Question. Last year, this committee provided $4 million for Office 2000 expenses. Please detail what these funds have been used for and how much, if any, of these funds remain. Specify the individual projects to which the remaining funds will be allocated?

Response. The recommended use of the Office 2000 account in FY96 would be as follows:

1. Netscape Web browser and F-Prot anti-virus software site licenses
2. New messaging system training for House staff

3. Site licenses for desktop systems (from FY97 appropriation request)
4. Communications backup/recovery system (FY97 appropriation request)

Total.....

$350,000

800,000

2,150,000

700,000

4,000,000

Subsequent to passage of the FY'96 Appropriation bill, funds were re-programmed within fiscal year 1995 for the purchase of computers and related items. Therefore, the $4 million will not be used for the original purpose Instead, they will be used to fund FY '97 capital budget requests which will be shifted to fiscal 1996.

Question. On Wednesday, February 21, voice mail users received the following message: "We are currently experiencing a problem with the House E-mail environment which is causing a degradation of mail service to and from Internet, WordPerfect, Groupwise, and SMTP mail environments. E-mail is being delivered and received but at a slower than normal rate. Support staff are working on the problem. Another notification will be sent when the problem has been resolved." Anecdotal information indicates occasional lengthy delays in the processing of electronic mail, even under normal circumstances. Your submission indicates as much as a 350_percent increase in electronic mail to and from the House during the past year. Please indicate the monthly electronic mail traffic to and from the House each month since January 1995. What problems has this caused and what resources is HIR devoting to solving them? What type of response can House users expect in the near future?

Response. There have been recent problems with the prompt delivery of electronic mail. Some have been serious and have impacted not only communications among Members and their constituents, but internal House communications as well. Problems associated with a higher volume of E-Mail between the House and the Internet have included delivery problems between the House mail-host computers and the House central mail switches and a high volume of looping messages between the Internet and House computers which resulted in House mail-host shutdowns. Growth in the number of e-mail messages from January to December, 1995 was approximately 350 percent, from 186,974 to 694,519. The attached chart, "House, Constituent and Internet E-Mail Usage,” demonstrate the rate of growth by month. There has been an intermittent problem resulting in deferred delivery of mail to and from the Internet and UNIX based mail systems. That problem remains unresolved at this time. However, the technical staff from the HIR House E-Mail team and Communications services have been capturing trace information and working with the e-mail central switch and communications software vendors to resolve this elusive problem. Both the HIR and vendor staffs are attacking this problem as their highest priority. Sendmail is an integral of the mail host which sends and receives mail from the Internet.

HIR is currently in the process of procuring external contracting support in this area and a task group has been formed to identify and solve outstanding problems associated with the delivery of E-Mail. The House E-Mail team is aggressively addressing and implementing upgrades to both the hardware and software of the House E-Mail configuration to accommodate this explosive growth. Headers were recently turned on to improve HIR's ability to troubleshoot e-mail problems and to conform to Internet mail conventions. HIR has offered offices an E-Mail bypass option which circumvents the delivery problems between the House mail-host and the House central mail switches. There is ongoing monitoring and performance turning to attempt to stay ahead of the continuing and increasing demand for e-mail delivery. Approximately four full-time staff equivalents are assigned to the maintenance and support of the central switch and gateway configuration.

Upon resolution of the existing problem, mail delivery to and from the Internet and UNIX based mail systems will be delivered consistently and in a timely man

ner.

The recurring problems with House E-mail have generated numerous calls to Technical Support Representatives (TSRs) who currently spend approximately 15 percent of their time in support of E-mail. HIR has recently assigned an additional Systems Engineer to more quickly process new requests and has assigned four other Systems Engineers to support trouble shooting for specific mail platforms.

Question. My understanding is that a request was made recently by the CAO's office for four full-time HIR staff to be assigned to the CAO's office. Please provide a copy of that request. What is the purpose of this request? Of what duration would these staff resources be devoted to the CAO's office?

Response. Four Technical Support Representative positions will be designated to provide systems administration support to the offices of the CAO. This support is needed to coordinate the many new and ongoing technical applications for those offices as they take actions to improve delivery of services through improved processes. The CAO has put a strong focus on cross functional teams and the use of technology to improve service while reducing costs. To successfully implement such a program, it is necessary to provide in-office support of systems and staff while assuring CAO wide coordination of technical initiatives. It is believed that this can best be done by a technical team that shares daily responsibilities for these offices but is able to maintain an overview perspective by not being staff of any one office. An HIR team meets those requirements and will have immediate access to other HIR resources as may be needed to support individual projects. These staff will be assigned for one year at which time an evaluation will be conducted to determine future requirements. The TSR positions used to fill this requirement are currently vacant and prospective candidates will be interviewed for hands-on system administration experience.

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Over the past year the computing capabilities of the CAO have greatly increased. Similarly, the demand and expectations for computing capability have also risen dramatically in the entire CAO organization. To meet this demand and provide a consistent, coordinated, high quality approach, it is necessary to increase the number and capabilities of our systems administrators. Therefore, please establish an organization within HIR which will have systems administrators devoted full time to CAO organizations, all reporting to a Technical Support Representative having the CAO as sole responsibility. At a minimum, there should be Systems Administrators for (1) Human Resources/Filenet, (2) Finance, (3) Support Services and Procurement, and (4) remainder of CAO. The Systems Administrators should be physically located in the organizations they services and the managers of those organization should have major input in the performance evaluation of their System Administrator. This organization needs to be intimately involved in all systems projects involving the CAO (FFS, PROVAR, etc.). Organizing in this way should allow for the individuals to back each other up, stay technically up to date by being part of a premier technical organization, have easier coordination with other parts of HIR, avoid duplicate efforts by CAO offices, and assure a unified approach within CAO.

Please work with Human Resources to establish and fill these positions as soon as possible. A draft statement of Role and Responsibility for the CAO Support Organization is attached as a starting point. Because of the urgent and critical need to have a Systems Administrator for Filenet, please work with Human Resources and Procurement and Purchasing to provide contractual systems administration on an interim basis.

Question. In addition to providing for the day-to-day support and operations of House-wide computer services, HIR undertakes significant software and systems development that go beyond standard integration and implementation tasks. Please list every software and systems development effort underway at HIR and the resources devoted to each, providing a description of each and a timetable for each. Response. In addition to maintenance and upkeep of existing systems, there are eight development efforts underway as described below:

Federal Financial System (FFS). HIR is assisting the Office of Finance in converting its operations from the current Financial Management System to the FFS. (FFS is a system developed by American Management Systems used by several Federal agencies. The House has contracted with the U.S. Geological Survey facility in Reston, VA for actual operation of FFS.) The initial phase which focuses on voucher processing will be activated on April 1, 1996. This will be followed by subsequent phases which will address internal transaction processing. Firm schedules for subsequent phases are not yet set but are expected to be completed during calendar year 1997. Currently three HIR staff are dedicated to this effort.

Procurement Desktop (PDT).-HIR is assisting various offices within the CAO in implementation of PDT which interfaces directly with the Federal Financial System described above. The purpose of the system is to better automate and control purchasing activity throughout the House. The current schedule is to implement PDT internally within CAO support offices by October 1, 1996 and to extend it to Member, committee and other House offices later as part of the CyberCongress (Office 2000) implementation. Currently there are the equivalent of two full-time staff working on this effort and recruitment is in process for an additional full-time staff person.

Audit Compliance.-To comply with requirements stemming from the 1995 House audit, the equivalent of a full-time staff person has been dedicated to modify reporting features and writing new report software in the Financial Management System and the Property Asset Management System. This level of effort is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Whip Check System.-At the request of the Majority Whip, HIR is developing a generic Whip check system that can be used independently by the both the Majority and the Minority. Its focus is on rapid polling via a combination of PC-based, fax, pager, and voice-telephone technology. There are currently four staff working on this system. Initial system capabilities are expected to be available for implementation in March 1996.

Web-based Information Retrieval.-A two-pronged effort is underway to provide better information retrieval services to the House and to the public, both of which are in response to the directions of the Committee on House Oversight expressed in their resolution of November 15, 1995. The first is to "retire" the old MIN and ISIS systems, the second is to participate in a joint effort with the Library of Congress to provide electronic access to information. HIR has emarked upon an incremental approach which envisions first converting existing MIN and ISIS database access to the World Wide Web paradigm while concurrently providing increased access to House data via links from the Library's Thomas system. This first phase is expected to be completed in 1996 with initial capabilities made available in the May-June time frame. Concurrently, HIR staff are working with the Library to determine the most appropriate long-term solutions. Approximately three staff are working on this effort.

Office Accounting Systems.-Pending full implementation of FFS and the CyberCongress Project, HIR is upgrading its Foxpro-based Office Accounting System to serve Member and Committee needs. Approximately two full-time staff equivalents will be dedicated to this work through June 1996.

The CyberCongress Project (Office 2000).-This project envisions a modern family of computer-based services for Member and committee offices based on networking, the new House messaging infrastructure, and the implementation of an internal House Intranet. This will be a multi-year effort involving integration of off-the-shelf products, leveraging of existing HIR systems and databases including the FFS and DTP systems, supplemented, where necessary by HIR developed software. Currently there are two full-time staff equivalents assigned to this project through December

1998.

Committee Voting System.-At the request of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in 1995, HIR undertook development of a PC-based system to assist in the recording of votes within committees. Although near completion, work has been suspended on this system because staff assigned to this effort where diverted to the Whip Check system.