NBC Welcomes New Oracle Federal Financials Customers: Amtrak’s OIG and ABMC

The Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) are our newest Oracle Federal Financials customers.  Implementation for Amtrak’s OIG is underway and the Go-Live date is scheduled for July.  ABMC has recently signed their Interagency Agreement and implementation on our Oracle Federal Financials shared instance is planned to start in July.  We are pleased to welcome both organizations to the NBC!

Quarters Program Modernization

The NBC Quarters Program is currently developing a new version of its rent-setting system, QMIS.  Using state-of-the-art programming language, servers, and security controls, the Internet Quarters Management Information System (iQMIS) will provide a centralized, web-based tool to establish rental rates for federal employees living in Government owned and/or leased housing.

For more information, the project timeline, frequently asked questions, and a demonstration of iQMIS, see the iQMIS Online Migration Portal at http://www.nbc.gov/supportservices/iqmis/index.html

Currently, the NBC’s Quarters Program services over 18,000 government housing units owned by 19 federal agencies.  These agencies utilize NBC’s services under contract, and are represented by the National Housing Council, chaired by the Department of the Interior (DOI), Office of the Secretary, Office of Acquisition and Property Management (PAM).

Electronic Invoicing

The NBC continues to explore available options for offering electronic invoicing capability to our non-DOI customers.  We have recently participated in discussions with the Federal Reserve Board and the Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation (OFIT) at the Department of Treasury to evaluate the possibility of joining other government organizations in an enhanced pilot of the Internet Payment Platform (IPP). IPP is being offered by Treasury’s Financial Management Service (FMS).  This tool is being considered by OFIT to become a government-wide solution, in one web-based portal, to centralize data on all transactions in the purchase-to-pay process, including purchase orders, invoices and payments.  Currently the NBC has been supporting its Department of the Interior customers who are implementing IPP in concert with their new financial system deployment.  Development of an interface for each financial system supported by the NBC would also be necessary.  DOI and non-DOI customers could potentially benefit from lessons learned as a result of the earliest DOI bureau implementations.

Financial Services Help Desk Joins the NBC’s Customer Support Center

The DOI NBC consolidated Customer Support Center (CSC) has been expanded with the recent addition of the Financial Management and Budget Directorate (FBD) help desk staff.  The FBD help desk team is now part of the ever-growing CSC family.  The team brings a wealth of knowledge and experience on the financial systems and services they support – FBMS, Momentum, Hyperion, Oracle, FFS, eTravel (GovTrip and E2Solutions), and IDEAS-PD/EC.  As the FBD help desk further evolves, the CSC will be heavily involved in meetings with key NBC and customer stakeholders to ensure the support model is designed to meet all customers’ needs.  The CSC goal is to provide consistent, high quality, and timely service delivery to customers through technology, best practices, and efficient internal processes.  The FBD CSC team is a strategic resource in achieving these goals.  CSC will rely greatly on their experience to get to this objective.  This, combined with the rest of the talented team in the CSC, is a recipe that is guaranteed for success.  Here are a few benefits that Financial Management Services customers will experience with this transition:

• Live queuing technology; avoids voice mail messages and long response times;
• Skills-based routing; managers can monitor call queues and adjust skills if needed for high call volume days;
• Enhanced call statistics and performance reporting.

Additional information about the Financial Services Help Desk is available on the DOI NBC Customer site at http://www3.nbc.gov/customer/Finance/helpdesk.html.

NBC FMLoB FY10 Q1 and Q2 SLA metrics

We recognize our responsibility to proactively measure, assess, and manage all aspects of delivered services as evaluated against the performance metrics established in our service-level agreements.  During this fiscal year, we met 96.3% of our SLA metrics in the first quarter and 98% in the second quarter.

The NBC to be implemented on DOI's Financial and Business Management System

The NBC, as part of the Department of the Interior's Office of the Secretary, has initiated activities to migrate to the Financial and Business Management System (FBMS) that is being implemented across the Department of the Interior (DOI).  FBMS is a fully integrated business management system (based on the SAP Business Suite), which includes the administrative functions of core finance, acquisitions, property, travel, financial assistance and budget.  All functionality is integrated via an enterprise management information system.  DOI is implementing FBMS in a phased approach.  Most of the functionality has been implemented for three of the DOI Bureaus.  The NBC is part of deployment 6 (D6), which will include all of DOI’s Office of the Secretary and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).  Project preparation, which includes scope definition, establishing the OS FBMS deployment team and preparing the timeline for the deployment, started in April.  A complete walkthrough/demo of the system took place the week of June 14, 2010.  Detailed blueprinting workshops begin the week of June 21, 2010, and will continue through the end of August 2010.  The projected Go-Live date is November 2011.  The FBMS implementation will allow the Department to incorporate its financial and business management processes into one single integrated solution, eliminating more than 80 systems currently in operation.

National Travel Forum and AGA Conference

The NBC eTravel and Customer Outreach teams will be at the 2010 National Travel Forum, in Orlando, FL, June 29 – July 1.  We will be exhibiting at booth 323.

We also look forward to seeing you at the 59th Association of Government Accountants (AGA) Annual Professional Development Conference, in Orlando, FL, July 11–14.  NBC associates from the Financial Management Line of Business (FMLoB) will be staffing Booth 47 in the Exhibit Hall.  

Stop by and learn more about the NBC and our shared service solutions.

Financial Management Upcoming Events

The complete version of the FY10 NBC FMLoB Calendar is posted at http://www.nbc.gov/finance.

Financial Management and Budget Services (FBD)

OUR MISSION

To meet our customers’ federal financial management needs and exceed their expectations with integrity, quality and efficiency.

NBC CORE VALUES

Integrity – always doing the right thing
Accountability – doing what we said we would do with transparency
Customer Value – providing results that matter to our clients
Innovation – leveraging advances in business practices and technology to achieve our goals
Teamwork – working collaboratively with all stakeholders

ADDITIONAL FBD CORE VALUES

Excellence – outstanding quality and superior performance
Service – working for the public benefit
Professionalism – demonstrating competency, consideration and commitment
Diversity – valuing differences, mutual respect
Empowerment – balancing authority with accountability

To unsubscribe from receiving future DOI NBC FM Outreach bulletins by email, send a message to nbc_fmoutreach@nbc.gov and type “Unsubscribe” in the subject of the email message.