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Akinyele Akinyelu (Junior)-CIT
Tom Bodine-CIT
Bob Borah-CIT
Dennis Burns-ORS
Bonnie Cramer-NINR
Keith Gorlen-CIT
Andrea Hobbs-NIAAA
Rob Malick-CIT
Diane O'Neill-ORS
Donna Pearman-NCRR
Tina Roark-NHLBI

The meeting consisted of a demonstration of the Fast Track Directory web interface and discussion of NIH business practices as they relate to the directory. In addition, Bonnie Cramer (NINR) and Donna Pearman (NCRR), indicated that their ICs would be willing to take part, along with CIT, in the Fast Track Directory pilot scheduled for July 6. The following issues were discussed:

The efficacy of raising business process change issues with stakeholders. Specifically, the committee feels there is a need to add two additional "employee type" categories (Fellow and Tenant) to the four currently in use for the parking and ID badge system (NIH, Contractor, Guest, Volunteer). While all agreed that changing existing practices is a challenging undertaking, it was felt that the DSC is in as good a position as any to begin raising awareness and getting issues on the table. To this end, a memo will be drafted to Odus (Jim) Sweat and Tom Hayden recommending that the parking and ID badge issuance process include the two additional employee type categories.

It was brought to light while registering a new worker during the demo that the web application currently accepts duplicate social security numbers. A discussion ensued regarding SSNs and whether more than one individual might actually have the same number. In fact, there are already duplicate SSNs in the Fast Track Directory as a result of duplicate records for individuals with multiple appointments in the Human Resources Database (HRDB) and the Fellowship Payment System (FPS). However, for purpose of registering new workers during the Fast Track, it was agreed that unique SSNs will be required. Thus, an AO entering a duplicate SSN during a registration will receive a message indicating that the number already exists and be required to enter a unique SSN. (Unfortunately, this is not fool proof because the SSN for the "existing" entry might in fact be the one that is incorrect.)

A "US Citizen" attribute will be added to the directory and displayed on the "Personal Information" screen of the web interface. This will be a required field with a possible value of either yes or no.

There was consensus on increasing the number of required fields for FTEs and Fellows to include: gender, salutation, country of birth and the aforementioned US citizen field. Current required fields include first and last name, SSN and date of birth. In addition, first and last name, directory status (e.g., active), IC affiliation, and SAC are required for all employee types.

During a registration, information entered into any of the required fields on the search screen should not be changeable during the registration process since it allows the possibility of creating duplicates. Thus, in the event that information is entered incompletely or incorrectly, an AO must abort the current registration and start over.

There was agreement that the directory must capture a person's legal name along with a "commonly known as" or "published" name. The interface currently includes a "Nicknames" field, which could be renamed and serve this purpose. A final decision was not reached regarding what to call it, but there was support for calling it the "commonly known as" name.

It was suggested that a "minority" attribute be added to the Fast Track Directory, but ultimately a decision was made not to add it.

The transfer process was reviewed for the benefit of those who had missed previous meetings. In essence, a person is "released" from an IC once their directory status is changed to "transferring." At this point, that entry can be updated by an AO in any IC. It was suggested that in the event a person isn't released in a timely manner and the AO in the gaining IC doesn't know who to contact in the current IC, it would be nice if the directory could provide this information. Since SACs are already being used to determine which AO is responsible for approving updates to a given entry, there doesn't appear to be any reason why the directory couldn't point the gaining IC AO to the AO currently responsible for changing the directory status to transferring. This will be incorporated in the Fast Track, although probably not during the pilot.

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Next Meeting:

Tuesday, July 6, 1999
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Building 12A, Room 4039

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