# Presentation: 737338

## December Stakeholder MeetingDecember 14,2005

*December Stakeholder Meeting**December 14,2005*

*Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**Fulfilling the President’s Management Agenda*

## Agenda

- Monthly Status/Update
- New Contact Center Operations
- Citrix Server Deployment
- Grants.gov Architecture
- Wrap Up/Questions and Answers

## December Stakeholder MeetingGrants.gov Update

*December Stakeholder Meeting**Grants.gov Update*

- Rebecca Spitzgo
- Grants.gov Program Manager

*Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**Fulfilling the President’s Management Agenda*

## Grants.gov Usage Highlights

- APPLY
- Over 10,200 Electronic Submissions Since October 1, 2005
- 3,750 Submissions in 1 Week
- 1250 Submission Single Day
- Registered Users Exceeds 23,500
- 450+ Application Packages
- 18 out of 26 Posted Packages
- FIND
- 1.5 Hits per Week
- 1.1 Emails per Week

## Applications Received from Grantees 2004 – 2005 Comparison 

***Look ***
***at Those Numbers!!!***

## Grants.gov Registered Users (AORs)2004 – 2005 Comparison

## Status of Agency Participation on Find and Apply

## Program Update

- SF 424 Version 2 Deployment – December 1
- Find and Apply Merge – Monday, December 19
- List Serv – Coming Soon
- Ramp Up and Outreach Plans
- Ramp Up - 24 out of 26
- Outreach - 20 out of 26
- New Detailees
- Russell Wyland, NEH
- Judy Regelman & Laura Wesley, NEH
- James Rogers, DOC

## Grants.gov Outreach – October/December 2005 

- National Indian Education Assn Conference
- Society of Research Administrator International
- National Assn of County & City Health Officials
- Quadel 29th Annual Housing Choice Voucher Conference
- Congressman Christopher Shay Grants Workshop
- American Assn of Grant Professionals Conference
- DOJ/Bureau of Justice Administration Workshops
- University of Alaska
- Senator Carl Levin Grants Workshop
- Huntington Public Library
- NIH SBIR Conference
- Pratt Library Grants Workshop
- Senator Levin All-State Staff Conference Call

## FY 2006 Grants.gov Goals

- Post 100% of Funding Opportunities on Find
- Direct Link to Full Announcement
- Post 75% of Find Opportunities on Apply
- 2500 Packages
- 45,000 Electronic Submissions
- Improve Customer Satisfaction
- “Freshen Up” the Grants.gov Website
- Handle the Volume

## Questions

##  Transition to Datatrac

* **Transition to Datatrac*

*Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**Fulfilling the President’s Management Agenda*

- Katie Root, Grants.gov

## History of Operations

- Edcomm: July 2003 – December 2003
- Educational/Training Provider
- Stop gap fit for Grants.gov Pilot and Operations before October Launch
- Continued to support Grants.gov until current contractor ramped up
- PFS Web: January 2004 – November 14, 2005
- Subcontractor of the Outreach Contractor
- Provided support for both Grantors/Grantees
- Received high accolades for performance

## So, Why Change?

- Contractual: Needed to create new solicitation for both outreach and contact center
- Tremendous Growth: Grants.gov needs had grown to the point where the contract needed to be split
- Opportune Time: HHS Program Support Center entered into a USA Services Contract that allowed for Grants.gov to join a HHS program/E-Gov initiative
- Same Service Levels: Did not need to go through a full solicitation and service levels stayed the same

## Where Are We Today?

- November 15, 2005: Datatrac began operations
- IBM Contact Center Manager provided guidance/research throughout November
- Seamless transition with email and phone system
- Operations with Grants.gov Program Management Office remain the same
- Handled the first NIH closing on December 1, 2005

## How Does It Work?

- Tier 1: Grants.gov Contact Center Operator
- Handles the initial contact and attempts to resolve the call
- If not, files a research request (escalation)
- Tier 2: Grants.gov Research Analyst
- Escalations go to the research analyst who does further research on the issue
- Unable to resolve, issue escalated to Grants.gov PMO
- Tier 3: Grants.gov PMO
- Research Analyst works with PMO to resolve issue
- Typical Escalations: Policy questions/System bugs/Training or Meeting Requests

## ONE-DHHS and Grants.Gov

***ONE-DHHS and Grants.Gov***

- Robert Spector, PSC/HHS

*Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**Fulfilling the President’s Management Agenda*

## Topics

- Introduction to the Program Support Center (PSC)
- ONE-DHHS Overview
- Capabilities
- Benefits
- Performance To Date
- ONE-DHHS Contacts

## Program Support Center (PSC) Mission and Vision

**Mission**
- The PSC is the shared services provider for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  As such, the PSC provides a full range of support services to HHS and other Federal agencies, allowing them to focus on their core mission.
**Vision**
- The PSC is the provider of choice for quality and value in shared services, across the Federal Government.

## PSC Core Values

***Customer Focus***:  We are committed to working collaboratively with our customers to ensure that we deliver what they want and need.
***Commitment to our People***:  We value satisfaction, competence, development, integrity, and teamwork across our workforce.
***Cost-Effective and High Quality Service Delivery***:  We value innovative and customer-based solutions, resource optimization, and continuous improvement.
***Communication***:  We value communication within and across all levels of the organization and ongoing dialogue with our customers and other stakeholders.
***Transparency***:  We value the customer’s right to know and understand our rates and our financial results.
***Technology Optimization***:  We value the integration of technology into processes to enhance the efficiency of operations and the overall customer experience.

**Notes:**
Updated --- per Business Strategy 2005-2009

## ONE-DHHS Contact Center Overview

- “Tier 1” support for HHS programs, Sep05-Dec05 base period of performance
- Optional 12-month renewal periods
- Implemented through GSA “USAServices” task order contract for Contact Center Service Bureaus
- Datatrac Information Services awarded contract Aug05
- Contact center support for eGov Travel and eOPF programs operational Oct 05
- Grants.Gov support added Nov 05
- Telephone and email response 7:00 am to 9:00 pm Mon-Fri.

**Notes:**
The scope of this contact center includes support for the eTravel and eOPF programs only at this time. 
By “tier1” we mean that our center is the first point-of-contact for users who need help with these applications. The focus is on “triage,” solving straightforward problems, answering questions, and escalating issues to specialists if necessary. To clarify, THE CONTACT CENTER IS NOT INTENDED TO RESOLVE IT ISSUES (i.e., REPLACE OR SUPPLEMENT THE ITSC). If the problem is isolated to a desktop issue, the caller or (emailer) will be referred to the user’s IT helpdesk. Likewise, the HHS helpdesks will be notified to refer non-IT issues to the contact center for eTravel and eOPF. 
GSA has a Task Order Agreement with 5 contact center service bureaus vendors that we are using. The contract vehicle is called “USAServices FirstContact.”  Because these vendors have already competed to win a place on this contract, the time-to-award for a task order can be very fast and the likelihood of a protest very low. Among the GSA users is the ACF (Human Trafficking Hotline). This contract vehicle was designed for the GSA’s National Citizen Information Center focusing on citizen-oriented inquiries but applies to all Federal programs (provided they do not replace IT helpdesks or undertake system design/devp projects). Fyi, though HHS has other similar contact center operations (CDC and CMS) we cannot use these vehicles because they are specifically for citizen use only.  
The Center will be open for phone calls between 7:00am and 9:00 pm. Where eTravel is concerned, travelers would be referred to travel agents after hours (as is the case now).  
Some of the technical features of the contact center are:
Calls will be filtered through a phone menu which will route them to the appropriate team or provide canned suggestions based on their responses on the telephone keypad (IVR).
Incident management (aka Trouble-Ticket) system that will enable the us to track the calls by type, time, organization, and so on, so that we can manage the problem resolution more efficiently and get a handle on systemic problems. Peregrine, Remedy, and RightNow are incident mgt tools in use at HHS today.
A “knowledge base” where past problems and responses (lessons-learned) are stored for agents to reuse quickly and easily.
Call routing is a function of the telephone switch that enables the incoming phone calls (and emails) to be routed to the appropriate agent based on their availability, and skill level. Calls and email can also be queued to manage the workflow most efficiently 
Reporting refers to both the characteristics of the phone and email workload (#calls per hours, avg speed of answer, # calls dropped, etc.),  and the performance of the agents in resolving the inquiries (avg # tickets resolved per day, # tickets by type). 

A key factor in our decision to implement a service bureau (i.e., outsource) this function is the ability to scale up or down according to the volume of inquiries and the number of programs to support without making a long-term investment in resources. In the long-term the labor costs account for at least 60% of the costs of contact center support. 

## ONE-DHHS Key Capabilities

- Interactive voice response (IVR) to manage calls
- Incident management (aka trouble-ticket system) to manage problems
- Knowledge management capability to assist in managing inquiries
- Intelligent call routing
- Full performance reporting capabilities
- Secure
- Scalable to support ongoing HHS programs...

## Prospective ONE-DHHS Clients

- Unified Financial Management System (UFMS) – FY07
- HHS Human Resources Line of Business – FY07
- Enterprise Workflow Information Tracking System for HR (eWiTs) – FY07
- Rockville Human Resource Center - TBD
- HHS Directory Service – TBD

## Benefits of ONE-DHHS

- Improve customer satisfaction by providing a single integrated channel for all PSC inquiries and requests (phone and email)
- Provides ability to quickly scale-up to support new programs and peak usage, scale-down to manage decline
- Provides better customer and service intelligence (more satisfied customers, better products and services)
- Provides systematic approach to preserving program knowledge and develop competencies (travel management, HR recordkeeping, grants management)
- Enables HHS executives to manage their customer relationships not their telephone

**Notes:**
Refer to slide #6 PSC Strategic Goal for Customer Service: Primary Results

## ...Benefits to Grants.Gov

- Take advantage of ONE-DHHS economies of scale
- Two additional layers of contract support
- Grants.gov PMO
- HHS/PSC
- GSA/USAServices
- Added-value services

**Notes:**
Added-value services: benchmarking, cost analysis, QA, change mgt

## ONE-DHHS Performance To Date

- Service Level – 97% calls answered within 30 secs
- Service Availability – 100%
- Average Speed of Answer – 8 secs
- Abandoned calls rate – <1%
- Email response rate – 100% within 48 hours
- Customer Satisfaction Survey Results - TBD

## ONE-DHHS Contacts

- Robert Spector _[rspector@psc.gov](mailto:rspector@psc.gov)__ – Project Manager_
- Doug Kuhn _[dkuhn@psc.gov](mailto:dkuhn@psc.gov)__ – Lead Analyst_
- Tykeisha Rice _[trice@psc.gov](mailto:trice@psc.gov)__ – Analyst_
- Jack Stoute – _[jstoute@psc.gov](mailto:jstoute@psc.gov)__ – PSC Acting CIO_

## Questions

## Grants.gov Helpdesk

*Grants.gov Helpdesk*

- 		Michael Salter/Steve Dietz, Datatrac

*Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**Fulfilling the President’s Management Agenda*

## Grants.gov HelpdeskDatatrac Information Services, Inc.

- Privately Held Corporation
- Native American Owned
- Women Owned
- $100 million+ revenue in 2004
- 18 years in business
- 1,400+ employees across 7 states and the District of Columbia
- 12 locations throughout the United States
- Successful SBA 8(a) program graduate

- Industry Recognition
- Government Customer Support Overall Excellence Award
- Department of Labor National Contact Center 2005
- Top Woman-Owned Federal Contractor
*Government Computer News* 2005, 2004, & 2003

## Grants.gov Helpdesk

- Datatrac Information Services – Core Competencies
- Contact Center Solutions
- “Turn Key” Contact Center implementation / management services
- Secure ID Card Solutions
- Technology-enabled smart cards / documents for secure identification solutions
- Operations Support Solutions
- Business process outsourcing
- Digitization and Imaging
- Information Technology Solutions
- IT Project Management

## Grants.gov Helpdesk

- Grants.gov Customer Support Helpdesk
- Live November 15th, 2005
- Operational Statistics - through December 9, 2005
- Calls Received – 8,520
- Calls Handled – 7,032
- Abandonment Rate – 17.46 %
- Average Talk Time 11.81
- Average Speed of Answer 6.79
- Emails Received – 2,925

## Grants.gov Helpdesk

- Helpdesk Staff
- Site Manager
- Responsible for operations of the Helpdesk located in Barbourville, Kentucky
- Two Supervisors
- One for the Day Shift and one for the Evening shift
- Each manages eight Contact Center Operators
- 16 Contact Center Operators (CCOs)
- Staffed throughout the day from 7 am to 9 pm – Process phone calls and emails
- Two week training program for Grants.gov

## Grants.gov Helpdesk

- Quality Assurance (QA) Process
- Onsite Quality Assurance Analyst
- Monitors Phone Calls and Emails
- 4 Tier Quality Assurance Program
- Outstanding – CCO meets all Project requirements and exhibits customer service skills that exceed expectations
- Excellent – CCO meets all Project requirements
- Coaching Opportunity – CCO meets the standard Project requirements but may have areas of opportunity in which improvement may lead to progress or growth
- Adverse Impact – CCO does not meet the Project requirements

## Grants.gov Helpdesk

- Grants.gov work flow
- Tier I – Contact Center Operator – Troubleshoots both Applicant and Grantor issues
- Tier II – Content Research Analyst (CRA) – Researches issues escalated by the CCOs
- Tier III – Project Manager – Works with CRA and Grants.gov PMO to troubleshoot Technical & Program Issues

## Questions

## Citrix Server Enhancement

***Citrix Server Enhancement***

*Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**Fulfilling the President’s Management Agenda*

- Keenon James, Grants.gov

## ...and NIH are partnering to provide free access to Citrix servers for Non-Windows users (e.g. Macintosh users) who are looking for an alternative to using PC emulation software with the PureEdge forms. This service will be available for use December 20, 2005.
The Citrix server connection will allow Non-Windows users to remotely launch a Windows session on their own machines by using the free Citrix client application. While connected to the server, Non-Windows users can complete their grant application using Grants.gov PureEdge forms. 

- The Citrix server connection will allow Non-Windows users to remotely launch a Windows session on their own machines by using the free Citrix client application. While connected to the server, Non-Windows users can complete their grant application using Grants.gov PureEdge forms.

*The Grants.gov Program...*

## Citrix Server Functionality

- Non-Windows users may continue to use their current web browser to navigate through the site, search for opportunities and download applications on Grants.gov.
- PureEdge viewer software is stored on the Citrix server.  Users are not required to download the PureEdge viewer onto their own computer.  Once a user has accessed the Citrix server, they will be able to view and complete the downloaded package while connected.
- Users are required to complete the required Grants.gov registration process to complete their submission via the Citrix server.

## Pre-Deployment Steps

- Grants.gov will announce the deployment of the Citrix server option via the Grants.gov website on December 15.  Site visitors will receive a brief overview of the Citrix server process as well as links to download the necessary Citrix client application for their computer and we will reemphasize the need to complete the registration process prior to submission.
- Grantor agencies who may have applicant communities interested in using the Citrix server option and need more information may contact the Grants.gov PMO for assistance.

## Outreach Actions

- Grants.gov recommends grantor agencies incorporate the Citrix server option into their application instructions.
- Grants.gov will provide the necessary PureEdge ICA download link to each agency as well as post the link in Citrix instructions on the Grants.gov website.
- Grants.gov will email AOR with formal announcement to include all the necessary links for the Citrix server on December 20, 2005.
- Agency training will occur in mid January.

## Questions

## Current and Future Architecture Briefing 

*Current and Future **Architecture Briefing *

*Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**Fulfilling the President’s Management Agenda*

- John Etcheverry, Grants.Gov
- Mike Atassi, Northrop Grumman

## Grants.gov System Architecture Today

- Since May, 2005:
- Added Secured Socket Layer (SSL) acceleration through the load balancer
- Upgraded bandwidth throughput from 2 Mbps to 8 Mbps
- Added Fiber Optic Storage Area Network (SAN) device with a total of 3.0 TB storage capability
- Segmented the application software to allocate hardware resources based on demand

## Slide 45

## Future Architecture Considerations

- A complete and comprehensive solution to support 10,000 submissions a day
- An integrated and dynamic environment to support development, staging, training, agency testing, and acceptance testing environments
- Dynamic allocation of resources based on system loads and utilization
- Best-of-breed of servers, CPU (dual core), application servers, and database servers
- Leverage industry best practices of high system availability and redundancy

## Future Architecture Proposed Timeline

- Jan 2006 – Load test system in simulated production environment (e.g., load balancer and SAN)
- Late Jan 2006 – Provide hardware sizing recommendations based on load test
- Late-Jan 2006 – Initiate procurement
- March/April 2006 – Production deployment

## Questions

## T’was the night before submission...on Grants.gov 

- T’was the night before submissions, and in every house,
- Every applicant was typing and clicking their mouse.
- Registrations were done, double-checked to be there.
- In hopes that the applicants would not be scared.
- The developers were tired and ready for bed,
- While visions of schema danced in their head.
- Patiently waiting, I had a “night cap”,
- Then off to bed, for a long winter’s nap.
- When out on the site arose such a clatter,
- I sprang to my laptop to see what’s the matter.
- On to the site, I flew like a flash,
- Called my contractor, “this thing cannot crash!”

- When, what to my wandering eyes should appear,
- A successful submission, and down came a tear.
- The AOR was approved, the DUNS was right,
- I knew in a moment, it would be a good night.
- More rapid than lighting, the applications came,
- They said it wouldn’t work, they said it was lame.
- A single website for grants, this I have to see,
- Well look very closely and we’re backed by OMB
- Now Labor, now Justice, NASA and State.
- On Commerce, Education, SSA, SBA.
- Come one, come all to the place that’s indeed,
- The single website to
**FIND, APPLY and SUCCEED.**

## Wrap Up/Questions and Answers

*Managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**Fulfilling the President’s Management Agenda*

- Rebecca Spitzgo
- Grants.gov Program Manager