Office of the Chief Information Officer

United States Department of Agriculture

EAS In Detail

FY2012 Accomplishments in Detail

The BioPreferred Program is intended to increase Federal procurement of bio-based products to promote rural economic development, create new jobs, and provide new markets for farm commodities. EAS supported the program by:

  • Developing and managing a new awards program that recognizes “Excellence in Bio-based Procurement” by BioPreferred Program champions
  • Releasing this 2012 award for USDA BioPreferred Program Champions
  • Developing and refining a new online catalog that enables purchasers to compare products from all participating manufacturers
  • Developing a “USDA Certified Bio-based Product” Label

Export/Import Bank– The AgLearn program office provides services that include:

  • Application and database hosting, maintenance services, application administration, and AgLearn licensing
  • Help desk support for users and AgLearn administrators
  • Content integration, implementation, and testing support
  • Management and delivery of mandatory training programs such as Cyber Security, Ethics, and Civil Rights

Renewable Energy and Energy Matrix– The Renewable Energy Resources mapping facility is under development and additional data layers representing socio, agro, forestry, economic, and renewable energy concepts will be added. Currently, select socio-economic concepts can be viewed at the national, state, and county levels for population, unemployment, and poverty. For agriculture, conservation reserve program (CRP) grassland acreage due to expire by year 2011-2020 is presented. The location of blending terminals and biofuel type blended at the terminal is included. (Data Sources: Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), Petroleum Terminal Encyclopedia, 2009; Esri)

The USDA Energy Investments web map contains information regarding USDA programs that provide assistance to renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.  The map displays investment location, type of energy investment, amount of assistance provided and the administering USDA program.  The energy investment data is also summarized by state, county and congressional districts to display total number of investments and total dollar amounts obligated by USDA.

CIO.gov Support – EAS supports CIO.gov, CFO.gov, eCPIC.gov, IDManagement.gov, Section508.gov, CAO.gov, FMI.gov, and Acquisition.gov. These sites support the CIO Council (every departmental-level CIO) and communicate updates from the Federal CIO and the White House.

eAuthentication 2.0 / Enterprise Entitlements Management System (EEMS)– The USDA Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) program was established in response to HSPD-12 and the FICAM (Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management) program. EEMS is the primary system used to support the ICAM program delivery. The EEMS modernization project is a multiphase project, designed to meet additional mandates, add features to streamline identity, credential and access management, update the ICAM infrastructure and software, and meet customer demands.

eAuthentication is the most visible part of ICAM and is the USDA’s enterprise solution for managing access control and providing single sign-on for web-based applications. EAS made substantial progress toward establishing eAuthentication as the access management component of the USDA Identity, Credential, and Access Management solution by:

  • Completing integration with National Finance Center’s Person Model, facilitating a single authoritative source for identity data
  • Completing the eAuthentication 2.0 Phase 1 infrastructure upgrade
  • Completing the EEMS user store data migration to NITC data center

New AgLearn Release– With the new version of AgLearn coming in 2012, users will be able to:

  • Work From Your To-Do List– To-do items are conveniently listed in due date order, so that the user can easily plan their work
  • Quickly Complete Tasks– The Easy Links are shortcuts to most frequently performed tasks
  • Stay On Target– Users can review their Status Pods frequently and click on any pod to drill into details
  • Tasks Delegated by Supervisors– Supervisors can delegate responsibilities to others.  Users can perform tasks for these supervisors by using the Delegator’s list on their home page

Clients and Partners

National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

  • plants.usda.gov is the number one scientific database and one of the most visited sites in USDA. EAS has provided support for 23 years of service
  • The Ecological Site Inventory System (ESIS) provides information on ecological sites including forage and forest. EAS has provided 15 years of service
  • The Office Information Profile (OIP) provides a common store of USDA field offices and an inventory of their resources. EAS has provided 15 years of service

U.S. Air Force (USAF)

  • EAS is collaborating with the U.S. Air Force Surgeon General’s Office to build a Virtual Medical Center
  • EAS is building the Virtual Clinical Learning Portal as part of the Air Force Medical Modeling & Simulation Training (AFMMAST) Program

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)/Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)

  • The FSIS Residue Violation Information System (RVIS) is co-owned by FSIS and FDA and used to share data in support of the National Residue Program (NRP)
  • The FDA Tissue Residue Information System (TRIMS) provides storage, tracking, and reporting functions for detailed information collected during FDA’s residue investigations
  • EAS has supported both these systems for 15 years

US Forest Service (USFS)

  • The Pacific Northwest Region Fire Application Support has evolved into a suite of applications, including an Incident Commander Application (ICAP) system, Incident Training and Equipment Acquisition Management (ITEAM), Project Aviation Safety Plan (PASP), and Fuel Treatment Effectiveness (FTE)
  • The Natural Resource Manager (NRM) comprises application components for managing corporate agency data across the Forest Service. These include Forest Service Activity Tracking System (FACTS), Infrastructure (INFRA), Natural Resource Information System (NRIS) Timber Information Manager (TIM), Automated Timber Sales Accounting (ATSA)
  • EAS has supported both these systems for 15 years

Rural Development (RD)

Export/Import Bank

  • EAS signed its first non-USDA client for its AgLearn training and talent management service. In June 2012 we signed an agreement with the Export/Import Bank to provide a comprehensive suite of online educational services to the Bank 

Departmental Management (DM)

  • The People’s Garden initially included only USDA employee sponsored gardens. Today, it’s developed from the original garden on the grounds of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to over 1,100 gardens worldwide. That includes 706 USDA gardens and 106 public gardens. Since 2009, EAS has supported the People’s Garden web site

General Services Administration (GSA) 

  • Network Services Ordering & Billing System (NSOBS)— Services provided by EAS since 1991 support the ordering and billing of telecommunications services that federal agencies procure through the various GSA contracts. EAS also developed billing and reporting systems for the GSA FTS2001, WITS2001, WITS3, and Networx contract. It also developed and maintains the TOPS, MORRIS, E-MORRIS, and E-BILL web sites, based on the Oracle Tool Suite with database backend

USDA CONNECT

  • USDA Connect is a social networking application that empowers USDA to be innovative and execute quickly by utilizing a network of coworkers, experts, and customers. Features like communities, blogs, and activities can be set up for collecting knowledge, exchanging ideas, and organizing efforts

Capabilities

Mobile and Social Media Services

  • Mobile application development
  • Location-based services
  • Social networking
  • Blogging services

Business Strategy

  • Agile methodology and development
  • Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Process
  • Project management office

Technology Solutions

  • eAuthentication (ICAM services)
  • Database analysis and modeling
  • Website development
  • Application architecture, design, and maintenance
  • Consulting and feasibility studies

Talent Management

  • Workforce planning
  • eLearning and online books
  • Virtual worlds
  • Mobile learning