Despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of State has managed to meet or be on track for the majority of its Q3 FY2020 goals set in its Agency Priority Goal Action Plan for IT Modernization as part of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA).
The goal of the Action Plan is to “enhance the effectiveness of the Department’s IT portfolio through increased productivity, usability, security, and transparency while ensuring that all IT services and solutions are aligned to the mission of the Department” and State has met several milestones in meeting this goal.
A few of the major Q3 accomplishments include:
- The Integrated Database Management System (IDMS)/Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) project incorporating six new cloud environments is ahead of schedule;
- The standing up of the RPA training environment is 75 percent complete; and
- The Configuration Management Database network scanning project is only one percent away from its FY2020 metric target of 40 percent.
The COVID-19 pandemic was felt throughout the quarter, but did not hamstring the agency too badly. The restrictions in place from the pandemic caused State to shift some planned IT priorities to a set of emergency priorities to enhance telework capabilities.
“Over 85,000 employees and contractor staff worldwide can telework with full access to required tools and information,” the Action Plan said. Unfortunately, COVID-19 travel restrictions have caused State to adjust Wi-Fi goals and metrics, including the implementation of “overseas focused SMART Mission based on user demand and requirements.”
