(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Workforce Development merged its system for filing unemployment claims into the IowaWorks system used to train and find people new jobs at the start of the month. I-W-D director Beth Townsend says they made the merge without major technical issues. “When you’re converting from one system that you’ve been on for over 50 years to a brand new system, there are moments when you’re just thinking, ‘oh, good Lord, I hope this works.’ And it did, it exceeded our expectations in terms of how smoothly it went,” Townsend says. There were a few things that popped up that they had to adjust.

“What happens when you do these kind of large scale stand ups of new systems — it’s those unique situations that only affect a few 100 people that that pop up that maybe either didn’t get considered or the process you had and planned for those didn’t work exactly the way you hoped that it would. So there’s been a little stops and starts,” she says. Townsend says they added extra people to answer the phones as they get the system up and running. “The first couple of days, obviously they were significantly higher than we’d like them to be, but by the end of the week, they were back down to no wait times,” Townsend says. “…So that was a good indication that as we worked through the week, people were able to get their claims filed and and didn’t need assistance.”

Townsend says the the goal with the upgrade was to make things easier. “We’ve been getting good feedback that they people that are using the system say it’s easier to use. So, they like that it’s more accessible and people are getting paid, their claims got paid. So at the end of the day, it’s been a really smooth transition as from our perspective,” she says.

You can go to Iowaworks.com to file for unemployment or look for a new job.