The portal provides a number of key managed enterprise services that our partner agencies leverage to improve efficiency, reduce cost and provide services on a day-to-day basis. These services have been developed and are maintained at a significant cost to the portal. Most of these services are leveraged in our self-funded solutions.
Payment Processing
The portal processed payments totaling over $1.6 Billion in CY 2014 (Nov 20, 2014).
Payment processing can take place through the Internet, Over the Counter (OTC), or via mail and includes multiple payment methods:
- Credit card (in-person or Internet)
- Electronic check (ACH)
- Paper check
- Invoice (on account)
- Subscriber payment fees and terms
HIC has established Master Merchant Bank Accounts for processing all types of major credit cards and adds new sub-merchant accounts for each branch, department or division who would like to leverage this relationship at no charge. HIC has negotiated lower rates by leveraging the transaction processing of all state and county partners.
HIC provides our partners and their vendors with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), application support, and trouble shooting for its Payment Processing Service. The API is a simple web service that can be accessed by any platform. Currently it is being leveraged by systems running on Java, .net, Perl, and PHP.
HIC also provides initial customer support for payment and billing questions as well as help with subscriber account issues (i.e. Sign-up, forgotten password, disabled users, etc..)
Credit Card Processing
Credit cards are well suited for Internet payments because they allow the merchant to obtain a real-time authorization, which validates that the card is in good standing and has adequate funds available. After service is delivered for a transaction, the transaction is placed into a settlement batch for final processing. This batch is then sent to the processing network for settlement. HIC is able to disburse all credit card funds on a calendar day basis (12:00 AM to 11:59 PM HST) instead of the typical batch process (disbursements for each card type on a varying mainland time schedule). HIC also provides partners with automated downloads of fulfillment data for integration with backend systems. Most transactional applications take credit card payments.
ACH Processing (eCheck)
The ACH network provides a quick and effective way of moving money from one bank account to another. The customer provides their bank routing and account number, and this information is placed into an ACH file for processing. These files are processed nightly and the funds are typically deposited the following day. Processing charges are a fixed amount per transaction, unlike credit cards, which charge a percentage per transaction for processing payments. This makes ACH debits a desirable method for processing large payments, as illustrated by the numbers of existing eHawaii.gov customers who pay State Tax payments, Unemployment Insurance, Property Tax and Renewal fee Payments with this method. After a change in policy at the Budget and Finance office in 2012, HIC began originating EFT funds for tax payments directly into the state's bank account. This means that tax payments made online or at offices through HIC payment systems are deposited in the state's bank account the next banking day.
Monthly Accounts/Invoice Processing (Subscriber Account)
The third major payment method is the most traditional in its approach of billing customers for their online service usage on a monthly basis. This payment method is best suited for high volume, low transaction amount business-to-government services, such as driver records, criminal histories, business filings, document ordering and annual renewals. For these services, it is inefficient for a customer to enter payment information for each transaction. Additionally, processing fees associated with processing each transaction individually may be prohibitive. Therefore, the customer establishes an account through a monthly account process and receives an invoice for their total online services usage at the end of each month. Typically the customer then pays by an automatic debit via credit card or a bank account. Customers also have the option to remit payment at any time by paper check via our lockbox address. HIC processes credit card payments or ACH Debit received for the entire invoice amount at the end of each month.
Over the Counter (OTS) Payment Processing
In the some cases a partner wishes to process payments at the point-of-service for over the counter payments, HIC provides Over the Counter payment processing, inventory management and reporting systems to process those payments. Credit card and check scanning hardware are also available.
Outreach
Self-Funded eGovernment entails more than development, managing, hosting and maintaining services for our partners. We also provide outreach and marketing to let the public and businesses know about the services that we create. Of course we also help train government staff on our applications.
| Portal Partners with Coordinated Marketing | Marketing Services Include |
|---|---|
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Secure File Transfer
Many of our partners have security policies that restrict various types of file transfers or communication methods. These span from not being able to support modern secure transfer methods, such as Secure FTP, to policies that do not allow external entities to log in to internal IT assets (a "Pull Only" policy). In some cases file replication and encryption is also required to push data received on behalf of on agency or NGO from the Portal's infrastructure to another partner agency's servers.
Some of the partners who use these services include:
- Hawaii State Judiciary
- Honolulu City and County
- County of Kauai
- County of Maui
- County of Hawaii
- Office of the Attorney General
- Department of Taxation
- Department of Public Safety
- Budget and Finance
- Department of Transportation
- Department of Health
- Department of Education
- Department of Land and Natural Resources
Single Sign On: Portal Accounts
The portal developed a Single Sign On service based on a framework that provides authentication, authorization and other security features for enterprise applications in 2004. The framework was incorporated into Spring Security in 2008 and it continues to be an extremely successful enterprise solution worldwide. Portal accounts were implemented for Hawaii Business Express in 2004, but have expanded to include 37 of the portal's applications. This year we continued to leverage the Single Sign On for the my.hawaii.gov initiative. As a result, upon launch we had a base of over 350,000 who already had an account as a result of other interactions with eHawaii.gov services.
Portal users create a single user name and password to access all applications including: my.hawaii.gov, Hawaii Business Express, eCrim, HUI Express, Camping Permits, Harbor Hui, Hawaii Compliance Express, marriage licenses, covered offender alerts, teacher licenses, HIePRO (eProcurement System), stored payments, the state calendar and more every month.
my.hawaii.gov Account Statistics
- Individual accounts: 467,416
- Power users: 13,545
- Users added in the last 12 months: 187,207
- Users with at least 1 transaction: 286,714
Top 5 Services with Linked Portal Accounts
| Application Name | Users |
|---|---|
| Hawaii Business Express | 77,800 |
| State Camping Reservations | 49,262 |
| Criminal History Search | 35,380 |
| PVL Licensing | 61,598 |
| Hawaii Unemployment Express | 5,831 |
Licensing Services
The portal has developed systems for handling enterprise licensing and permitting needs of many partners including:
- Clinical Lab Personnel License Renewal: Renew online with the Department of Health.
Commercial Fishing License: Apply for, renew, or add a license to existing commercial fishing license, for either an individual or business license.
Fishing Permits: Purchase and print a freshwater fishing license.
Hunting Licenses: Purchase and print a Hawaii hunting license.
Waste-water Filings: State of Hawaii licensed engineers can submit individual waste-water system filings online.
Insurance Agent Continuing Education Status: Allows insurance licensees to review their current continuing education requirements and completed courses applied to their current CE due date.
Insurance Continuing Education Provider and Course Search: Allows insurance licensees to obtain information on continuing education providers and courses.
Insurance License Renewal System: Insurance license search
License List Builder: Allows you to build and download a customized list of licensees under the jurisdiction of the Professional and Vocational Licensing Division.
License Renewal: Renew your professional or vocational license online through MyPVL.
Marriage Licensing: Couples can apply and pay for a marriage license as well as locate a performer to complete the ceremony.
Marriage Performer License Registration: Submit your application online to become a licensed marriage and/or civil union performer.
Professional Licensee Search: Look up information about individuals or businesses licensed by the Professional & Vocational Licensing Division.
Tax License Search: Search for tax license information and taxpayer ID numbers.
Teacher License Renewals: Renew your teachers license online or apply for a new one with the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board (HTSB).
Website Design and Hosting
Building a website with us is easy! HIC utilizes WordPress as our content management system. WordPress started in 2003 with the original intention of being an easy way to set up a blog. However, since its inception, WordPress has blossomed into a winning content management system (CMS) that can be used to build and manage full-sized websites. It is currently the most popular CMS in use on the Internet, due to its ease of use, plug in architecture and template system which makes development and use a breeze.
- Agencies can manage their own text changes, not IT staff;
- The agency does not have to host the Web site on its own servers;
- Web based site management, site can be managed from anywhere there is an internet connection;
- No technical experience required;
- Security, hosting and disaster recovery
- Hands on training;
- Affordable pricing;
- Responsive design;
- Ease of use.
Learn more at: webcms.ehawaii.gov
