Federal Mail Council Meeting Notes
April 11, 2017 10:00 – 12:00 PM, Room 2213
Attendees:
General Services Administration Carolyn Austin-Diggs
Cynthia Patterson
Charles Whaley, Audits
Department of Agriculture Ro Moreno
Department of Defense Al Fernandez
Greg Nelson
Department of Homeland Security Tammie Perry
Department of Interior Taunya Scott
Department of State Helmut Brokamp
Attended virtual:
Department of Commerce Christine Mister
Department of Energy Tony Nellums
Department of Labor Tom Ritchie
General Services Administration Ron Siegel, Transportation Policy
Not in Attendance:
Department of Health and Human Svcs Louis Wilkinson
Others attendees:
US Postal Service Ron Kecman
Mailing Industry Partner:
Metro Mail Services, Inc. John Ferguson
Ms. Carolyn Austin–Diggs opened the meeting welcoming everyone to the 2nd council meeting for this fiscal year. She also informed the council about a new member to the team, Ms. Desiree McKinney, DOC Agency Mail Manager and thanking Christine Mister for her contributions as the acting agency mail manager as she transitions the duties to Desiree.
Ms. Austin-Diggs mentioned the continuation of the Last Known Address initiative and our agency meetings to start again shortly.
She personally thanked the individuals and noted their agency that assisted in developing specific Intermediate Mail Training sessions. She is very appreciative when agencies step up and provide their assistance to work with GSA and for all their hard work and effort.
She informed the council that there has been no movement to-date of the HR 194, Federal Mail Regulation of 2017. All our current proposed changes are on hold. She also thanked everyone for all their hard work and continued success and as always for their support because without you we could not do all this work alone.
Metro Mail Services Presentation:
John Ferguson, Metro Mail Services, Inc. presented information on Mail Assessment and Buyers Matrix as well as Carrier Audit Solutions. See presentation attached via email. Please contact Department of State’s Agency Mail Manager, Helmut Brokamp at 202-647-6717, if you would like to find out more information about MMS services.
Current status on initiatives past and present:
Intermediate Training Content Courseware: We are in the process of adding a new element to our mailing training stats page. This enhancement will provide the Agency Mail Managers with the ability to view the names in their organization that will show them the names of everyone within their agency who has started the training and what sessions were completed and which ones are pending, who passed the exam, and who received their certificate and status marked completed. In addition, the Agency Mail Manager has the ability to add agency mail managers and they will have the ability to see the individuals listed within their areas as well. The contractor is developing a step by step user’s guide and our next meeting is scheduled for April 17.
FMR: Federal Register proposed rule pending: Bill HR 194 - Federal Agency Mail Management Act of 2017 is moving forward slowly (GSA sent in our comments/changes on March 20) and we will keep you abreast as to the status. The President will sign the bill after it has passed the House and Senate. Once the bill has been signed we will be able to move forward with our proposed changes. We are hoping that this is done prior to the end of this FY
SMART: 2016 Data available at gsa.gov/mailpolicy: An email was sent out to all the Agency Mail Mangers with the attached 2016 open data sets. To-date we haven’t received any comments, questions or concerns from an agency. We are hoping to release the data and upload it to the GSA mail policy webpage shortly. An email will be sent to all Agency Mail Managers when this has been completed. In our review of the data submitted, we have noticed an increase in overnight mailings for many agencies. We ask managers to ensure that this service is being used efficiently and cost effective measures are in place. Don’t just ship or mail something just to clean up your desk when in fact there is no one available to receive the item the next day. Question - Are you tracking mailing receipts as well recouping costs from carriers for untimely deliveries, etc.?
Last Known Address Initiative: We will begin our monthly agency meetings to discuss the rewrite of agency policy. Currently, Tina (CMS) and Kai (USPS) and Cynthia (GSA) are working on the NPF presentation and will mention this initiative at the postal forum this year. We hope to begin an outline of the items that shall be included in an agencies policy. Once we have the outline completed, we will share with the work group. The team should plan for meetings to resume in May, June time period. The team consists of representatives from DOD, DFAS, VA, DOL, HHS, CMS, USPS, and DHS.
National Postal Forum Conference Is being held May 21-24 at Baltimore Convention Center: We hope that many government employees are able to attend. GSA, CMS, and USPS will be presenting on Sunday, May 21, 1:30 – 2:30.
Digital Mail New Initiative: We didn’t discuss this initiative and believe Tom Ritchie,
Agency Mail Manager, DOL has started a pilot using dropbox and hope to hear more about this at our next meeting or feel free to contact Tom anytime if you are interested at 202-693-4025. As soon as we have some additional information, it will be shared it with the council members.
Team member volunteers are DHS, DOC, DOI and DOL. Let me know if there are others who would like to join. We need to discuss objectives, and next steps. Please let me know if you are interested in taking the lead on this initiative.
SMART SALESFORCE MIGRATION PRESENTATION:
Daria Medved, GSA Project Manager and Leila Dujany, Acumen contractor presented an overview of the SMART Salesforce Migration being completed this year for OGP programs. Attached are the slides from this meeting. Password resets will be system generated and there is no need to complete a ticket and security requirements will still be in effect. There will be a 2 step login verification process. If you don’t have your MAX login through GSA Category Management, suggest you do that soon because this login can also be used for the Salesforce application. We are still working out the particulars regarding the training rollout. It is my understanding that GSA will be training the Agency Mail Managers and then they are expected to train their agency users. Depending on the migration dates, this may be taking place in September. As soon as we hear updates to the tentative schedule, we will let everyone know. We plan on sharing these slides with the mail community. If you have any questions, please send them to me, Cynthia Patterson and I will share them with the Salesforce team.
The agencies that will be part of the requirements gathering portion as well as the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) are DHS, USDA, DOC, DOD, and VA.
NEXT MEETING: Our next meeting will be planned for August 2017. Calendar invite will be sent to team members.
As always, please provide items that you want to discuss at our next meeting.