base within H.I.S.'s capacity to provide staff support. H.I.S. plans to continue support to other Legislative Branch Organizations with a view to achieving overall economies of scale and sharing of systems and databases where possible. Implementation Of Initiatives In Process Improvements in data communications are creating new possibilities for distributing and managing workload in Members' Washington and district offices. The improvements are providing the foundation for new services such as ISIS, E-Mail, and NCOA. By the end of FY 94, H.I.S. expects to have extended frame relay service to eighty to ninety district offices, i.e. the number that is expected to have implemented district LANs. H.I.S. will also have converted all existing private data lines to district offices from analog to digital technology to improve their reliability and throughput. With the availability of both private line and frame relay service, as well as the TYMNET packet-switched network, Members will have a choice of economically sound and reliable district communication options that best suit their traffic volumes. By selectively upgrading segments of the House fiber-optic data communication network from Ethernet to the newer and faster FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) technology, a tenfold capacity increase will be realized that will enable H.I.S. to accommodate the growing demand for high-speed data communications from Member and committee offices. In FY 94, ISIS will begin to supplant the Member Information Network as the information system of choice for House offices. ISIS will provide expanded databases for legislation, votes, newswire service (including a newswire monitor), and federal funding which can be integrated with desktop word processing, graphic, facsimile, and E-Mail capabilities. ISIS is designed for easy incorporation into existing office systems thus reducing staff training and improving convenience and efficiency. The new House E-Mail system, which connects all House office E-Mail systems with each other and with the Internet and X.400 long distance networks, will be implemented in the first calendar quarter of 1993. In FY 94, its capabilities will be rounded out to include document translation (the sender's word processor format is automatically converted to that of the receiver) and outbound facsimile (allows PCs and MACS to send), and inbound facsimile (allows PCs and MACS to receive). H.I.S. will investigate incorporating inbound facsimile which allows PCs and MACS to receive facsimile, and the use of the SGML standard in electronically transporting documents between committees and GPO as future cost-saving enhancements to E-Mail. GROWTH IN STAFF EXPENDITURES As House offices increase their use of information technology, their demand on H.I.S. for training, service and other forms of staff support will also increase. The demand for support together with continued reductions in the relative cost of hardware and software, explains why the staff portion of the H.I.S. budget has grown and can be expected to grow in the foreseeable future. Without the availability of adequate staff support, H.I.S. would have to delay or even cancel the new services about to be released and adjust the distribution of its existing services to fit the reduced support capability. In Appendix A (page 16), examples of the kinds of routine support tasks performed in a typical month are identified. They occur each month and represent the services that users demand that H.I.S. carry out promptly. Appendix B (page 18) contains a summary of the improvements and additions to H.I.S. services that took place during Fiscal Year 1992. FY 92 was an extremely busy year because an ambitious development agenda was met despite the unusually heavy support burden described in Appendix A. APPENDIX A HOUSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS SUMMARY OF STAFF SUPPORT ACTIVITY H.I.S. provides a myriad of information technology, data communications and computer services to the House. The following reflects routine support activity during A TYPICAL MONTH in calendar year 1992. In the category of Direct Member and Committee Support Services: H.I.S. installs 48 hardware and software items, assists 113 Desktop Publishing, 163 Official Expenses, and 780 other PCbased application users, conducts 363 consultations and demonstrations, satisfies 349 field service requests, prints 900,000 constituent labels, processes 13 Member office databases through the National Change of Address software, responds to 3,500 hotline calls, and trains 212 staff. H.I.S. supports 438 Member Information Network (MIN) offices (736 registered offices and 10,285 users) accessing 80 databases, performs 42 research inquiries, processes 1,388 MIN system access requests, processes 2,650,273 MIN transactions, and supports 17 ISIS and 21 E-Mail test offices. H.I.S. enhances and supports the PC-based MicroMIN Correspondence Management System installed in 115 Member, 66 district, 21 committee, and three support offices. In support of Central Computing Services: H.I.S. maintains 99.98% online systems availability, with a H.I.S. processes 45,121 jobs; prints 1,501,108 pages; total transactions; and provides 355.72 billions of In the area of Communications Services: H.I.S. supports network connections as follows: 652 ASN To ensure availability of Information Databases: H.I.S. updates and supports access to 131,627 Bills and • · H.I.S. maintains 130 public and private databases for House users. For Officers of the House: H.I.S. processes 928 House legislative transactions, 2,753 H.I.S. supports over 30 special purpose custom systems H.I.S. responded to over 784 requests from House offices for special services as well as handling the above workload during 1992. APPENDIX B HOUSE DEFORMATION SYSTEM FISCAL YEAR 1992 ENHANCEMENTS HIGHLIGHTS Improved Member mailing operations to promote efficiency and reduce overall House mailing costs were provided. A House Wide Area Data Communications Network was implemented to streamline Washington to district communications. House-wide Electronic Mail and imaging/CD-ROM applications were initiated. Eight new information services were added. DIRECT SERVICES TO MEMBERS AND SMITTERS MEMBERS. H.I.S. processed 90 Member mailing lists during initial NCOA operations and announced the service to the House. The ability to produce map displays of certain MIN information was developed and is being tested for House-wide release. Twentyfive district staff were trained in MicroMIN and seven new applications were released. Consultants performed studies and analyses for 175 Member offices. The User Assistance Office satisfied over 75,000 hotline calls and extended service coverage to 10:00 p.m. for district troubleshooting. Four new training classes were added bringing total course offerings to thirty. Over 2,857 staff were trained. A videotape library of standard training courseware was established. Thirteen new Macintosh Accounting, 18 Macintosh Official Expenses, and 158 Lotus-based Accounting Systems were installed. Over 70 computer-related products were evaluated as candidates for the House Approved List. A Member Office Survey was conducted to assess automation, information, and computer needs. Results will form the basis for One-Hundred Third Congress plans. |