On May 23, 2012, the White House announced a Digital Government Strategy for federal government agencies to use as a roadmap in delivering 21st century services to the American people. This vision calls for the increased use of technology to lower costs while enabling citizens to securely access high quality government information, data and services “anywhere, anytime, on any device.”

The core principles of the strategy focus on:

Using an information-centric approach to presenting information and data;
Collaborating on a shared platform across government agencies;
Providing customer-centric data that allows people to shape, share and consume information; and
Protecting privacy through a secure platform.

On this page, you will find the progress of the Social Security Administration in reaching the milestones spelled out in the Digital Government Strategy roadmap. We will continue to update this information as we advance toward our goal of harnessing the power of technology to better serve the American people.

Digital Government Strategy Report for the Social Security Administration

1.2. Ensure all new IT systems follow the open data, content, and web API policy and operationalize agency.gov/developer pages

Overall Status: In Progress

1.2.1. Document policy for architecting new IT systems for openness by default

URL of policy:
Describe policy:

1.2.2. Operationalize /developer page

URL of page:

2.1. Engage with customers to identify at least two existing major customer-facing services that contain high-value data or content as first-move candidates to make compliant with new open data, content, and web API policy.

Overall Status: Completed

2.1.1. Paragraph on customer engagement approach

Paragraph on customer engagement approach: SSA has a long history of engaging our customers to gain feedback from them on the services we provide. In the past we have used open participation surveys for public evaluations of communications products/services and customer satisfaction feedback on our web pages. In addition, we have conducted online focus groups, either by bulletin board or third party webinar hosting services. We have also used ideation tools to gather public comments on products like our Open Government Plan using public and employee comments gathered via Ideascale. In order to engage with our customers most recently, we published a request for comments in the Federal Register on July 27, 2012. We asked our customers to provide their feedback on several questions that will help us provide better services to them. We ensured widespread consideration of this request by issuing Dear Colleague letters to over 75 different organizations. This includes customers such as advocacy groups, professional organizations, Union and Management associations, etc. We have asked for their comment by Internet, Fax or mail by August 27, 2012. Once we review their feedback, we will evaluate their responses and determine the best candidates to pursue, given our current resources.

2.1.2. Prioritized list of systems (datasets)

System Name: SSA State Agency Monthly Workload Data
System Description: Monthly information from October 2000 onwards concerning claims for disability benefits that were referred for a disability determination to one of the 54 state agencies. The data may be used to examine disability application filing trends by time and by state, state agency workloads, and disability claims outcomes.
System Scope: Both
Main Customer: Individuals and their appointed representatives who are applying for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits, disability advocates, program and policy researchers.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002140

System Name: Average Wait Time Until Hearing Held Report
System Description: A presentation of the average time (in months) from the hearing request date until a hearing is held for claims pending in the Office of Disability.
System Scope: Both
Main Customer: Individuals and their appointed representatives who are applying for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits, disability advocates, program and policy researchers.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002700

System Name: Hearing Office Workload Data
System Description: A monthly presentation of four key workload indicators (pending, receipts, dispositions and average processing time) for each hearing office in the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR).
System Scope: Both
Main Customer: Individuals and their appointed representatives who are applying for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits, disability advocates, program and policy researchers.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002700

System Name: Hearing Office Average Processing Time Ranking Report
System Description: A monthly ranking of the 165 ODAR hearing offices (including 3 satellite offices) by the average number of days until final disposition of the hearing request. The average shown will be a combined average for all cases completed in that hearing office. The public will be able to determine where a particular hearing office stands among the total with respect to this workload category.
System Scope: Both
Main Customer: Individuals and their appointed representatives who are applying for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits, disability advocates, program and policy researchers.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002700

System Name: SSA/Department of State Identity Verification Web Service
System Description: SSA is providing the DOS with information to verify the identity of passport applicants via a web service. This is being done based on a reimbursable agreement with DOS.
System Scope: Internal
Main Customer: Directly for the DOS and indirectly for passport applicants.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002212

2.2. Make high-value data and content in at least two existing, major customer-facing systems available through web APIs, apply metadata tagging and publish a plan to transition additional high-value systems

Overall Status: In Progress

2.2.1. Make 2+ systems (datasets) available via web APIs with metadata tags

2.2.2. Publish plan on future activity

4.2. Establish an agency-wide governance structure for developing and delivering digital services

Overall Status: Completed
Paragraph on Governance: The Social Security Administration (SSA) is a centralized agency (no bureaus or departments). We have a very robust, centralized IT environment that supports the automation of major aspects of the agency’s core mission. We don’t face the difficulty that other agencies do when it comes to managing our digital services. SSA’s organizational structure provides clear areas of responsibility for the various aspects of digital services, including those such as hiring, acquisitions, etc. These functional responsibilities are well defined and explained in the organizational information found at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/org/. The agency provides multiple secure delivery channels for our services; including telephone, online, formal data exchanges, Web services (machine to machine), and mobile. SSA offers many electronic services to third parties who do business with us; including those in the private and public sector. We also provide Government-to-Government services and electronic data exchanges to the U.S. Military, Federal, State, Local, and Foreign agencies. The CIO and our investment review board, the Strategic IT Assessment and Review Board (SITAR) (comprised of executive representatives from each of our major agency components) are responsible for governance and oversight of our IT investments. Together, they ensure that our key digital service initiatives align with our Agency Strategic Plan, the administrative budget, the Annual Performance Plan and our Enterprise Architecture. Digital services are proposed to the SITAR by the agency Strategic Objective Portfolios (SOPs). Each SOP represents a major business area, complete with projects, portfolio management infrastructure and a performance measurement process that provides a lower level of governance. Oversight for these digital services is handled by the eServices Governance Steering Committee. This group governs our standards, processes and procedures for SSA’s digital services. In addition they formulate and document our eService strategy and oversee its implementation within SSA. This group provides recommendations to the SOPs mentioned above. All of these entities have clear roles and responsibilities and are guided by the principles clearly stated in our ASP at http://www.ssa.gov/asp/plan-2013-2016.pdf. SSA has had this strong centralized digital IT governance for well over ten years now. We continue to evolve our governance as we gain new insights into what the American public expects and deserves in government services.
URL to Governance Document: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/irm/IRM_2012.pdf

5.2. Develop an enterprise-wide inventory of mobile devices and wireless service contracts

Overall Status: Completed

5.2.1. Develop wireless and mobile inventory

Bureau/Component: Done for all of SSA
Inventory Status: Completed

5.3. Evaluate the government-wide contract vehicles in the alternatives analysis for all new mobile-related procurements

Overall Status: In Progress
Paragraph on policy:

6.3. Ensure all new digital services follow digital services and customer experience improvement guidelines

Overall Status: In Progress
Paragraph on policy:

7.1. Engage with customers to identify at least two existing priority customer-facing services to optimize for mobile use.

Overall Status: Completed

7.1.1. Paragraph on customer engagement approach

7.1.2. Prioritized list of systems (datasets)

System Name: Mobile Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Wage Reporting Application
System Description: SSI recipients will use this application to report their monthly wage amounts. This enables them to meet their monthly reporting obligations.
System Scope: External
Main Customer: SSI recipients who need to report their wages on a monthly basis.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002146

System Name: Mobile Optimized Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
System Description: People seeking information from SSA will use this mobile optimized FAQ website to obtain information about numerous topics.
System Scope: External
Main Customer: The general public - anyone seeking information from SSA.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002146

System Name: Mobile Contact
System Description: People seeking to do business with SSA will use this application to get needed information and directions to their local SSA office. In addition they will have access to information about services available by phone and online.
System Scope: External
Main Customer: The general public - anyone seeking to do business with SSA.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002146

System Name: Mobile Optimized Life Expectancy Calculator
System Description: The Life Expectancy Calculator is a valuable financial planning tool which we encourage the public to use to help decide when to retire and begin collecting Social Security benefits. The Calculator uses the gender and birth date entered by the user to provide the average number of additional years a person of the same gender and age can expect to live when he reaches a specific age. Providing a mobile optimized version of the Calculator also provides links to other helpful retirement planning tools and helps to promote other online services.
System Scope: External
Main Customer: The general public – anyone planning for retirement.
Unique Investment Identifier: 016-000002146

7.2. Optimize at least two existing priority customer-facing services for mobile use and publish a plan for improving additional existing services

Overall Status: In Progress
URL of plan:

7.2.1. Report on services

8.2. Implement performance and customer satisfaction measuring tools on all .gov websites

Overall Status: Completed

8.2.1. Implement performance measurement tool

Implemented Digital Analytics Program: Yes
If Not, Describe Implementation:
Percent of websites covered: 100%
URL of performance data: This performance data is used internally.

8.2.2. Implement customer satisfaction tool

Describe Implementation: The Social Security Administration uses the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) to measure customer satisfaction of our digital services. The ACSI, developed by the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan, is a widely used and well-respected national indicator of customer satisfaction with goods and services in the U.S. economy since 1994. ForeSee is one of only two companies that have been licensed to apply the ACSI methodology for the public sector. SSA works with ForeSee in applying the ACSI methodology by collecting customer satisfaction data via online surveys on our public facing websites. SSA uses the information gained from the surveys to make changes to our digital services to improve our customers’ experience. We have been using the ACSI surveys for well over ten years. ForeSee also provides us with periodic Satisfaction Insight Reviews (SIRs) which identify key findings, and makes recommendations for improvement.
URL of performance data: This customer satisfaction data is used internally.

Last updated January 15, 2013 at 11:15 AM

The Complete Digital Government Strategy