In March 2020, as COVID-19 emerged as a global threat, it became apparent that millions of small businesses were headed into economic peril. While White House officials and lawmakers moved with unusual speed to enact the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the task of administering financial aid to small businesses suddenly fell on the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

Legacy challenge

As an independent cabinet agency with fewer than 3,000 employees, the SBA had, until then, managed small business loan and grant applications using an email-based processing and approval system involving shared mailboxes built on Microsoft Outlook. The agency’s outdated backend infrastructure had never been designed — and was ill-equipped — to handle the overwhelming volume of relief requests flooding in from all 50 states once the CARES Act was enacted. Inboxes and storage capacities hit their daily caps almost immediately. Customers started to receive “undeliverable” messages. And SBA employees were unable to keep up with the skyrocketing workloads.

SBA’s leadership quickly recognized what many other public and private sector organizations discovered at the onset of the pandemic — to remain effective in an environment of rapidly escalating and fast-changing needs, they needed to transition quickly from their existing operating systems and adopt a more modern and scalable digital solution that could meet their rapidly-changing needs.

Transformative solution

SBA officials turned to a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Microsoft Dynamics 365. The platform not only offered the scalability and customization the SBA needed but also allowed the SBA to implement a wide range of integrated features, including email automation, auto-routing, metrics recognition, storage optimization, spam prevention, app integration, and auditing capabilities.

More fundamentally, the shift to a modern CRM platform enabled the SBA to transition from a series of manual, labor-intensive processes to a more efficient, automated system that could quickly scale to the volume SBA needed.

Improved outcomes

Adopting a modern, cloud-based CRM platform not only helped SBA overcome a host of technology bottlenecks but also resulted in significant improvements in the SBA’s internal operations and customer service. The platform:

• Centralized all customer interactions and attached documents into a single contact record, saving a significant amount of time previously spent verifying that all required documents had been received.
• Categorized requests and automated routing, resulting in timelier responses and fewer requests left in limbo.
• Reduced much of the manual work associated with evaluating requests and eliminated common processing errors, enhancing productivity.
• Allowed SBA staff to more quickly triage cases and review work origins, notes, updates, and activities that had occurred across multiple teams for faster response.
• Provided customers with an easier way to submit a standardized inquiry using a convenient web form on my.sba.gov, built on Dynamics 365 Portal, rather than typing out an email. Customers can also schedule appointments through a Microsoft Power Pages Portal (appointment.sba.gov), assigned to SBA staff and fulfilled within the Dynamics 365 Customer Service platform.

By making it easier to integrate apps and implement a knowledge base reference library, the modernization effort also allowed the SBA to consolidate information from various sources and streamline the decision-making process. That effort was further enhanced with the creation of a Tier 1 dashboard for individual users and a Tier 2 dashboard for team leads to track overall caseloads, giving SBA staff the ability to make data-driven decisions faster and adapt to changing circumstances.

Mission modernization

Moving to a scalable, cloud-based CRM platform helped the SBA rally quickly in response to the sudden flood of aid requests. It also catapulted the SBA’s ability to meet its broader mission of serving and supporting small businesses.

In particular, the new platform made it possible for the SBA to manage activities more effectively with — and gain deeper insights about — more than 11 million individuals in its contact list.

“We can come to the campaign tabs [on the dashboard] and see a list of all of the different campaigns that the SBA has created inside of the platform,” explained SBA Program Manager Brian Quay. The software allows SBA staff to roll up all the cases associated with a contact record and even view image files to validate what information has been provided. It also allows SBA staff to see the status and performance of various marketing campaigns and activities.

“We can see…the number of members that were on [a particular] marketing list, how many messages were successfully sent to them, and failures. This is something that has been a huge productivity gain for SBA [staff], who were previously mainly sending those emails out through Outlook without an ability to track success,” the official said. Altogether, the platform helped SBA create and send more than 50 million templated outreach email from February to September 2023.

Another dimension of the SBA’s customer service modernization is the implementation of Power BI dashboards natively embedded into Dynamics 365. This allows executives who aren’t trained to use Dynamics to still access the metrics it provides by leveraging Power BI on the web or their mobile devices.  

Within two and a half years, the SBA expanded the platform from four mailboxes to over 200 individual inboxes, used by close to 80 teams with an unprecedented volume of activity. According to recent estimates, the platform now tracks over 20 million cases to date and has resulted in operational cost savings of over $25 million.

Lessons learned

The SBA’s transition from an email-based tracking system to a cloud-based CRM platform yielded several valuable lessons for federal executives considering a similar transformation:

Firstly, the importance of scalability cannot be overstated. In a crisis situation, the ability to quickly scale up operations is crucial, and a flexible digital platform can make all the difference.

Secondly, customization matters. Tailoring the system to the agency’s unique needs ensures maximum efficiency and usability.

Thirdly, integration capabilities are a game-changer. The ability to connect different tools and data sources creates a unified ecosystem, enabling faster decision-making.

Lastly, automation is a key enabler of efficiency. By automating routine tasks, agencies can focus their efforts on high-impact activities and respond swiftly to emerging challenges.

The Small Business Administration’s journey to digital modernization also demonstrates that in a rapidly evolving world, embracing innovative solutions is not just an option; it’s a necessity to empower organizations to thrive, grow, and support those they serve.

The report was produced by Scoop News Group for FedScoop, as part of a series on innovation in government, underwritten by Microsoft Federal.

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The IRS is currently accepting comments from industry on its proposed plan to enlist a managed service provider to update its Integrated Enterprise Portals (IEP) platform through an acquisition, called IEP 2.0.

The IRS refers to these portals as the “front door” to its most vital IT systems, calling them in draft solicitation documents the “primary gateway for external users – including taxpayers, third-party tax preparers, and other business partners – and internal users – IRS employees and contractors with staff-like access – to access IRS business services.”

In essence, it’s a hybrid cloud platform that IRS manages privately to support its most mission-critical services, particularly those that involve peak tax season activities like the agency’s Modernized eFile and Integrated Customer Communications Environment applications.

The volume of traffic to the more than 90 websites and services connected to the portals is staggering: “In 2021, IRS IEP websites served over 11.4 billion page views to 660 million site visitors globally (during 2 billion sessions),” the agency said.

With the IEP 2.0 contract, the IRS wants to partner with a managed service provider to “deliver, operate, and manage the IEP services and to evolve IEP services as needed to support the changing dynamics of the many requirements due to Congressional mandates placed on the IRS.”

Accenture is the incumbent on the preceding IEP contract, which has a total value of $692 million and was awarded in 2017.

The new contract, with a proposed $1.7 billion ceiling, will likely be a single-award contract with a five-year base period of performance, and three one-year options to extend.

Interested vendors have until June 30 to submit comments on the proposed acquisition.

The IEP modernization comes as the IRS, fresh off of an $80 billion injection of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, has leaned into becoming a more digital and modern organization. Earlier this year, it awarded spots on its $2.6 billion Enterprise Development, Operations Services, which will bring more than 400 legacy IRS systems under one contract to modernize existing systems, build out analytics and improve cybersecurity.

Meanwhile, the tax agency is also exploring a direct file option for taxpayers in forthcoming tax seasons. The IRS in May tested a prototype of a free tax filing system that could allow Americans to file tax returns digitally and free of charge.

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In the wide-ranging strategy document, the tax collection authority said the overhaul would include changing the underlying logic of tax transactions so they are posted to a database rather than relying on sequential processing.

The agency said in its report: “The core pipeline of incoming tax returns is designed to manage paper forms coming into regional service centers … [t]hese changes will enable self-service capabilities that will foster transparency for taxpayers (e.g., the ability to update accounts and track refund status).”

The tax authority included major technology modernization plans in the new operating plan, which included details on how $80 billion of fresh investment announced last year by the Biden administration would be spent. 

Specific technology modernization projects set out in the strategy document included a project to unify legacy personnel systems into a single modular platform and work to “strategically automate and outsource operations” to increase capacity at the tax authority when needed.

According to Reuters, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told journalists during a briefing also that IRS would hire more data scientists than ever before to ramp up enforcement resources.

Adeyemo added also that IRS would ramp up customer service hiring, according to the report.

Technology modernization goals included in the plan follow a watchdog audit published in February that warned about 33% of applications, 23% of software instances and 8% of hardware assets in use at the agency were considered legacy.

According to IRS, underfunding over the last decade has hampered its ability to invest in up-to-date technology and improve the user experience for taxpayers. 

IRS will obligate about $8.6 billion of new funding during the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years, and 8,782 of new hires made during that period will be enforcement staff.

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Kilmer, who is the ranking member of the new House Administration Subcommittee on Modernization and the former chair of the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress for the past four years, will shortly introduce the new legislation, which already has two Democratic and two Republican co-sponsors.

The bill would establish a commission and convene experts to review, analyze, and make recommendations to Congress in an effort to better incorporate federal data and evidence-based policymaking throughout the legislative process.

“The goal was for it to give more power to data and evidence. Part of the challenge in Congress is oftentimes policy gets made based on what people think and opinions, not what the facts are,” Kilmer told FedScoop during an exclusive interview.  

“We’re trying to put more emphasis on having decisions baked in and grounded in fact and evidence. I think that would serve our constituents better,” he added.

It’s not clear yet how the experts on the commission would be chosen or how “evidence” would be defined. 

The new legislation will build upon a non-binding resolution Kilmer introduced in November to encourage evidence-based policymaking, which was co-led by Reps. William Timmons, R-S.C., David Joyce, R-Ohio, and Dean Phillips, D-Minn., all members of the Modernization Subcommittee.

It also comes after Congress in 2018 passed the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, which similar to this new measure required federal agencies to base new policy on data and created chief data officer roles responsible for cultivating agency data strategies.

Kilmer did not disclose the Republican and Democratic members who are in support of the upcoming legislation and are co-sponsors, but his staff said they have had prior support from data advocacy and civic organizations like the Lincoln Policy Network, Results for America, BPC, Data Foundation, and USA Facts, which are also expected to support the bill.

When asked about potential opposition to the bill, Kilmer said: “I don’t know who would be against having evidence-based policymaking?”

“I don’t know, if you think about when this idea was first worked on several years ago it was people like [Republicans] Paul Ryan, it was Patty Murray. It was a pretty interesting ideological mix of people,” said Kilmer.

Public opinion trends in the U.S. over the last three decades suggest an overwhelming lack of trust in government, regardless of which political party is in control, according to Gallup polls.

A significant cause for this mistrust is the gridlock in Congress where there are many policy areas where most Republicans and Democrats disagree on how to measure or interpret performance and effectiveness, ranging from healthcare access and immigration policy to tactics for keeping the economy strong, according to a Pew Research Center report from 2015.

A 2018 study by the Bipartisan Policy Center said: “A recent analysis suggests that members of Congress increasingly rely on one-sided information. This suggests that information processing has become increasingly complex, challenging, and partisan within Congress.” 

Kilmer’s bill, which is bipartisan and is expected to get a Senate companion as well, aims to take a stab at the problem of one-sided opinions in Congress by re-engineering the process of policymaking around facts and evidence through a non-partisan lens.

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Though the public sector continues to make strides to make the digital delivery of services and the customer experience more equitable and accessible, a new Scoop News Group Report report, underwritten by EY, found that less than half of state and local (39%) and federal (43%) respondents saw that digital accessibility is a top priority among agency/leadership.

Federal law Section 508 requires federal-government sites to meet specific accessibility requirements, and although many states have laws or standards of their own, as evidenced by the report, there is room for the public sector to take more steps to ensure their websites and online services are accessible to all users.

The report surveyed 178 prequalified federal, state, county and municipal government leaders, customer experience and IT decision-makers to learn about their progress in improving the customer experience and service delivery. Among the key findings:

Maturity varies by agency

When asked to rate the maturity of their agency’s ability to meet the digital accessibility needs of different populations, federal respondents outpaced state and local respondents in ranking their agency for having “fully achieved/optimized” the following:

• Enabled barrier-free, equal access to digital products, services, and content for all (21% federal vs. 12 % state and local)
• Established Web Content Accessibility Guidelines standards (31% vs. 20%)
• Comply with Diversity, Equity & Inclusion standards for people with disabilities (40% vs. 30%)
• Promoting awareness of digital accessibility (26% vs. 19%)

Beyond the requirements

The government has paved the way for individuals with disabilities by creating legislation that is inclusive and supportive of creating equitable access—it’s high on their radar, and they know they need to do it. Nearly 7 in 10 of all respondents said their agency has a formal accessibility framework or policy in place for physical/mobile disabilities. More federal agency respondents, however, said they have frameworks in place for blindness/low vision (54%) and deafness/hard of hearing (58%).

However, the survey shows that double of state and local agency respondents have been more proactive in addressing non-regulatory areas like limited English fluency (54%), limited digital literacy (44%) and limited/lack of reliable broadband/digital access (33%).

Proactive engagement is needed

It’s critical not to make assumptions or generalize—ask people of all abilities what works well for them and what can be done differently. While federal respondents have been more active than state and local respondents in surveying various population groups — particularly the hard-of-hearing—state and local agencies are focused on English fluency, digital literacy and broadband/digital access needs— which may be a function of their engagement with constituents on a more regular basis.

Connecting with communities

Agency respondents gave mixed scores for how much support they receive from various technology providers and from the public, private and non-governmental organizations, perhaps due to the size of their agency or how resource-rich they are. Federal, state, and local respondents said they continue to face several technical, policy and training challenges that could be better met if different groups worked more collaboratively to help close accessibility gaps.

Download the full study, “Delivering Digital Access and Equity in the Public Sector,” for detailed findings, including breakouts tables on how management, communications/CX and IT respondents occasionally see things differently in the efforts their agency is making for improving the digital delivery of services and making the customer experience more equitable and accessible.

This article was produced by Scoop News Group and sponsored by EY.

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The space agency issued a presolicitation notice Friday declaring that it will open its NASA Consolidated Applications and Platform Services (NCAPS) contract vehicle for bids “on or about February 28, 2023, with an anticipated offer due date of on or about March 31, 2023.”

NASA initially anticipated launching the RFP period late last year. However, in a Nov. 14 notice, it said the procurement was placed on hold “until further notice.”

Now that the contract seems to be back on track, NASA said it will issue a draft RFP sometime on or around Jan. 13 so that prospective bidders can provide questions, comments and concerns. With this, the agency anticipates hosting a virtual industry day the week of Jan. 24.

Through NCAPS, NASA wants to acquire a “comprehensive enterprise solution to standardize and centralize NASA’s IT support,” the presolicitation document says.

“This includes the maintenance of IT systems, development of new applications as needed for NASA, a rationalization of duplicative efforts to create efficiencies across NASA Centers, and other functions,” it reads. “The NCAPS contract will be critical in consolidating the scope of NASA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) application and platform services at NASA Centers, IT Programs, and the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC).”

As FedScoop previously reported, the contract is expected to feature firm, fixed-price (FFP) and cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) elements and indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) task orders.

The eight-year contract consists of a 90-day phase-in, a nine-month base period and seven one-year options.

The roughly $2 billion ceiling for the contract is broken down across different categories: NCAPS core service catalog items, teams and tasks will be FFP with a $1.33 billion ceiling; core services will be CPFF with a $430 million ceiling; IDIQ task orders will be FFP and CPFF with a $100 million ceiling; and other direct costs will be reimbursable with a $115 million ceiling.

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As DIA’s chief information officer, Douglas Cossa is steering that notable revamp of JWICS, a more than three-decades-old system that will evolve to integrate across all U.S. intelligence-aligned components and enable the secure transmission of top secret data and information between them. 

“My role as the enterprise provider for JWICS is to look at where we need those cloud access points and work with vendors around the world to determine where those priorities need to be. Right now, that doesn’t exist. And so that, at least in the near-term, forces us into a hybrid environment where I’m still hosting a lot of that myself in my own data centers. But in the future, I think that will swing the other way, especially as we build that infrastructure with vendors,” Cossa explained during a virtual event Tuesday hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

Cloud access points are essentially the security conduits via which the Defense Department connects to the commercial cloud. Sensors enable DOD components to monitor traffic passing through it.

Operating in a hybrid-cloud environment in the near term, DIA intends to maintain its own data centers and host its own infrastructure, Cossa said, “because, simply, we don’t have connectivity today where those cloud access points need to be put in place in the future,” or it’s so sensitive that officials need more visibility into what’s happening. 

But that’s not the case for all applications. So far, DIA has “certainly taken advantage of cloud services” for back office and business applications, according to Cossa. 

“Things like our contract management system and our HR management system, all of those front-end business services, I’ve essentially moved all of those to the cloud,” he said.

While the intelligence agency can assume some risks associated with modernizing those business functions, the CIO noted that more challenges around data access, identity management, coverage, capacity and security requirements exist with mission-related processes. In those cases, DIA officials need to be able to “see the full threat of security of what’s happening behind the firewall on the vendor side,” Cossa said.

“That’s where we’re going to need to see how that plays out,” he added. “When it comes down to mission data, it’s really going to come down to visibility in a security sense and the access to where those services, that data, that infrastructure, needs to be accessed from. Right now, it does not exist.”

In Cossa’s view, there are also many new opportunities for collaboration between DIA and the United States’ closest international partners — including the Five Eyes coalition nations that are also increasingly turning to cloud-based services. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. are members of that intelligence-sharing group, through which they jointly cooperate on signals intelligence.  

In that sense too, though, challenges around identity management and data access and integration policies remain. 

“And that’s going to be tough — not from a technology perspective, but from a cultural perspective of how we share intelligence given the sensitive nature of it. I mean, it makes sense, but where a lot of the vendor community is going to come in is helping with that integration across cloud services,” Cossa said. “And I really do think that industry is going to lead in data access and the identity management area for the federal government.”

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The purpose of the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) investment is to modernize parts of the federal government by focusing on a digital-first customer experience and cybersecurity goals while supporting the intent and investment priorities of the $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus bill, the American Rescue Plan, which is where the funds have come from.

“The TMF provides critical funding to address urgent IT modernization and cybersecurity challenges across the federal government,” said TMF Board Chair and Federal CIO Clare Martorana. “The investments in DOL, AmeriCorps, and USAID will modernize outdated systems, accelerate implementation of zero trust architecture to address immediate cybersecurity gaps, and enhance public-facing services in order to provide simple, seamless, and secure access to government services.”

The fund will invest $7.2 million in the Labor Department to help modernize how employers access permanent labor certification services and create a more seamless visa processing experience; $14 million in AmeriCorps to replace a 20-year-old system with a new integrated system that allows the agency and its partners to better focus on serving local communities; and $5.6 million in USAID to reduce the cyber risks associated with the agency’s global mission and improve user experience for its workforce.

TMF is overseen by the Technology Modernization Board, which is composed of government IT leaders with expertise in technology, transformation, and operations. The fund has invested over $500 million so far. The management of the TMF is housed within GSA.

The last round of TMF investments in June put a total of $94.8 million in three projects — within the Agriculture Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Homeland Security — to support initiatives that are focused on improving network infrastructure through the adoption of zero-trust security.

Some federal agencies have been required to pay back some of the funds they received from the TMF for IT and cybersecurity projects, according to a Government Accountability Office decision issued in July.

The new funding is expected to help bolster the government’s commitment to updating key IT systems.

“The TMF continues to make smart technology investments to modernize IT systems, safeguard sensitive data, and provide the American taxpayers with efficient, effective access to necessary services,” said TMF Executive Director Raylene Yung. “These investments demonstrate the federal government’s commitment to transforming the way agencies use technology while improving the end-user experience.”

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Yee retired from the Army in April as a two-star with his most recent assignment as assistant to the director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which manages a $13 billion IT and cybersecurity portfolio for the Pentagon.

Previous roles he held while serving in the military also included military deputy and chief information security officer for what was then the Army’s CIO/G-6 office. It has since split into two separate offices with the former led by a civilian and the latter billet a three-star.

In his new role at GDIT, Yee will be tasked with “driving growth and innovation” while also meeting customer needs to include providing specialized technology solutions and services in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, 5G and high-performance computing, the company said in a press release.

“Garrett brings a wealth of expertise and experience from a distinguished military career to our team,” Brian Sheridan, GDIT’s senior vice president for the defense division, said. “His extensive knowledge and background in global communications and IT systems will be a tremendous asset in supporting our customers’ missions.”

GDIT’s work for the Army includes modernization and sustainment as well as simulation-based training and logistics and supply chain management.

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