International Cooperative Administrative Support Services

MINUTES

ICASS INTERAGENCY WORKING GROUP MEETING

ICASS Service Center

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

10:00 a.m.

1.  Introduction of IWG Members and Attendees

2.  Adoption of Minutes

The Minutes of the October 15, 2014, IWG Meeting were approved and adopted.

3. A Look at Reports in the New ICASS Global Database (GDB) 4.0

Peter Hogan, Deputy Director, ICASS Service Center, provided IWG members with a look at the new 4.0 version of the ICASS Global Database. On the reports menu, he identified the five major report options (Washington Summary, Post, GFS, ASP and Post-Specific) that users will choose from and what reports were available under each. He advised IWG users that the Post-Specific option contains the reports they would be commonly use in conducting analyses for their agency. He highlighted several new features including having all filters on one page, the simplified export option, and the cover page option for reports.

Mr. Hogan showed the new formats for some of the key or commonly-used reports, e.g., Budget Summary Worksheet, Cost Center Detail by Agency. He also familiarized attendees with what reports were available under the Post-Specific menu option he had identified as the one they will primarily use, and cross-walked the report number changes from the old software to the new GDB 4.0. This crosswalk entitled “GDB Reports Crosswalk”, is included here:

4. Updates/Reports:

-  ICASS Service Center: ISC Director Richard Boohaker reported Sherrie Marafino had received a handshake to replace him as Director and advised that she brings a wealth of experience and working knowledge of ICASS. He congratulated Peter Hogan, ISC Deputy Director, for winning the 2014 Chief Financial Officer’s Award for Distinction in Public Finance. He concluded with a brief summary of the recently concluded regional Budget Workshops and Management Officer Workshops where the ISC presented on a variety of topics including FAP, Data Integrity & EDQI, Scorecarding and Budgeting in the new software, and ICASS by the Numbers.

-  Budget Update:

o  Trish Garate (ISC) reported that the FY2015 Initial Budgets were coming in, with the last region due in early January. She remarked that the process is much smoother with the new 4.0 software. The FY2015 Initial Invoices will go out in February, but Recap invoices are out now and if extensions are needed, she asked that agencies make that request soon as the 30-day mark has just passed.

o  Jeff Kramer (USAID-ASP) reported that ASP posts were in need of an extension for submitting their budgets because of access problems to the State OpenNet system. He advised that the Pristina ASP warehousing service will shift to ICASS during the FY, as will GSO Services for Almaty. An ICASS GSO will be assigned to Almaty to facilitate the transition. Another change will occur in Pretoria as USAID will be providing ASP services for other agency residents in the USAID Annex.

-  Service Provider: Sherrie Marafino (State) reported on the rollout of the Overseas Cost Containment Initiative (OCCI) and the presentations given at the regional Management Officer Workshops. She advised that posts have been tasked with developing operational plans as well as coming up with their own initiatives or incorporating regional bureau goals, such as EAP’s “Turn it Off Campaign.”

-  Member Request: A briefing on revisions to the Uniform Service Standards (USS) was requested for a future IWG meeting.

Janet Buechel, IWG Chair, concluded by reminding members of the upcoming ICASS Executive Board (IEB) meeting which will focus on a debriefing of the IEB Site Visits to ten posts. She also advised that there was a Policy Committee meeting following today’s meeting and the topic is the new Evacuation Policy. She directed everyone’s attention to the list of cables sent to them, highlighting the November 8th cable on Rightsizing which requests input from all agencies.

The meeting ended at 11:38 AM.

December 10, 2014 IWG minutesPage 1