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8/6/10 - Special Union News
GAO to Shut Down Work Email for Two Work Days
After pilot testing the transition from
Novell’s Groupwise to Microsoft’s Outlook, GAO has decided that the
best way to accommodate the transition is to shut down all GAO email
for 4 days, including two work days. All GAO email will be
unavailable from August 19 – 22, including Thursday and Friday, August
19 and 20. GAO has stated that all GAO official business those two
days will be conducted by telephone and fax, without any access to
email and that any agency work conducted during these days should be
documented and saved in DM. The agency will be sending out a
notice soon.
Throughout the planning for this
transition, GAO management has said that they would like to complete
the transition as quickly as possible to minimize any inter-operability
issues when some employees are using Groupwise and others are using
Outlook. According to GAO management, the problems encountered
during the pilot, where they had about 160 employees using Outlook with
others still in Groupwise, were much greater than expected.
Because of the complications of email being routed through several
internal servers, the “From” email fields coming from Groupwise are
difficult to identify in Outlook, such that email cannot be returned by
hitting “Reply to Sender.” There were additional complications,
such as calendar synching between systems not being possible and
distribution lists containing email addresses from both systems not
reliably delivering messages. The agency was concerned that if
employees encountered these problems during the transition phase, it
would hinder their acclimation to the new email system.
Although the agency can determine how
and when it makes the email system available to employees for official
business, the Union advised GAO management that these dates are not
optimal and that it would be better to schedule an email blackout
during an extended holiday period, such as over Labor Day or
Thanksgiving weekends, or the week between Christmas and New Year’s
Day. GAO says that they need longer than a 2-day weekend to
complete the transition for an agency this size, and that it would be
more costly to do over a holiday weekend because of the additional
salary requirements.
Assembly delegates were particularly
concerned about the ability for external officials to be able to get in
touch with GAO engagement teams, if necessary, during an email
blackout. This is of particular concern for analysts who are
doing oversight work for ARRA with a product due in early
September. The Union urged GAO to provide:
- The means for external clients to contact GAO employees on particular engagements;
- Employees with detailed guidance on how they should be communicating with GAO colleagues during the email blackout;
- All staff with relevant resources,
including a protocol for how to notify external clients and
instructions for how external clients may contact GAO employees during
the email blackout;
- Information about any ‘away messages’
that external clients will receive when attempting to email GAO
employees during the email blackout, including whether there will be
the ability to tailor such ‘away messages’ for particular employees;
- Information to employees about how
business processes will be handled that are done routinely via email,
such as when SATO provides ticketed itinerary’s via email for employees
when mission work requires them to travel, and;
- Instruction to managers and Assistant
Directors that employees are not expected to change their regular work
schedule during the email blackout, including telework arrangements.
We encourage
all analysts and specialists to consult with their engagement teams and
make plans for how work will be conducted during this planned email
blackout.
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