Federal Agency Speeds Retail Delivery, Tracks Cash, and Raises Accountability

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Solution Case Study

United States Federal Agency Speeds Retail Delivery, Tracks National Archives Cash, and Raises Accountability and Records Administration

Overview “The consumer-facing front end of NARA mirrors Country or Region: United States any retail chain with 22 outlets across the nation, a Industry: Retail, Government significant Web presence, and a large flow of mail Customer Profile orders.” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) contains Trust Fund Systems Manager, National Archives and Records Administration historical, armed forces, and genealogy records. Its Web site and 22 locations In 2004, the retail side of the U.S. National Archives and sell copies and accept orders for research. Records Administration (NARA) sold U.S.$9,800,000 in 3,000 SKUs of memorabilia and copies of individual U.S. military, Business Situation Manual processes delayed opening immigration, and citizenship records. But several years ago, orders for months, then their progress procedures and cash control varied all over the map in 22 U.S. couldn’t be tracked and some customers were invoiced twice. Cash management locations. Some mail orders lay unopened for months. Duplicate and reporting at souvenir locations orders from impatient customers generated false tasks and differed. double invoices. Assimilating disparate sales reports into an Solution aging accounting system added hours of manual work weekly. For return on investment, reliability, and easy interfaces, NARA and KPMG chose Today, an enterprise solution built on Microsoft® Business Microsoft® Business Solutions–Great Solutions− Great Plains® (now part of Microsoft Dynamics™), logs Plains®, Citrix servers, and Compass Technologies point of sale (POS). Acelo and confirms most orders the day they’re received. Cash Solutions now enhances the solution. management meets federal standards, while flexible reporting

Benefits tracks orders and pinpoints bottlenecks so NARA can continue  Staff researching orders within 24 to improve efficiency and add services. hours  Orders filled in 10 days, not six weeks  Fast reports end overstocks, stockouts  Accountability, ownership speed tasks  Cash-handling standardized “Before this IT solution, Situation unfilled orders, double work, unpaid “The consumer-facing front end of NARA customer invoices, imprecise cash control, NARA had a several- mirrors any retail chain with 22 outlets disparate types of sales records, and month backlog across the nation, a significant Web manual reentry of records received from presence, and a large flow of mail orders,” outlying branches. between receiving an says the Trust Fund Systems Manager at order and entering it. the U.S. National Archives and Records Backlogs grew from consumer purchases Administration (NARA). “We receive orders of personal documents—perhaps an aunt’s Now there is virtually for merchandise and requests for immigration documents or a father’s no backlog.” documents—essentially work orders —that military record—that must be found in may not exist. We watch our IT budget very microfilm libraries. John Toman, Senior Trust Fund Systems Manager, National closely and monitor cash in, personal Systems Architect and Partner at Acelo Archives and Records Administration accountability, and departmental Solutions Inc. of Chantilly, Virginia, the productivity. But today, we do our work with Microsoft® Certified Partner maintaining huge savings in staff hours and efficiency and enhancing NARA’s new Microsoft compared to our previous solution.” solution, explains that such requests might have lain unopened for several months. NARA is an independent federal agency of Discouraged, some customers would the United States and the country’s submit a second order. NARA’s poor national record keeper. President Herbert tracking allowed parallel work on the Hoover’s 1924 dedication reads, “Here will customer’s second order, not knowing the be preserved all…the records that bind original was in progress or possibly filled. State to State and the hearts of all our people in an indissoluble union.” Among its Because some 40 percent of documents treasures are cornerstone documents of that customers request do not exist, the U.S. government: the Declaration of invoicing occurs only after an order is filled. Independence, the Constitution, and When an order was fulfilled twice, second The world-famous rotunda of the National Archives the Bill of Rights. NARA’s mission is invoices remained unpaid and the Trust and Records Administration houses the U.S. Declaration of Independence and other to ensure “for the citizen and the Fund accrued unnecessary costs tracking foundational historical documents. public servant, for the president and mislaid orders. the congress and the courts, ready access to essential evidence.” Assimilating Disparate Record Types Regional centers, where commemorative Countrywide Business merchandise is purchased, had no Problems uniformity, little cash control beyond But freedom’s employee trust, and no consolidated information wasn’t financial tracking. Some NARA stores always free-flowing. handwrote sales tickets, some ran tapes, Several years ago, and others entered orders into NARA faced the spreadsheets. A few stores had simple same problems that cash boxes and some had a cash register. plague other large Accuracy was equally varied and reports retailers: a backlog of arrived by fax, mail, or e-mail. “A customer-facing faster implementation, minimizing Standardizing and assimilating these customization, growing with the business, system for a national uncongenial reports into a central system vendor stability, and commitment to chain of outlets for reporting took hours weekly. Financial customer service and integrated POS accountability was an ongoing challenge. operation. Throughput had to be fast to requires every possible rapidly consume the six-month backlog. assurance of long-term Without centralized task management, it Ease of use and POS integration with became difficult to track individual orders, back-office software, e-commerce, and constancy—in the types of workflow, or personal productivity. other third-party products were also factors. product’s technology, Jesse E. Cofield Jr., Senior Consultant and in developer support, Partner with Acelo, says, “NARA needed a KPMG narrowed the field to Microsoft workflow component to assign intra-agency Business Solutions− Great Plains® (then and the developer accountability. If an order disappeared, sold by Great Plains Software, Inc., and who had it last? If you can’t troubleshoot, later acquired by Microsoft Corporation), itself.” you can’t improve. And ongoing Platinum Technology International, Inc., John Toman, Senior Systems Architect and improvement was a NARA mandate.” and Lawson Software. The consultancy Partner, Acelo Solutions Inc. analyzed and compared software NARA needed an overarching solution to functionality, system and technology its point-of-sale (POS), cash management, viability, vendor criteria, and cost. order tracking, and data assimilation problems. Toman says that a key factor in choosing this solution was that, “A customer-facing system for a national chain of outlets Solution requires every possible assurance of long- NARA contracted KPMG, LLP to define term constancy—in the product’s and resolve its far-reaching problems. The technology, in developer support, and the firm’s resulting business process developer itself.” reengineering study evaluated best applicable practices in accounting and One contender was rejected due to order fulfillment systems. Several concerns over long-term corporate viability. The inviting Textual Reading Room of commercial, off-the-shelf software Another’s solution was 60 percent more Archives II in College Park, Maryland, is open to the public. solutions were considered as the costly and could have led to the POS foundation. having a different look and feel from other parts, thus lengthening learning times. Its Three on the Short List lack of inventory integration portended Requirements and budget constraints problems. narrowed the field to three vendors. Each was evaluated on a NARA and KPMG Select Great Plains scorecard that included NARA, with KPMG’s support, selected vendor viability, Microsoft Great Plains over Platinum and functionality, automated Lawson based on return on investment, workflow, electronic most thorough data integration, solution- commerce, lower cost, wide look and feel, and vendor stability. “We can now track our Microsoft Great Plains is a trusted business Microsoft Windows® 2000 Server operating solution for enterprise resource planning in system environment. in-process work, midsize to large enterprises. It provides monitor production financials, distribution, e-commerce, human Both SQL Server 2000 and Windows 2000 resources, payroll, project accounting, field Server are part of Microsoft Windows cycle time, and service, manufacturing, and supply chain Server System™ integrated server proactively resolve management. software. This centralized thin-client solution allows NARA to maintain a uniform bottlenecks and KPMG designed and implemented the nationwide POS solution that tasks central backlogs.” initial solution—Order Fulfillment and servers with application processes, data Accounting System (OFAS)—which began storage, and terminal user sessions. This Lawrence Post, Secretary of the Trust overtaking the backlog at the rate of 350 process also centralized application Fund, orders per day. Seventy employees now management and backup, simplified

National Archives and Records OFAS application deployment, enhanced Administration Functional security, and consolidated reporting Subsystems Point of Sale across multiple databases, all without [POS] system administrators at each site.

The Visible Benefit Order “Only the programmers can tell where Fulfillment Microsoft SQL Accounting the POS ends and Great Plains Server6.5 [OF] begins,” says Cofield. The Compass POS system was developed using Microsoft Business Solutions Dexterity, System Admin the same language used to program Reporting Scanned Images [SA] Great Plains. Its look and feel is indistinguishable from Great Plains. This allows developers such as Compass The new Order Fulfillment and Accounting use OFAS daily and up to 250 access it System, based on Great Plains, integrates to develop using the Dexterity for information or reports. OFAS utilizes and helps manage myriad tasks. programming language and access Microsoft Windows NT® Terminal Server Dexterity routines using the Continuum and Citrix Systems, Inc. Metaframe Application Program Interface. Essentially, solutions to deploy Microsoft Great Plains all major OFAS functions execute native or eEnterprise release version 8.0 and customized Great Plains Dexterity code. Compass Point of Sale applications to NARA’s 25 sales locations. Installations Accounting and customer service staff were smooth and painless. Compass access several modules to track revenue Technologies, a Microsoft Gold Certified matters or service problems. Special- Partner, develops innovative business purpose users learned their new software applications including POS and matrix in one day while power users, who need inventory management. familiarity with many system functions, The core of the application is the Microsoft were trained in a week. Great Plains accounting system running on Efficient Order Descriptions Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 in the “NARA now knows Staff use the Microsoft Business Solutions After implementation, Acelo assumed for E-commerce Web order entry system to NARA’s technical and applications duties. what products are process handwritten orders submitted at Based near Washington, DC, Acelo selling well or slowly in records centers or mailed in. Orders are specializes in software development, scanned, employees extract critical database administration, and configuration, each location, and can customer and order information, which is training, and support of Microsoft Great replenish them without put into a Great Plains workflow interface. Plains. Customers’ explanatory notes are Acelo’s system enhancements included paperwork.” graphically embedded in the record. This design and implementation of new tools for Trust Fund Systems Manager, National replaced a very paper-intensive process Web-based order entry, the Citrix server Archives and Records Administration that was difficult to track. farm, developing a documented data model, flow narrative and data mapping, Web orders come into a front-end Web analysis of the operating system, software submission tool by Siebel Systems, Inc., customizations, deploying POS capability which submits an XML document to to 28 sites, training, and day-to-day Microsoft Great Plains. Pick tickets contain operational support. order information used by employees in the stacks to research individual documents. Benefits Selecting Easy Integration Pays Off The new POS/order entry/transaction Many original and subsequent management solution has resolved long- customizations now work together to standing problems that once vexed ensure smooth data transitions and customers and management, and which workflow: confounded other systems with which NARA information interfaced.  A Microsoft Visual Basic® development system application creates digital images Faster at Every Phase of the order, which are used “Before this IT solution, NARA had a The new Microsoft system enables staff to begin searching these movable stacks throughout order fulfillment. several-month backlog between receiving within 24 hours of receiving an order.  Web order entry system uses the an order and entering it. Now there is Microsoft Great Plains E-commerce virtually no backlog. Staff are usually in the architecture, supporting COM stacks researching within a day of receiving Objects, Pipeline components, and the order,” says the Trust Fund Systems Active Server Pages to provide a Manager. “This solution consolidates simplified customer order interface. regional offices into a central database with  Workflow, done in Visual Basic, tracks everyone following the same procedures. order fulfillment. At many presidential libraries, we have  Debt Collection, written in Visual Basic been able to replace disparate stand-alone and Crystal Reports, prints reminder register operations with a coordinated, letters to past-due customers and prints centrally controlled process.” aging reports with interest and penalty charges. Previously, after orders had actually entered the system, NARA can now more easily meet fulfillment averaged six weeks. government accounting mandates. Every Today, it is seven to ten days transaction, from the farthest presidential and NARA avoids duplicate library to those inside the National Archives orders by sending order Buildings, is processed on the same POS confirmations with an estimated interface screen, is subject to tight cash time of completion. “The new control, and, primarily through Citrix, is ability to process scanned stored in the central database of the images has expedited Microsoft Great Plains order processing production flow, reduced lost or and accounting solution. Credit card misdirected orders, and cut transactions now clear in seconds. production time,” says the Trust Fund Systems Manager. Uniform Reporting Strips Away Steps Stores have fewer stock-outs “Converting our Government Services and overstocks, and require Administration [GSA] reporting from print, less staff time to purchase fax, and re-keypunch to instant, electronic goods. “NARA now knows what products export-import has greatly reduced errors, are selling well or slowly in each location, and cut down costly resubmittals,” says and can replenish them without Post. Toman estimates this effort once took paperwork,” says the Trust Fund Systems several days to complete, but now takes Manager. little more time than an upload.

“Customer service personnel now have Two related problems now resolved are instant access to account status and real- order tracking and internal accountability. time work-in-progress reporting,” says “We can now track our in-process work, Lawrence Post, Secretary of the Trust monitor production cycle time, and Fund at NARA. “Most customer service proactively resolve bottlenecks and inquiries can be resolved in minutes, not backlogs,” Post adds. days.” Previously, handcarts laden with boxes of orders were wheeled from one stage of the Cash Management process to the next. When an order wasn’t The Trust Fund Systems Manager notes filled, where was it? Who had dropped it? that at NARA’s outlying locations, “With Today, each step is automatically logged one person per till, [Microsoft] Great Plains into OFAS. Any lagging order can be can remotely police and audit an tracked while the customer is on the phone associate’s transactions as needed. With asking about it. Reports can highlight slow the increased security OFAS provides, we spots in the fulfillment process. have fewer audit findings and cleaner results. In our former system, we were Acelo writes most reports in Seagate unable to properly verify and secure credit Crystal Reports, which is included with card numbers. OFAS gives us that Microsoft Great Plains. Performance capability.” Measurement and Reporting System is a “Customer service collection of data and capabilities from the  Internet access to more documents. central database that is used to create  Enhanced customer relationship personnel now have several management reports of overall management (CRM) capabilities. instant access to throughput, performance, percentage of  Expanding the POS solution to remaining fulfillment, and more. NARA-managed presidential libraries account status and and museums. real-time work-in- External System Interfaces  Ongoing reduction of paper consumption To avoid duplicating the costs of large through automation. progress reporting. administrative systems, many  Enhancing OFAS workflow components Most customer service governmental systems feed into and get to identify popular documents and results back from larger financial systems. storage locations to speed repetitive inquiries can be NARA’s new system enabled smoother and orders. resolved in minutes, faster interface with the GSA accounting system. NARA exemplifies a government agency not days.” that` raises efficiency and cutting costs Lawrence Post, Secretary of the Trust NARA uses the through well-planned and implemented Fund, National Archives and Records Microsoft Great automation. With the explosion of Administration Plains solution to electronic media, images, messaging, and manage revenue- documentation, NARA is changing the way producing it thinks about archiving data, receiving functions: sales, orders, and making heritage data even receivables, order more accessible. creation, fulfillment, and inventory Ramifications tracking. But Because service is now far faster and staff purchasing, payroll, spend fewer hours on repetitive tasks and and other solving problems, new services can be operational added for public, government employees, functions are and elected officials. The integration handled through the solutions in Microsoft Great Plains Desks full of computers in this research GSA system. New efficiencies in a eConnect enable NARA to provide room enable public access to certain planned 2005 transition from the current integration points with other internal and documents. GSA interface to an interface with the external software applications. Bureau of Public Debt would be impossible without this centralized For the future, NARA is developing even solution. tighter integration with existing Web-based order management solutions to allow more Although savings have already been information to be handled via the Web and substantial, plans continue for: to further enhance financial tracking within Microsoft Great Plains.  Web-based sales of library shelf items.  Allowing users to check the status of e- commerce orders over the Web. For More Information Microsoft Dynamics For more information about Microsoft Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, products and services, call the Microsoft adaptable business management solutions Sales Information Center at (800) 426- that enables you and your people to make 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft business decisions with greater confidence. Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar 2495. Customers who are deaf or hard- Microsoft software such as Microsoft of-hearing can reach Microsoft text Office, which means less of a learning telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) curve for your people, so they can get up 892-5234 in the United States or (905) and running quickly and focus on what’s 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 most important. And because it is from United States and Canada, please Microsoft, it easily works with the contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. systems that your company already has To access information using the World implemented. By automating and Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, For more information about Acelo Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, Solutions Inc. products and services, call processes, and technologies, increasing (703) 378- 8115 or visit the Web site at: the productivity and effectiveness of your www.acelosolutions.com business, and helping you drive business success. For more information about the U.S. National Archives and Records For more information about Microsoft Administration products and services, Dynamics, go to: call (866) 272-6272 or visit the Web site www.microsoft.com/dynamics at: www.nara.gov

Software and Services Hardware  Windows Server System  Dell PowerEdge 6600 Servers − Microsoft Site Server 3.0  Dell GX-110 POS terminals − Microsoft Site Server 3.0 Commerce  Cherry keyboards with magnetic stripe Edition reader − Microsoft SQL Server 2000  MMF heavy duty cash drawers  Microsoft Office System  Dell G-1 point of sale terminals − Microsoft Office 2003 Professional  Epson parallel thermal printers  Microsoft Dynamics  Symbol LS4000 readers − Microsoft Business Solutions- Great Plains 8.0 Partners − Microsoft Dynamics for E-commerce  Acelo Solutions Inc.  Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0  Compass Technologies  Technologies − Internet Information Services version 5.0 © 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT Microsoft Windows NT version 4.0 MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN − THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Great Plains, Microsoft Server, Terminal Server Edition Dynamics, Visual Basic, Windows, Windows NT, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Document published September 2005