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An Enterprise-wideCollaboration Suite for NOAA…

Recommendations

NOAA WebShop 2007

November 14, 2007

By Larry Goldberg, NMFS/OCIO

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Outline

• The Issue, Challenge and Choice

• WebEx Features

• Pilot and Survey Results

• Next Steps

• Risk Management

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The Issue

• NOAA has a growing need for web-based collaboration – For communities of interest working together on a

specific issue or task– For internal and external constituents

• This need is currently being met by a number of different solutions including:– A variety of hosted services– In-house systems such as the NWFSC Oracle

Collaboration Suite• The CIO Council desired to standardize

NOAA’s approach to collaboration

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The Challenge

Select and Deploy an Enterprise-wide

collaboration strategy for NOAA

• Identify Alternatives– Research Marketplace– Consult with Industry Experts– Consider Rent vs. Buy– Evaluate Selected Tools

• Make Recommendations to and Achieve Consensus from NOAA CIO Council

• Conduct a Pilot• Evaluate Pilot Survey• Make Final Recommendations• Deploy NOAA-Wide

The Process

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Evaluation Criteria• Ability to meet most of NOAA’s collaboration needs

– Supports Internal and external constituents– Collaboration on “Low Potential Impact” information

• Security – Physical– Application– Network– Data

• Tools Available– Discussion Forums– Document Management with check-in/check-out and file sharing– Email with contact lists – Calendaring– Database Management– Task Management– Web Conferencing

• Price

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The Choice: WebEx

• Provides both:– WebEx and WebOffice are separate products– Web-based meetings (WebEx meetings) and– Collaborative workspaces (WebOffice)

• Industry Leader– Bought out by Cisco

• Low cost - Deep enterprise-wide discounts

• Secure

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WebEx Meetings• Web-based meetings• Video and voice over IP : See each

other while talking• White board: All participants can

post messages• Webinars

– One way broadcast of PowerPoint presentations, etc.

• Application sharing– All participants can collaborate on

the same application, e.g. a spreadsheet, Word document, agenda

– Applications can be on any computer

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Web Office

• A web portal where members can:– Download and edit documents

(Word, Excel, etc.: any native format)

– Share databases– Maintain list of contacts– Track project tasks– Calendaring– Send emails– Start WebEx meetings with

members and other constituents

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NOAA Regional Collaboration Pilot• 30 Day Pilot in Aug & Sep

• Five WebOffice Sites – – North Atlantic Regional Team– Central Regional Team– Western Regional Team– Alaska Regional Team– F/IA

• Tracked: # of users set up; # of unique visitors; # of documents posted; # of MB stores on WebOffice

• Conducted survey addressing ease of use and functionality of WebEx features with participants

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Pilot Survey - Comments

Good tool. Accommodates busy people. Very nice capabilities to work on collaborative documents! Great to post documents for access w/o filling email boxes. This software and its utility will be very important to collaboration efforts over the next year. We are very pleased that the WebOffice continues, wish the WebEx portion would too but we have an alternative to use for that. Easy to assign and track team tasks. Will be interesting to see how this interfaces with tasks in Microsoft Outlook when Exchange is up and running. Support did multiple training sessions and was always there when we needed them.

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Next Steps• Procurement Strategy

– Buy off GSA schedule for one-year as user base increases– Negotiate next year– To manage costs: NOAA OCIO coordinates/ LOs pay– Consider expansion to DOC to increase numbers and drive down costs

• License Administration– NOAA OCIO

• Central point of focus for procurement • Track usage and costs

– LO contacts• BOP funds to NOAA OCIO• Monitor, add, remove and reassign users as required up to maximum number of

• Technical Administration - NOAA OCIO– Track resource usage– Capacity planning

• Security– Continue with C&A initiative

• Establish Policies/Business rules– Use existing policies for now and refine as needed– Establish guidance for WebOffice administration, username formats (LDAP?) – Consider “Rules of Behavior” agreement?– Discourage use of other collaboration suites and web meeting tools?

• CIO Council Oversight– Regular reporting on usage metrics

• Incorporate WebEx in EA TRM• Roll-out Enterprise-wide

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