DoS: IV&V Services

Resource Management through Sharepoint

Download our DoS IV&V Services Case Study

Challenge:

MIL provides independent verification and validation (IV&V) support for Department of State (DoS) systems in Washington D.C. and Charleston, S.C. In some cases, testers for a particular application are based in different locations. For Out of Office (OOO) requests, team members submitted an email to their team lead and then loaded their vacation requests into their respective location calendars. Without a central consolidated Out of Office (OOO) process, MIL needed a risk mitigation strategy to avoid scheduling discrepancies, conflicts, and resource shortages.

Solution:

MIL worked with DoS SharePoint contractors to support the creation of SharePoint applications at DoS and recommended that the tool also be used to remedy potential OOO issues. MIL identified the requirements and worked with the DoS SharePoint contractors to create an MIL Leave/ OOO Request Tracking System for the MIL IV&V team.

With a new system in place, leave requests are made via the electronic request form in SharePoint. The requests automatically route to the correct manager(s) for approval through email, linking to the request for approval, which also allows the manger to provide feedback to the employee. Approved and pending requests are logged in consolidated calendars that management can track across locations through SharePoint and Outlook inboxes. For seamless documentation, change history is recorded to ensure management understand the request evolution.

Benefit

With the new SharePoint system in place, all stakeholders have access to a comprehensive OOO calendar to make better informed decisions when approving leave requests. The end result provides a single leave request repository across multiple team locations and enhances the overall leave-management-process. With this system, MIL ensures the correct resources are available for both planned and unplanned projects. Due to the success of this process, MIL plans to implement the application for additional MIL DoS teams.