IT Consulting and Staff Augmentation

The business of business is people. Staffing the right people for the work with the education, training, skills, and motivation to execute the mission is the core of any successful business enterprise. TTC’s philosophy on staffing, whether in our own company or when consulting with or augmenting a client workforce, is one of authority, responsibility and accountability. When properly aligned, these three factors all but guarantee success.

For any work to be successful there must be authority to execute. Whether specifically assigned or delegated, the authority to execute must be clearly defined. Authority then empowers people to act within a workspace and allows for coordinated action with others. When the boundaries of authority are known, people can then be responsible, that is, they have the ability to respond. Given tools and resources proper for the task assigned and with the authority to act, people have the ability to respond. And where given the ability to respond, people can then be properly held accountable for the result. Empowering people with authority and responsibility makes them all too eager to be held accountable; their account is success! This is the TTC philosophy and our experience.

Program Management

TTC provides expert, experienced management analyst services to support DOI’s Business Integration Office (BIO) as it carries out its mission to deploy and sustain a SAP-based system. The Financial and Business Management System (FBMS) facilitates DOI’s financial management strategy through Acquisition and Financial Support (Programming, Planning, Budget and Execution). In addition, DOI’s Office of Budget (POB) requires support for its critical function of directing and coordinating the development, presentation, execution, and control of the Department’s budget

TTC augments the DOI BIO with ten support staff. Located in Denver, CO; Herndon, VA; and Washington, DC; TTC staff includes Administrative Support Specialists, a Management Support Specialist, a Management Analyst, an Information Management Analyst, and a Senior Management Analyst. These experienced and knowledgeable support personnelaugment the efforts of their government counterparts performing tasks ranging from office operations, data entry, and facilities support and planning to developing and maintaining budget process documentation, collaborating on document flow management, and testing and prototype development. TTC also provides technical, analytical, financial, acquisition and project management support expertise for the Office of Cyber Security – OCIO. We assist with the creation and execution of funding and budgeting baselines and plans.

System Administration / Engineering

VEMSO: – TTC provides staffing to VEMSO including computer programming and web-development support. This support allows for the maintenance of existing web-enabled database applications and provides future system planning, design, development, maintenance, and implementation to support the various capabilities in all related systems.

TTC staff also provides program management and administrative support in various aspects of the DPAS program office through VEMSO’s chain of command: coordinating business processes, providing strategic, operational, and tactical-level support through various agencies.

Help Desk

DTFM: TTC staffs Distance Training Facility (DTF) Managers in support of TRADOC’s remote learning facility program at (?)locations across the Continental United States. The DTF manager has local authority and responsibility over the DTF classroom and the proper operation, maintenance and use of its systems. As the professional associated with all aspects of the DTF, we train our DTF Managers in DTF systems and procedures assuring consistent, timely, and effective delivery of facility services. These include Tier I service requests such as physical and logical access to the DTF systems, incident resolutions for system issues when possible, or escalating incidents to the Enterprise Management Center if required.

In instances where the DTF Manager is unable to resolve DTF issues at the Tier I level, they contact the Enterprise Management Center (EMC) to open a service request or incident ticket in the Remedy ARS. The DTF Manager works with the EMC to satisfy the service request or resolve the incident executing instruction from the EMC to include any touch labor needed to provide serve or resolve issues. If the issue cannot be resolved at the Tier II level, the EMC escalates the issue to the Tier III System Administration, Network, or Security section depending on the nature of the request or incident. Our DTF Manager remains in contact with the EMC or any other support section as directed until the issue is resolved or the EMC provides a reason for any extended delay in restoring service. The DTF then keeps the DTF user, DL POC, and our PM informed of any delays in providing a service request or resolving an issue with an explanation of the problem encountered, the reason for the delay, and an estimated time for resolution. All contacts with the EMC are recorded in the daily activity reports and in all subsequent reporting to DLS.
Our DTF Managers also respond to instructions received from the EMC concerning system changes or issues concerning the DTF systems and processes. These may be concern operational or security updates. The DTF Manager keeps the EMC informed on the progress of any assigned work reporting any issues if encountered and final completion for EMC closeout of the ticket in the ticketing system.

CMS

TTC staffed developers and assigned technical lead leverage the current CMS Share help desk infrastructure to manage all support related requirements. Help Desk resources include a functional ticket tracking system, FAQ dashboard, back-end workflow for sending notifications to customers or related stakeholders and dashboard for custom tracking or management of customer inquiries. The help desk allows a variety of subject matter experts to address CMS Share issues. These SMEs include, but are not limited to, TTC developers, CMS employees, other contractors, and third party tool providers.

Our developers are responsible for managing the following tasks:

  • Responding to inquiries in a timely manner
  • Determining roles, permissions and groups in SharePoint
  • Troubleshooting issues
  • Component level administration during regular business or reorganization
  • Responding within the same business day as the request and resolve or elevate within one business day in accordance with Section 3
  • Assessing the problem, document within the CMS Share Help Desk site and offer an immediate fix, temporary mediation of the problem, and/or a timeframe for expected resolution
  • Communicating problems, issues and resolution with the CMS component users, as appropriate
  • The technical lead is responsible for supporting, assigning and prioritizing requests from the help desk system.

The CMS Share help desk infrastructure uses an approach similar to the existing Remedy service management system, providing real-time tracking of inquires along with features such as escalating and reassigning tasks. Each task follows a hierarchy of predefined key support points of contacts that can review, resolve, delegate, or escalate customer inquiries.

The current CMS Share help desk TTC developed replaced the need to use the current Remedy ticket system. The CMS Share help desk system allows customers to directly interact with developers and SharePoint experts in real-time to get direct and faster service. This has tremendously reduced the wait time for customers to receive help per submission and remove third party elements that did not understand the needs or business process of the CMS Share customer (Remedy CMS IT Service Desk). Additionally, the current CMS Share help desk system is working efficiently for all users since the system is on CMS Share and the user does not need to contact an external service to get help. For reporting purposes, CMS Share help desk is already configured to create reports.

USAACE VWE–TTC supplied Help Desk Specialist (HDS) contract staff to augment existing USAACE government personnel to create a full service help desk capability. USAACE various classrooms require help desk services such as touch labor and installation services including installation and maintenance of Universal Gold Master (UGM)-based builds for workstations, audiovisual hardware and software, projectors, smart boards, and other classroom related equipment. The HDS provided these services and other specialized classroom support reflecting the unique nature of the USAACE training being provided. In addition, HDSs performed other duties such as add or remove user accounts, monitor system performance, implement and test systems and data backup procedures, establish audit trails, conduct reviews, and create archives as directed by the Senior Information Assurance Manager.

Our USAACE VWE HDSs serviced more than 1,400 computer systems on the Fort Rucker campus assuring proper operation, security, and availability of training assets to more than 10,000 Aviation students. These facilities provide the setting for instructor led classroom flight training for all Aviation Branch airframes, assist in the development of Aviation Professionals, and allow Aviators and Aviation Soldiers access to on-line training materials and collaboration services such as AKN and ACoP. VWE HDSs closed hundreds of individual service requests, performed system refresh on hundreds of classroom computers to include upgrading desktop, notebook, and laptop systems to the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system and fielded significant upgrades as required.

USAACE Classroom support also extends to the FOB at Fort Eustis where HDSs serviced more than 98 classrooms and 1,346 computer systems. The HDS duties at Fort Eustis are similar to those of the Fort Rucker Specialists and include the service of the ThinNet Client servers. As connectivity now exists between Fort Eustis and Fort Rucker, the systems developed locally at Fort Rucker can support the FOBs operating environments. In so doing, a full accounting of workload, IT assets, and important issues affecting operations can be maintained in a central location—a significant increase in situational awareness for Aviation Branch leadership.