Pension Fund of the PAOC Portal

The Client

Established in 1938, the Pension Fund (1969) of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada is a multi-employer, defined benefit plan, guaranteeing a lifetime pension with annual increments. Federally incorporated and registered in the various provinces, the Fund follows legislative guidelines applicable to all Canadian pension plans. Led by a Board of Trustees appointed by the General Executive of the PAOC, all Fund administration is coordinated through the International Office, with a dedicated Pension Centre team available to answer any questions. Enrolment is open to all PAOC credential holders and eligible staff of PAOC churches and affiliates.

The Challenge

In 2015, Envision IT was contracted by the Pension Fund to develop a new Pension Portal website, built on their existing SharePoint 2013 farm. The Pension Fund was looking to separate the portal from the public website and expand the available information, while at the same time adding new features and functionality.

The Solution

The existing Pension site contained two separate areas for members and employers, which involved some duplication of information. The new architecture created a common top-level site with access granted to both groups, with separately permissioned sub-sites for each group's needs. The redesigned portal includes a new look and feel which is fresh and modern. With the proliferation of mobile devices, the Pension Fund recognized the need for a responsive, mobile-friendly design. This was incorporated into the updated site architecture and a number of custom forms.

The site includes a pension calculator which members can use to calculate their annual benefits payable at retirement. Using the knockout model, values entered by the user are applied to the basic benefit formula of the pension fund to drive scaling results.

Additionally, Address and Banking Information update forms were created, built with jQuery and SharePoint REST APIs. These forms write to SharePoint lists, and the list columns define the form fields. A custom workflow secures the submissions. These were built in such a way that employees at the Pension Fund could update the form design simply by adding or removing columns in the corresponding SharePoint lists. With minimal development, they could even build additional forms using the same structure, simply by creating new SharePoint lists.

The redesigned Portal serves as a valuable tool benefiting both members and employers. It is a key resource for a variety of documents, forms and information.