Section J-3. Summary of DARS IT Systems
The DARS IT systems are comprised of 4 major systems; the DARS Website, the DARS Web publication tool, the DAR Management Information System, and the DARS Regulations and Historical Files Library. This section with describe each system and give detail to the environment in which they operate.
1. Website System Description
The website is found at http://www.acq.osd.mil/dp/dars/ . It is built and maintained in Dreamweaver. It contains links to hosted pages, Foxpro and Lotus notes database, and other websites. The DAR website shares the standards of enterprise architecture with the overall AT&L web environment. The initial page presents a mission statement and the links provided are organized by categories that appear as headings in a column. The system functions provided by these links are described in summary below in the order in which they appear on the page.
Organization
· The Organization section has links to pages related to the DAR Directorate, the DAR Council, the DAR Committees and the DFARS Transformation Homepage. These links use a variety of Lotus Notes databases for the source of their content. These databases include: directorate.nsf, council.nsf, committee.nsf, and dfars_pubcom.nsf. The transf.htm page also has links to documents related to the transformation effort that are in .doc, .xls, .pdf, and .ppt formats such as http://www.acq.osd.mil/dp/dars/TransformationP2/BriefingIndustry.ppt.
FAR
· The FAR Section includes links to FAR resources maintained by GSA and Hill AirForce Base.
DFARS
· The DFARS section provides links to the DAR’s maintained electronic version of the DFARS, the Hill AirForce Base maintained electronic version of the DFARS, and a link to a page that holds all the change notices in the federal register as of June 20, 2003.
· The DFARS: link provides three browse options for DFARS. Browse in HTML, PDF, or WORD formats.
· The Change Notices link opens the page that currently displays all the change notices (CN) in the federal register as of June 20, 2003. A brief description of each CN is provided as well as a link to the document. Embedded in the document are links to the Federal Register notice and a Word formatted document showing all language added and deleted from the rule. Links to the Federal Register notice and the Word formatted document showing language changes are available at the summary level on the changes.htm page.
Subscribe to News Alert
· This section provides links to pages for subscription to the FAR and DFARS News distribution lists.
Class Deviations
· Class Deviations calls a page that contains a list of all class deviation since the 1998 release of the DFAR with links to PDF versions of these documents
Guides
· This section has links to several helpful guides maintained by various entities relating to regulations and acquisition. These include the AT&L Knowledge Sharing System and Contract Pricing which are on the ACQWEB website, Small Entity Compliance which is a SADBU website, and the Operating Guide which prescribes general internal procedures to assist members of the DAR System in performing their responsibilities.
Out for Public Comment
· This section provides links to three areas where the public can participate in the rule making process. The FAR Rules link points to the FAR website and not maintained by the DAR Directorate. The DFAR Rules/Info. Collection Requirements links that take you to a page that contains a list of DFARS cases and Information Collection Requirements that are out for public comment.
View DFARS Public Comments
· DFARS Pub. Comments: is a link to a Lotus Notes database (dfars.nsf) which contains a list of cases sortable by ascending numerical case number or ascending alphabetical case title. Attached documents are available by double clicking the attachment icon and it is displayed in your current browser window. The files are sourced from the dfars_pubcomm.nsf Lotus Notes database.
Status of Open Cases
· Two reports are provided in Microsoft Word format that detail the status of open FAR and DFARS cases. The filenames associated with each report are ActFar.doc and ActDfar.doc respectively.
· Mgt. Status Report: opens a list of links to .PDF files.
FAQs
· The FAQ section provides a link that opens the farfreqques.html page which provides answers to frequently asked questions.
Security & Privacy Disclaimer
· Security & Privacy Disclaimer: is a link to the Security and Privacy statement hosted on an ACQWEB site.
Website Hardware
The web site is hosted in the AT&L enterprise web environment and as such is not dedicated to a “box’. It shares many system resources and services with other systems and to itemize these hardware configurations would constitute an assessment of the AT&L environment, not the DAR environment. For more information about the AT&L technical environment see section J2 of this document.
Website Software
Component / Vendor / Version / CDs (Y/N) / Documentation /Dreamweaver / Macromedia / 4.0 / Y / Vendor
2. DARS Publication Tool System Description
While not actually part of the website, this is the means by which DARS staff publishes changes to the DFARs up to the website. The DFARS Publication Tool is a Visual Basic/Visual C++ stand-alone application. It is an automated system that requires some input from the user to establish a published date and then will use files in the 98_DFARs_WIP (DFARS Work in Progress) directory on the Chaos server for the source data. The files in the 98_DFARS_WIP directory are comprised of the MS Word documents representing only the changes to the DFARs. The tool replaces the whole DFARS book in its entirety with the current files on the Web server and the new files on the Chaos server. The files on the Chaos server are in MS Word format but the DFARs book is available on the Website in .DOC, .PDF and HTML format. The tool creates an Adobe PDF and HTML version of the file and inserts appropriate links in the HTML files for the documents that were not changed since the last publication. The tool makes an archive copy of the current files on the web server in an archive directory named to denote the publication date. The new files are then copied into the active directory on the web server where the files are linked to using a COTS FTP tool. Links are manually updated for each file and the Table of Contents (TOC). Once the update is done a change notification is sent to someone on AT&L’s support staff for dissemination via email to anyone who has signed up for membership on the DFAR distribution list.
DFARS Web Publishing Tool Environment
The DFARS.EXE is installed on a workstation and requires proper configuration of the Adobe Acrobat Writer and and a customized normal.dot template for MS Word. Access is required to the DARS sections on the Chaos and Creation servers. Upon launching the publishing tool the user is prompted for the previous and new publication dates. These dates correspond to the directory structure on the web site and on the DFARS Editor 1998_DFARS_Wip directory on Chaos. For example the working directory for the new documents will be in a similar format to:
\\chaos\1998_DFARS_WIP\20030801 pubs.
A DOC, PDF, and HTML directory will be created for the preparation of the new documents to be posted on the web site. Additional sources for the process will be the following directories.
\\creation\web2\dp\dars\dfars\html\r20030722
\\creation\web2\dp\dars\dfars\pdf\r20030722
\\creation\web2\dp\dars\dfars\doc
New destination directories will be created for the HTML and PDF versions.
The tool will perform the following actions:
1. Preparing the Table of Contents (TOC)
2. Generating the new Word, PDF and HTML versions of the changes to be published. These are stored in the \\chaos\1998_DFARS_WIP\DATE pubs directory.
3. Publishing the Documents by copying the current set of HTML and PDF files on the web server from the current directory to the new directory then copy the new files from the Chaos server into the new directories on the Web server. This complete copy allows the DARS office to keep a historical copy of the DFARS that can be referred to at any time.
There are several steps required to complete the publishing process that must be done manually.
1. Updating the DFARS.HTML Page so the links to these versions are changed to point to the new directory created with the latest posting.
2. Updating the CHANGES.HTML Page. The new content is pre-pended to the content currently on the page so that no information is deleted and the newest information is at the top. The current information can be used as a template or guide for what is required for the new postings.
3. DFARS Change Notice Summary. The new change notice summary should be at the top of the page. The summary is created by the DFARS editor and emailed out prior to publication. The summary notice provided by the DFARS editor is in word format and will have to be converted into HTML format and links added to the local version of the Federal Register notice and the Line In/Line Out copy of the rule. The text in the summary notice provided by the DFARS editor is also the text that has to be pre-pended on the top of the CHANGES.HTML page under the DFARS change notice Summary link.
4. Federal Register Notice. Publication of proposed, interim or final rules is officially announced on the Federal Register. The Federal Register is available at the following web address:
http://www.access.gpo.gov
For specific notifications for 2003 you can go to;
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/frcont03.html
The official notice on the Federal Register will be used on the DFARS website as well for reference. The final destination for these text files in on the web server in the
\\creation\web2\dp\dars\fedregs directory.
5. Line In / Line Out Document Links. The line in / line out documents are provided by the DFARS editor in Word format. They are stored in the \\creation\web2\dp\dars\lilo directory with the standard filename format of the case number, a single alpha character representing the type of rule it is with the .doc extension. The single alpha character has three possible values, i for interim rule, p for proposed rule and f for final rule. Once these file(s) are saved and copied to the correct directory the necessary links in the summary change notice and for the links on the CHANGES.HTML page can be created.
6. FTP Upload to the Hill AF Base Site. The Hill Air Force Base maintains a mirror copy of the DFARS. When changes are made to the DFARS the publisher will FTP copies of the newest files to a directory at the Hill AFB. The tool used to perform this action is WS_FTP.
7. Notification to Hill AFB. After the FTP transfer is complete an email is sent notifying the web masters at Hill AFB of the new documents.
8. Notification Email to the Distribution List. The publisher must also create a notification email to send to the DFARS Distribution List.
9. Prepare Site for Public Comments. The final step for the publication process is to create a new category in the public comments database to allow anyone to access the DARS web site and make comments on any new rules that require public comment. This is done via Lotus Notes on the Pubcomm.nsf database.
Publication Tool Hardware
The publication tool operates on a standard desktop and its output is written to Chaos, a virtual server that is part of the DAR domain on the AT&L LAN. The rest of the hardware, i.e., the web, is hosted in the AT&L enterprise web environment and as such is not dedicated to a “box”. It shares many system resources and services with other systems and to itemize these hardware configurations would constitute an assessment of the AT&L environment, not the DAR environment. For more information about the AT&L technical environment see the last section of this document
Publication Tool Software
Component / Vendor / Version / CDs (Y/N) / Documentation /WS_FTP / Ipswitch / 4.5 / Y / N
DFARS.exe / Developed internally / 1.0 / Y / User Guide
Data Storage Requirements
The publication tool writes files to Chaos prior to coping them to the web server. The files remain on Chaos but it is not the official archive and they appear to be left there as a matter of convenience. The file sizes are nominal. Storage is handled the same way as the rest of the website. Storage devices for systems that are part of the AT&L environment are allocated according to AT&L’s resource management plan and are not defined by the DAR Directorate.
3. DAR Management Information System System Description
The MIS is the main system used by the DAR office to manage and track the DFARS Process. The system consists of a FoxPro database with a Visual FoxPro front end. The application is installed on the desktop from a CD and the system registry must be modified by a system administrator. Data is stored on \\FURIES\MIS\DBF and users must have access configured by AT&L customer support. The application connects to the database via an ODBC connection. This is configured in ODBC Visual FoxPro Setup and requires MISD and MIST drivers to access the system data source. Also a user account must be created in MIS from the DAR MIS User screen under System Maintenance.