NIMS STEP Overview
The National Incident Management System Supporting Technology Evaluation Program
(NIMS STEP) provides an independent, objective evaluation of commercial and
government software and hardware products to assist in the implementation of
NIMS. Evaluation activities are designed to expand technology solutions and provide the emergency response
community with an objective process to evaluate their purchases.
Evaluation activities are sponsored by the National Preparedness Directorate
(NPD), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The NIMS Support Center (NIMS SC) manages the day-to-day
functions of the program under the direction of the NPD's Incident Management
Systems Integration (IMSI) Division.
 NIMS
STEP supports practitioners in their decision making during the purchasing and
procurement process. The primary benefits to Emergency Management/Response
Personnel include access to reports based on results from an objective
evaluation. Practitioners can also utilize NIMS technical standards and criteria
for reference when purchasing hardware and software off the shelf or in Requests
For Proposals (RFPs) when developing new products.
The results from each evaluation will be posted
on the Responder Knowledge Base (RKB) (https://www.rkb.us/)
and System Assessment and Validation for Emergency Responders (SAVER) (https://saver.fema.gov)
websites. These sites provide government officials and other end-users with
access to evaluated products and results.
Evaluation Activities
 NIMS STEP has been designed to evaluate incident management related software and hardware against NIMS criteria and NIMS technical standards. The NIMS criteria assessment is conducted by Subject Matter Experts (SME) and is qualitative in nature. SMEs use criteria derived from the NIMS document (Publication FEMA 501) and assess a product's incorporation of NIMS concepts and principles. Refer to Appendix D of the NIMS STEP Guide for a description of the assessment criteria. All vendor products in NIMS STEP will be evaluated against NIMS criteria.
 NIMS technical standard evaluations are objective in nature and based upon adopted standards. NIMS STEP evaluates vendor product's adherence to the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and the Emergency Data eXchange Language (EDXL) suite
of standards (http://www.oasis-open.org). If a product does not implement either the CAP or Emergency Data eXchange Language Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) standards, evaluators will review the product solely for NIMS concepts and principles. If evaluation demand exceeds capacity, priority will be given to products that implement one or more of the NIMS technical standards. Additional standards may be included in the program as they are approved by
the IMSI Division.
For additional information on the NIMS STEP, please visit FEMA's NIMS STEP website at:
http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/nims_testing.shtm/
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