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1/22/2007 1:30:29 PM
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Expanded draft of FACADatabase Charter
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FACADatabase Task Force Charter
Official Designation: The Committee Management Secretariat Sponsored Interagency Task Force Charged with Redesigning, Implementing, and Testing the Revised Federal Advisory Committee Tracking and Management System Currently Titled the FACADatabase.
Authority: The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) assigns to the GSA and the agencies utilizing Federal Advisory Committees the responsibility to manage, track, and account for the work of those advisory committees in an open, transparent, and publicly available manner, with the essential details of advisory committee activities readily accessible to the rest of government, congress, and the interested public. FACA also requires that GSA and the agencies conduct an Annual Comprehensive Review (ACR) of the existing inventory of Federal Advisory Committees. The GSA Final Rule of 2001, derived from FACA, designated the FACADatabase as the government-wide, on-line, shared, interagency web application as the management and reporting system for making those essential Advisory Committee details known, and the facilitating vehicle for conducting and reporting the results of the ACR.
Objective and Scope of Activities: The current version of the FACADatabase is the first version of the interagency web application specified in the GSA Final Rule of 2001. The web application was developed and placed on-line in 1997 to initially serve as a data collection vehicle to facilitate the compilation of the “Annual Report of the President to Congress on Federal Advisory Committees” and the preparation of the Annual Comprehensive Review. The initial web application was developed with software that was consistent with current web technology for 1997, and was essentially an on-line substitute for the paper-form data-collection methodology of the previous 25 years.
From 1997 through 2001, when the GSA Final Rule was approved and published in the Federal Register, the web application was refined to include most of the management and tracking functionality required by the Committee Management Secretariat and the agency CMOs to conduct the work of committee administration from a high-level, government-wide perspective. In 1999, the Congress, via the Paperwork Reduction Act, discontinued the need for the Annual Report of the President. From that point in 1999, forward to September of 2006, while utilized primarily and formally to manage and deliver the ACR required by FACA, the focus of system improvement and refinement efforts shifted completely in the direction of committee management from the Designated Federal Official perspective.
This shift in emphasis derived from understanding that, while the reporting part of the system is devoted to responding to FACA’s emphasis on upper management’s, the congress’, and the public’s need to know, the data to meet the reporting need always is primarily provided by each committee’s DFO or a person(s) acting for the DFO. Any system, like the FACADatabase, which depends upon regular, complete, and accurate contributions or input from specific and particular agents, without providing useful return value or ongoing incentives to those agents to enter that data, is doomed to a constant, uphill struggle, if not certain failure. This is especially so when there is continuous turnover in those contributing agents, as there is among CMOs, GFOs, and DFOs, who commonly have to fulfill their FACA role as an other duty as assigned, beyond their primary position and responsibility.
This brings us to our current view of the on-line web application known as the FACADatabase, in place at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2007. The system is based on a technology and coding structure that was consistent with and responsive to the defined need and underlying reporting requirements of the legal and management structure in 1996. The system has added features and modules over a 10 year period as the needs were redefined, and as the underlying web technology changed and matured. However, technology can not be counted on to proceed in a straight line or to maintain compatibility with what has gone before. This system, based on 10 year old technology and an historical view of government, has been overtaken by changes in the functionality of the internet, by changes in laws, and by the evolution of management and information sharing among federal agencies.
The state-of-the-art in web technology and database software is different now than when the system was set up, and the underlying technology will not be supported, if even still in use 10 years from now. The system needs to be converted to current technology so that it will continue to function effectively into the next decade. The process of converting to a new database engine and up-to-date web software provides an opportunity to redesign the entire system in a thoroughly integrated fashion to address the management, information collection, and reporting needs of the entire FACA community. The work of this Task Force is to redesign and develop that system, version 2 of the FACADatabase.
Description of Duties: The Task Force will
Identify all of the various and individual constituencies of the FACA community, their roles and needs in data collection, data utilization, reporting requirements, management requirements, etc., etc.
Identify the system requirements of a system that addresses the needs of the identified constituencies.
Identify a complete set of business rules that needs to be codified into a system that addresses the needs of the identified constituencies.
Experiment with the system as it is developed to confirm that it is functional, usable, and meets the needs of the constituencies.
Test the system as it is developed to confirm that it works as designed and as needed.
Review and critique the documentation of the developed system and the Help Manuals written for the various levels of users of the system.
Official(s) to Whom the Task Force Reports: The Task Force reports to the Director and Deputy Director of the Committee Management Secretariat, and the CMOs of agencies with Federal Advisory Committees. All of these individuals have their delegated authority from the agency heads, to whom Congress has assigned full responsibility for the implementation of FACA.
Support Structure: The Committee Management Secretariat will provide the support structure for the Task Force. This support includes a Secretariat staff member as task force manager and establishment and funding of a development contract for the system.
Estimated Annual Operating Costs and Staff Years: The development contract is estimated to cost $200,000 a year. The Secretariat staff member is expected to spend approximately 25% of their work time on the work of the Task Force. Members of the Task Force will likely spend approximately 12 work days a year on the work of the Task Force.
Designated Federal Manager: The Committee Management Secretariat Committee Management Specialist responsible for the on-line system and the ACR will be the Designated Federal Manager (DFM) of the Task Force. This person will set the agenda, call the meetings, chair the meetings, prepare the minutes, and otherwise coordinate the work of the Task Force.
Estimated Number and Frequency of Meetings: The meetings are expected to occur monthly, although they will not always be face to face during the work day. A significant number of meetings will occur via an on-line forum dedicated to the work of the task force.
Duration: The work of the task force is expected to take, at a minimum, two full years.
Membership Composition: The task force will be composed of no more than 20 members. The members will all be federal employees with the exception of the contractor winning the system development contract, who will function as a paid consultant to the task force. The members will be either CMOs, GFOs, or DFOs, who are active users of the system and formally appointed to those FACA roles within their agencies, or a Secretariat staff member. Members are invited to participate on the Task Force and are expected to participate for the life of the task force. If a member should find that they cannot continue to work with the Task Force through to the completion of the “new” system, they are asked to find a replacement with a similar role from the FACA federal community, and to both enroll them and bring them up to speed on the work of the Task Force. The membership will include CMOs, GFOs, and DFOs from both large cabinet agencies with many committees, to medium size agencies, to small, independent agencies with a few committees.
Officers: The task force will not have officers. The DFM will chair the meetings and it is not likely that a meeting will occur in the absence of the DFM. The contractor will function as the paid consultant to the Task Force.
Establishment: This Task Force was established as of September, 2006.
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2/13/2007 12:55:15 PM
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Business Rule: New System Business Rule: Consultations:
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When edits are made to consultations, all of the actions that are executed at the creation of a consultation, need to be re-executed. This includes resetting New Committee and Terminated Committee. Some committees are exempt from renewal and when they are exempt from renewal, the committee will normally have only a single establishment consultation, perhaps some amendment consultations if changes are made to the charter, and a single termination consultation. Committees are only a new committee in the year they are established, so if a consultation should be added or edited or deleted in later years, the New Committee Field should be set to “No” at the completion of the edit.
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2/21/2007 1:01:55 PM
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Database Component: New Database Component: Pending Committee Component:
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Current Committee Inventory: The database currently is a Fiscal Year History of the known Federal Advisory Committee Inventory. The Inventory for each Fiscal Year begins the year with any committees carried forward from the previous Fiscal Year and includes any new committees that are established during the Fiscal Year. The inventory maintains in the list any committees that are terminated during the Fiscal Year, for the rest of the entire Fiscal Year. I see this changing to an ongoing list of current committees that exists across fiscal years. Perhaps there should also be a pending committee table that captures the data and files created by agencies during the preparations stages of establishing a new committee. Files like draft charters and balance plans and need determinations. This "pending" captured data could be transferred to an "established" committee table when the charter is filed. In a similar fashion, the "established" data could be transferred to a "terminated" table when the committee is terminated. Currently, the pending aspects/due diligence work can be lost across fiscal years (in the system), or can be left out when an agency is "in a hurry", or simply does not have its own home in the system.
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2/21/2007 1:02:47 PM
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Business Rule: New System Business Rule: CMO emails:
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An email alert for every consultation goes to everyone in agency who has active, up-to-date, CMO rights and everyone in Committee Management who has CMS rights.
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2/22/2007 11:05:20 AM
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Business Rule: New System Business Rule: Consultations:
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When considering a system, whether in development or production, Business rules can exist in at least two different conceptual perspectives, and sometime many more. On one hand, from a high level organization perspective, a rule can refer to a business process, like the consultation guidance that you are considering distributing to the CMOs. In a system, the business rules are the actions that are executed on a specific piece of data when it is entered into a field in a particular row in a particular table in a particular context. With each action being a separate rule, there can be dozens of rules for a single piece of data. Each rule must be tested and then executed when the data is being added, edited, updated, or deleted in a specific context. The rule states the data, the context, and the execution steps. Our current system has thousands of rules at the system level, and the new system will have even more. As we start looking at and discussing the rules, a lot will be mashed up together because we will try to say too much in too short a space with too few details. The first sentence "When edits are made to consultations, all of the actions that are executed at the creation of a consultation, need to be re-executed." was an example of mashing stuff up together. What I could/should have said was that all the rules that were considered, tested, and executed when a consultation was first created, also need to be considered, tested, and executed again against the current set of table relationships when an edit is made to any single data element in a consultation record. We do not currently do that now, with the care and completeness that we need to try to ensure exists in the new system in every instance. The rest of my statement was identifying a problem in the current system where the system level business rules do not seem to be properly applied.
edited by kennett.fussell@gsa.gov on 2/22/2007
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2/22/2007 1:52:04 PM
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Field changes
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The Committee Management Comments field and the CMORemarks field in the Consultation table both need to be longer. CMOs regularly run out of text space when they try to explain any change that is not on the simple side.
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3/7/2007 2:31:30 PM
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Current system review
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Descriptions of what the current system provides that we use, what the current system does not provide that we could use, and what the current system provides that we don't use.
edited by kennett.fussell@gsa.gov on 6/8/2007
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3/7/2007 2:52:18 PM
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Alert users to changes in the system.
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Bob Flaak suggested that when a user logs on it would be helpful if the system could provide information about all the changes that have taken place since the last logon so that the user would not be surprised by the changed appearance of pages or difference in functionality.
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3/9/2007 2:28:15 PM
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Expanded draft of FACADatabase Charter
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This may be the final posting for this topic and it incorporates the feedback and comments. If the Task Force agrees, we will print the charter and delete the topic from the forum.
U.S. General Services Administration
Committee Management Secretariat
Interagency Committee on Federal Advisory Committee Management
FACA Database Task Force Subcommittee Charter
Official Designation: FACA Database Task Force.
Purpose: The Task Force is established to provide the GSA Committee Management Secretariat (Secretariat) and the Interagency Committee on Federal Advisory Committee Management (IAC) with advice and recommendations on how best to collect, interpret, evaluate, and disseminate information on Federal advisory committees. The Secretariat’s current internet-based reporting and business processing system (FACA Database), is based on 10 year old technology and an historical view of government, which has been overtaken by changes in the functionality of the internet, changes in laws, and the evolution of management and information sharing among federal agencies. The work of this Task Force is to redesign and develop that system, version 2 of the FACADatabase.
Description of Duties: The Task Force will:
Identify all of the various and individual constituencies of the FACA community, their roles and needs in data collection, data utilization, reporting requirements, management requirements, etc.
Identify requirements of a system that address the needs of the constituencies.
Define a complete set of business rules that can be codified into a system that address the needs of the constituencies.
Conduct regular testing during the development stage to confirm that the system is functional, usable, and meets the needs of the constituencies.
Review and recommend edits to the documentation of the developed system and the Help Manuals written for the various levels of users of the system.
Devise a process for the Government-Wide Annual Comprehensive Review (ACR) that accommodates the FACA requirement for a yearly review without requiring that agencies perform and complete the review within the same restricted time frame.
Official(s) to Whom the Task Force Reports: The Task Force reports to the Director and Deputy Director of the Secretariat, and the IAC.
Support Structure: The Secretariat will provide the support structure for the Task Force. The Secretariat’s Committee Management Specialist responsible for the on-line system and the Annual Comprehensive Review (ACR) will be the Designated Federal Manager (DFM) of the Task Force. This person will set the agenda, call the meetings, chair the meetings, prepare the minutes, construct the development contract and funding source for the proposed system, and otherwise coordinate the work of the Task Force.
Estimated Annual Operating Costs and Staff Years: The development contract is estimated to cost $150,000 the first year, and $100,000 each of 2 subsequent years. The DFM is expected to spend approximately 25% of their work time on Task Force duties. Members will spend approximately 12 work days per year on Task Force duties.
Estimated Number and Frequency of Meetings: The meetings are expected to occur monthly, although a significant number of meetings will occur via an on-line forum dedicated to the work of the task force.
Duration: The developmental work of the task force is expected to take, at a minimum, two full years, with a third year devoted to certification and implementation.
Membership Composition: The task force will be composed of no more than 20 members. The members will all be federal employees with the exception of the contractor winning the system development contract, who will function as a paid consultant to the task force. In general, the Task Force will consist of IAC members and ex officio members, as well as other FACA professionals. Membership composition is at the discretion of the Chair. Individuals that are invited to be members are expected to participate for the life of the task force. If members anticipate or find that they cannot continue to work with the Task Force through to the completion of the “new” system, it is expected that they will find a replacement with a similar role from the FACA Federal community, and to both enroll them and bring them up to speed on the work of the Task Force.
Establishment: This Task Force was established as of September, 2006.
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3/13/2007 12:54:41 PM
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3/14/07 Task Force Meeting Agenda
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FACADatabase Task Force Meeting Agenda
1. Review Minutes and Contact Information.
2. Review, discuss, and finalize proposed charter.
- Feedback via Forum
- ACR component
- First task - Constituencies
3. Review and demonstration of use of the Forum for communication and record-keeping.
- Requirements development
- Other documentation
4. System Requirements
- Retain all the identified functionality of current system
- Add new requirements via Forum
5. Demonstration of prototyping capability of new technology.
6. Set a Time, Place, and proposed Agenda for next meeting.
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