This paper explores the application-development phases for the Cow Herd Appraisal of Performance System (CHAPS). In 1985, North Dakota State University’s Dickinson Research Extension Center and the North Dakota Beef Cattle Improvement Association (NDBCIA) developed CHAPS as a management tool for cow producers. This was phase 1 development for the CHAPS application. CHAPS was initially built as a Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) program. In phase 2, CHAPS was converted from MS-DOS to a desktop application. The desktop application was named CHAPS 2000. The desktop application lacks modern features, produces error-prone reports, etc. In 2013, North Dakota State University’s Dickinson Research Extension Center and the NDBCIA decided to redevelop CHAPS. The proposed name was CHAPS 2020. This paper illustrates how CHAPS 2020 was designed, shows how the limitations of CHAPS 2000 were resolved, and describes the development processes for phase 3 in order to facilitate new and modern requirements.