“The implications of tools like this are awesome,” said Capt. Carly Serratore, CSP program manager, SAF-FM. “It is now possible for customers to submit inquiries and for comptroller squadron technicians to assist customers from any location at work, home, coffee shop or an airport terminal. It will change business as we know it while providing better, faster and more accurate services to our customers.”
Besides assisting with personnel pay operations, the CSP also has workflows for unit accounting and unit resource management. It will assist unit resource advisors and cost center managers seeking help with accounting and budget support. Customers will have access to the status of their requests at all times as well as an abundance of knowledge articles, polices and multiple other features Serratore added.
“The CSP will allow the customer to see where their inquiry is, from start to finish. It will be able to give the customer transparency,” said Wende Wagner, deputy chief, Financial Operations Flight, 412th CPTS. “The member’s inquiry will not get stuck in an org box. We will be able to use this tool to help with metrics: what sections are seeing the most inquiries; how long is it taking to resolve an inquiry; after the inquiry is resolved, is it being reopened by the customer and if so, why?”
The CSP utilizes existing network capabilities and online suites that provides a way for low-cost and effective business applications potentials. The CSP leverages the cloud-based SharePoint Online (SPO) platform which provides new features, improved security, dependability, flexibility and access.
Wagner and her team stressed that all safety precautions concerning personally identifiable information has been taken to account and that CSP has received all necessary privacy and security certifications.
“Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is allowed to be loaded directly onto the site. The development team has taken additional measures to protect PII by incorporating PII scanning and logging features to ensure sensitive information is only included when necessary. Access to PII is always restricted to only individuals who have a need to know and no records containing PII are maintained long term,” Serratore added.
The 412th CPTS and Edwards AFB community was chosen for CSP test because of its past involvement with the program.
“Edwards AFB has been instrumental in standing up the CSP since the beginning. In fact, the beta version of CSP was developed at Edwards in 2015, so we felt it only made sense that they’d be our first test base,” Serratore said. “The 412 CPTS is familiar with the benefits of the CSP to support our Airmen and motivated to lead this positive change for the Air Force.”
The CSP was the first SPO-native site issued as a collaborative effort with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center AFLCMC Command, Control, and Communications C3I Infrastructure Division (HNI) to demonstrate the ability to use existing capabilities to create innovative business solutions.
“One of the most significant benefits of this approach is that we inherit the Cloud Hosted Enterprise Service authority to operate,” Serratore said. “FM (financial management) has registered CSP as part of a suite of business applications built in Microsoft 365, which will allow the FM community to rapidly develop new capabilities to support Comptroller squadron customers world-wide. Future applications must still register the application and go through the process of attaining a privacy information assurance certificate.”
The benefits of the pilot program are already apparent, especially with Edwards at Health Protection Condition Charlie and the base open only to mission-essential personnel due the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
“Since we are not conducting face-to-face customer service due to the HPCON Charlie, the customer is able to submit their inquiry even if they are not on VPN or AFNET. All the customer needs is their CAC (common access card) and a CAC reader,” Wagner said. “The inquiries are much easier to keep track of and you can see the discussions internally (CPTS) and externally (customer) in one place. You do not have to search for emails in the organizational in-box.”
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