What is NED?

NIH Enterprise Directory (NED) Overview

Purpose
The NIH Enterprise Directory (NED) is a centrally coordinated electronic directory that enables application programs and users to easily find information about the people who work at NIH. NED 2.0, which was deployed on October 6, 2008 supports the Personal Identify Verification (PIV) process at NIH. The PIV process is integral to NIH support of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD 12) that mandates a policy for a common identification standard for Federal employees and contractors.

NED assigns and maintains a public identifier (NIH ID number) that follows a person throughout his or her entire NIH career. NIH ID numbers have been incorporated into numerous NIH systems and business processes and are tied to a common set of normalized data for all members of the NIH workforce. NED contains individual identifying information, such as a person's name, NIH ID number, date of birth, place of birth, Social Security Number (SSN), and ID photo as well as information for locating or contacting a person at work or home, such as their email address, postal and delivery addresses, telephone numbers, organizational affiliation and classification (e.g., Employee, Contractor).

NED is the best source for NIH directory information because it consolidates all types of workers (Employees, Fellows, Contractors, Tenants, Guests, and Volunteers), it represents data values consistently to simplify searching and report generation, it is connected to NIH business processes for registration/deregistration, and it is readily accessible.

Benefits
By providing a convenient, single, logical source of identity and locator information, NED eliminates the need for application-specific repositories of people data, thus reducing the cost of application development and maintenance. This also reduces the amount of redundant data entry, since NED provides a single place to update people data used by a number of major applications.

NED makes deregistration of individuals occur more reliably when they leave NIH. Applications connected to NED can take advantage of this to deactivate accounts and revoke authorizations, thereby improving security. For example, when an individual is deregistered in NED, this deactivates their record in the ID badge system, which revokes their card key door lock access.

Applications can also use linking information kept in NED to find the records belonging to an individual that are maintained by other applications, thus making new uses of the data possible. For example, NIH Login allows users to authenticate using their NIH Active Directory account, and NIH Login-enabled applications such as the NIH Business and Research Support System (NBRSS) and the Integrated Time and Attendance System (ITAS) can then use NED to locate an authenticated user's record in the Human Resources Database (HRDB).

Functional Overview
As mentioned above, NED manages identity, organizational, and locator information for all NIH workers. Identity information--distinctive information about an individual that never or rarely changes--includes name, sex, date of birth, place of birth, ID photo, and other information protected by the NED Privacy Act. The name of the organization sponsoring an individual and their classification (Employee, Fellow, Contractor, Tenant, Volunteer, or Guest) are the main elements of organizational information. Locator information consists of home and work telephone numbers, building addresses, email addresses, and so forth. To acquire and coordinate identity, organizational, and locator information among other systems and databases, NED:

�����- binds an individual identity to a unique NIH ID number;
�����- enables NIH administrative personnel to register, update, and
��������deactivate records for NIH workers;
�����- enables individuals to update their own records;
�����- connects to other systems and databases via a wide variety of
��������protocols and interfaces;
�����- parses, validates, and standardizes about 80 identity and locator
        data elements;
�����- finds and links records that identify the same individual;
�����- selects and merges all data elements for an individual into a
��������single meta-directory record; and,
�����- creates, updates, and deletes records in connected systems in
��������response to external events, as determined by nearly 1,000
��������custom business rules.

The result is that NED and all systems to which it is connected contain up-to-date, consistent, standardized identity, organizational, and locator information for the entire NIH workforce.

Identity Binding
Identity binding is the process of assigning a single, unique, persistent NIH ID number to each individual identity in NED. Typically, NED does this when administrative personnel add or "register" people in NED, but the NED Join Engine (JE) also binds identities automatically when administrative staff fails to do so and records appear first in authoritative human resource (HR) systems such as HRDB, the Fellowship Payment System (FPS2), and the NIH Division of International Services fsaAtlas system.

Content Management
The NEDWeb application is also the primary means of performing directory content management, that is, the adding, updating, and deleting of entries for people in NED. Administrative personnel in the ICs perform these functions for the people in the organizations they administer. In addition, record owners can view all, and update some their own NED information via NEDWeb self-service update. NIH Help Desk staff has the ability to update the Active Directory domain and user name in NED entries using the Link Editor web tool.

Authorizing Services in NED
NIH administrative personnel use NED to authorize NIH ID badges, NIH Library privileges, listing in the NIH Telephone and Services Directory, NIH Active Directory accounts, Exchange mailboxes, and red parking permits. The use of NED for authorizing services has streamlined business processes by automating formerly paper-based processes.