Intake integrates with three other systems

• Benefits Gateway Services (BGS)
• Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS)
• Veterans Appeals Control and Location System (VACOLS)

We use these other systems for a combination of fetching data, such as from the Corporate Database, as well as for establishing and working with end products (also referred to as claims).

Claim establishment process

Claim establishment includes the following steps:

1. Establishing an end product in VBMS
2. Adding request issues to the end product. When these are on a claim in VBMS, they are called contentions
3. If the contentions are for rating issues, associating the contentions to rating issues
4. If an informal conference was requested on a Higher Level Review, we also generate a tracked item (BGS)

Additional actions on claims

Once a claim is established, there are additional actions that can be taken:

1. Contentions can be added or removed (VBMS)
2. Contention text can be updated (VBMS)
3. End products can be cancelled, which can happen if all of the contentions on it were removed (BGS)

If contentions are added or removed on a rating end product, the contentions are associated to rating issues again so that it includes mapping for all issues on the end product.

Benefits Gateway Services

BGS integration GitHub repo - ruby-bgs

Intake primarily uses BGS to fetch data from CorpDB

Veterans Benefits Management System

VBMS integration GitHub repo - connect_vbms

We establish end products for Higher Level Reviews and Supplemental Claims that are compensation or pension. We also establish end products for Board Grant Effectuations that have granted compensation and pension issues on appeals.