CSTARS User Group, 06.05.03

Meeting Minutes

Attendance: Crystal Davis, OAM

Tom Cochran, OAM

Kevin Crowley, OAM

Yancey Stern, OAM

> Veronica Moore, OAM

Jacqueline Wilson, Census

Pat Grimes, NIST

Dick Bennett, NOAA

Nancy Barrere, OAM

Chris Nolte, OAM

Suja Madhavan, Census

Sharon Driggins, Census

Clark Terrell, Census

Kimberly Atsalinos, NIST

Jan Dodi, NOAA

Patsy Ybarra, NOAA

> Marjie Dones, NOAA

Randall, NOAA

Lynne Phipps, NOAA

Pam Harper, OCS

Brenda Black, OSDBU

LaJuene Desmukes, OSDBU

Opening Remarks

-   Next Meeting, July 10, @ HCHB 1-3pm, Room 6057

-   Rules for Teleconferencing

    -   One person talk at a time

    -   Please "mute" the phone while you engage in other conversations

-   Census has new teleconferencing equipment that worked much better
    then what has been used in the past. Polygram #7935 Cisco IP

Open Actions

-   **NOAA DPA --** (NOAA) Jan would like to notify everyone that they
    intend to use a 2 digit code to identify DPA/ASC. This will allow
    each office to be identified uniquely. **ACTION**: Jan will send a
    message to the agencies regarding the ASC code changes.

-   **CSTARS SOW (CACI Services)** -- (T. Cochran) Tom is requesting
    comments from the group on the SOW for CACI by June 13, 2003.
    **ACTION**: Census requested an electronic version of the SOW.

-   **CFS/CSTARS Interface** -- (T. Cochran) Tom has received comments
    on Appendix G from Census. NIST had submitted 53 pages of comments
    to the CSC and has not received a response from them.

-   **Data Warehouse-** (Y. Stern) CACI is responding to the SOW for
    Phase II work on the Data warehouse. The plan is to a) move 5 years
    worth of data into the DW, b) clean up existing data, c) cleanup
    vendor data, and d) cleanup some reports. The ultimate goal of Phase
    II work will be to turn off legacy systems. The bureaus (NIST
    specifically) have requested "lead time" in them being able to
    assist us with the 5 years of data effort. **ACTION**: OAM - How
    much money will the bureaus need to fund for the data warehouse
    during FY04?

-   **Users Manuals --** (C. Davis) There are several, key issues with
    the current manuals. They are not indexed correctly, the table of
    contents is incorrect, no upgrades are available (not current) and
    it is not available in an electronic format. The group has requested
    to have professionally produced user manuals for each bureau. The
    manuals will be bureau specific. The best option would be to have
    CACI sub contract to a small business (expert users manual
    publishing company) the requirement to produce high quality, bureau
    specific user's manuals. **ACTION**: Bureaus should please send a
    pros/cons list to Crystal to be incorporated in Debra's presentation
    of this to the ET Council on June 24, 2003. Crystal needs comments
    by Friday, June 13, 2003.

-   **CSTARS Bureau Budgeting** -- (C. Davis) The OAM CSTARS program
    office pays for the following: 1) Database storage, 2)
    Enterprise-wide training, 3) Licenses, 4) Manuals and 5) Financial
    Interface.

-   **Disaster Recovery** -- Test Scripts -- (K. Crowley) Based on a
    follow-up meeting with OAM, OCS and Census, it is recommended that
    for the next DR we have documented test scripts available for use.
    These test scripts should cover both data and operational scenarios.
    Communication with someone from OAM is really important during the
    testing. Someone from OAM should be at the test site...this would be
    very helpful. **ACTION**: If any documented test scripts exists,
    please forward these to Kevin/Crystal.

-   **Additional Topics**:

    -   Kevin is currently working on an SOW which will review the OCS
        cost structure and setup comparing it to other Government
        franchised operations.

    -   Kevin received the newest release from CACI (v.5.7). We are
        currently testing v. 5.6.B.02. The newest release has 1) the
        fundamentals needed to interface with BPN, 2) control field
        access at the group level, 3) Micropurchase enhancements, 4)
        Vendor past performance (may need additional hardware with this
        enhancement) and 5) Esig option. **ACTION**: It would be helpful
        to obtain a "release schedule" from CACI in order for us to
        better plan our testing, etc.

-   **BPN/CCR** -- (N. Barrere) Nancy has submitted DOCs comments on
    CCR. Basically there were two: 1) delay in implementation and 2)
    grandfather them in to new contracts. Nancy has completed the DRAFT
    letter to Vendors and will be sending this out to the bureaus for
    comments. OAM is preparing mailing labels (data from the data
    warehouse) that will be used to send out the letters to the vendors.
    **ACTION**: Please provide comments to Nancy by COB 6/11/03. OAM
    needs to identify who is paying for the Department-wide CCR charge.

-   **FPDS/NG** -- (Y. Stern) Yancey attending the Agency-wide
    Information Day presentation. DOC has been volunteered to be one of
    the early adoption agencies. Yancey has a meeting planned with GCE
    and CACI to discuss our option. **ACTION**: One question is how do
    we hold to the data that we are sending to FPDS/NG when we need the
    data for our internal systems?