HSRA Ensures Users Can Telework to Support Mission
HRSA did have to pull together some quick measures to support its staff’s connectivity remotely — every employee began working from home March 16.
“We wanted to ensure people had the resources they needed, like videos on how to use certain tools,” Burton says. That included Microsoft SharePoint and Skype for Business, which the agency deploys for collaboration purposes and web conferencing.
Her team also developed an online portal where staff could access these instructional materials and produced a “telework checklist” with details on how to use the VPN and how to get remote IT support through HRSA’s asset management system, LANDesk.
Less than two weeks later, the agency faced its first major operational test. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act allotted $1.5 billion to support health centers with coronavirus-related initiatives, and HRSA distributed the money.
The process required HRSA staff to review all the applications and communicate remotely with about 3,000 grantees. They did it using every tool in their connectivity toolbox, primarily Adobe Connect, the web-conferencing and desktop-sharing software suite.
“I think a lot of folks look at network connectivity as an IT thing,” Burton says, “but to us, it’s a mission thing. Without this technology and this infrastructure, not only would we not be working right now, but that money also wouldn’t be going out to help fight this pandemic.”
READ MORE: Find out how to make telework successful at your agency.
Marines, VA Use Connectivity to Support Sprawling Operations
At Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California, Marines are relying on telecom, video and digital voice and data technologies in addition to their traditional ground radio networks.
This “data-side” equipment, as Lt. Col. Koichi Takagi, the assistant chief of staff (G6) for communications and information systems, describes it, includes commercial VoIP phones and servers that have been modified to be suitable for the military environment. Used with tools like VPNs and the Marine Corps Enterprise Network, the technology “stitches us all together.