certification-related enhancements to the CDFI Fund Awards Management Information System (AMIS). All enhancements were performed within the Salesforce GovCloud. Creative worked very effectively with our business users. Creative excels at eliciting complete and correct requirements, which is always a difficult task. In the end, Creative produced quality products along with quality system documentation. Creative uses an Agile methodology. Creative produced an overall Sprint schedule (using three-week Sprints) and a more detailed schedule within the Sprints. All deliverables within the Sprints were met on time, even with making adjustments for system requirement changes requested by the Government. During this performance period, Creative consistently demonstrated excellent customer service. Creative brought on-board skilled resources, managed their resource teams to meet (and often exceed) CDFI Fund schedule and quality expectations.

The scope of this project was to collect requirements, design, build, test, deploy, and document a new grant program – the Small Dollar Loan Program (SDLP) - in the CDFI Fund Awards Management Information System (AMIS). The SDLP provides grants for Loan Loss Reserves to enable a Certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) to establish a loan-loss reserve fund in order to defray the costs of a small dollar loan program, and to provide grants for Technical Assistance to a Certified CDFI to establish and maintain small dollar loan programs. The project scope included (1) building four different application types, providing a means for applicants to start, revise, upload attachments, complete, sign, and submit an SDLP Application, (2) building a new review process (unlike other CDFI Fund programs) to review the grant applications, and (3) build the SDLP Agreement process and document, which again, was unlike any other CDFI Fund program. All services were implemented in the Salesforce GovCloud. Building out the SDLP program was exceptionally complex, as it involved not only the CDFI Fund, but the Department of Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Work had to commence before all program-decisions were made. Creative exceled at eliciting requirements. Given Creative's familiarity with other CDFI Fund programs, they were able to ask questions that the SDLP program staff had not yet considered, and guide them through an iterative and comprehensive requirements collection process. Despite changes in requirements, often driven by organizations outside of the CDFI Fund, Creative was able to meet their schedule such that the SDLP program never experienced a delay. In addition, Creative produced quality products along with quality system documentation. Throughout the project, Creative consistently demonstrated excellent customer service. Creative brought on-board skilled resources, and managed their resource teams to meet (and often exce

For this project, Creative completed development of a suite of Assessment and Risk Management (ARM) tools for the CDFI Fund that assess CDFI Certification and Financial Award program applicants and recipients of their financial and programmatic risk. The ARM framework consists of 6 tools, where each tool goes through a six-step lifecycle process: (1) determine high-level strategies and measures, (2) conceptual design, (3) beta model, (4) revised tool, (5) Awards Management Information System (AMIS) integration, and (6) tool recalibration. Creative worked efficiently with CDFI Fund Business Units on all of the steps, including training so that CDFI Fund staff could be “expert users” with each tool. All delivered requirements were accurate, detailed, and well-written. All system development was extremely well planned, designed, built, tested, and deployed. At the start of the project, Creative produced a clear and detailed schedule for all activities. Creative kept the schedule current so that the CDFI Fund was always aware of what activities were complete and what activities were in-progress. Creative provided all deliverables on-time according to this schedule. During the project, Creative consistently demonstrated excellent customer service. Creative brought on-board skilled resources, managed their resource teams to meet (and often exceed) CDFI Fund schedule and quality expectations.

This project was to upgrade the User Interface (UI) of the CDFI Fund Awards Management Information System (AMIS) from Salesforce Classic to Lightning. There were two major aspects to the conversion to Lightning. (1) The CDFI Fund uses a UI framework called the “Template Architecture” for program applications, application reviews, and other program-related business processes. Converting the Template Architecture to Lightning was one aspect. (2) Each CDFI Fund program, at a high level, follows the same lifecycle processes: application, external review, internal review, award, and post-award compliance. AMIS capabilities to support these processes (that are not using the Template Architecture) must be converted to Lightning. In addition, the UI for cross-program services, such as obligations and payments, and Data Act Reporting must be converted to Lightning. Converting the UI for these program lifecycle and cross-program services was the other aspect. All enhancements were performed within the Salesforce GovCloud. Creative demonstrated exceptional technical expertise, especially with respect to the Lightning UI. In addition, Creative used the opportunity to refactor and clean up code. Finally, Creative needed to update all documentation with new screen shots and process descriptions. Creative also developed several short videos to help both our internal and external users. In the end, Creative produced quality products along with quality system documentation. This was a lengthy project, going for about 16 months. At the start of the Order, Creative produced a high-level sprint schedule, then produced a detailed schedule for all activities within each sprint. Creative kept the schedule current so that the CDFI Fund was always aware of what activities were complete and what activities were in-progress. The only challenge with the schedule was the deployment to our grant applicants and recipients, in that we did not want to change their UI in the middle of an application

For the project, Creative planned, collected requirements, designed, built, tested, deployed, and documented all enhancements and changes needed in support of the current Awards Management Information System (AMIS) capabilities, including CDFI Fund award/allocation programs (i.e., BEA Program, CDFI/NACA Program, CMF Program, NMTC Program, Bond Program) and CDFI Certification services (i.e., CDFI Certification, CDE Certification, Annual Certification Report). All services were implemented in the Salesforce GovCloud. Creative worked very effectively with our program users. They consistently exceeded our expectations with what we consider our two biggest challenges: (1) eliciting complete and correct requirements, and (2) managing concurrent teams with each CDFI Fund program being in a different part of their round. Creative used an Agile process to work with our program and IT staff. Due to AMIS design improvements that were proposed and built by Creative, Creative was able to significantly reduce the number of sprints needed for routine O&M. The CDFI Fund was able to repurpose those sprints for needed system enhancements that would have otherwise been deferred. In the end, Creative produced quality products along with quality system documentation. Scheduling for this project was challenging, because CDFI Fund programs have at least four releases annually. Certification services are ongoing, as are compliance services, so their releases must be added to an already complex schedule. Then, there is tech debt that must be addressed as well. Despite these interconnected complexities, Creative met their schedules such that our programs never experienced a delay. During this performance period, Creative consistently demonstrated excellent customer service. Creative brought on-board skilled resources and managed their resource teams to meet (and often exceeded) CDFI Fund schedule and quality expectations.