SAS^® Supports National Preparedness and Homeland Security

New GAO Team Counts on SAS^® for Information Sharing

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many government agencies have been refocusing their resources to improve homeland security. While this work primarily involves intelligence, defense and law enforcement agencies, a new team within the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has formed to address the overall context of national preparedness.

Using a new SAS-based system for knowledge management and collaboration, the GAO's National Preparedness Team is considering many broad questions of homeland security, including:

• Which homeland security strategies are affordable and sustainable?
• What roles should the government, the private sector and individual citizens play in homeland security?
• How will homeland security funding impact other important government programs?
• How might existing agencies and programs enhance and sustain overall preparedness for a variety of challenges?

Web-Enabled System Keeps Federal Employees Informed
With so many comprehensive objectives, the National Preparedness Team needed a way to easily manage and coordinate their ongoing work and to inform Congress, the GAO and other federal employees about their progress on more than 100 ongoing projects.

Initially, the team held weekly meetings to coordinate tasks, but they soon realized a Web-enabled knowledge management solution could ease their efforts. They recruited Alice Feldesman and Stephen Palincsar to develop the system, which is based on SAS software. Feldesman is assistant director of the GAO's Office of Applied Research and Methods, and Palincsar is a computer specialist within the GAO's Office of Information Systems and Technology Services.

"The National Preparedness Team determined what information was required to assist in day-to-day GAO collaboration, then they asked us to enable user requirements and simplify the process of keeping key information up to date," explains Feldesman.

SAS Saves Time, Resources
Instead of creating a brand new database that would require extensive manual entries, Feldesman and Palincsar used SAS to access and combine information from three existing GAO systems. Their solution gathers and merges data from:

• Time and attendance records located on GAO's National Finance Center network in New Orleans.
• Project reports located in a Microsoft Access program on GAO's network.
• Preliminary project designs collected in a database for management approvals.

SAS organizes and updates data daily and places the information on a Web server, so hundreds of GAO employees can search and explore project information every day. Users can request customized views of the information, sorting and displaying data by various categories, including the project's title, the teams involved, the project's objectives or the project requester's name.

The application also records meetings relating to each project and displays contact information for upcoming meetings. "These tools are accessible to all GAO staff so that they can better coordinate and collaborate on National Preparedness projects," explains Palincsar.

Recently, the system has received praise from Randall Yim, managing director of the National Preparedness Team, who commends the developers for saving time and staff resources. "This unique effort leverages Web technology and SAS programming to enhance GAO's ability to manage significant work across numerous disciplines for a comprehensive approach to homeland security issues," says Yim.

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