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On June 1, 2009 the Obama Administration launched the IT Dashboard. Through the IT Dashboard, Federal agencies and the public will have the ability to view details of Federal information technology investments online and to track their progress over time. The IT Dashboard displays data received from agency Exhibit 53 and 300 submissions, including general information in over 7,000 Federal IT investments, and detailed data for nearly 800 of those investments agencies classify as "major". Agency Chief Information Officers are responsible for evaluating and updating select data on a regular basis, which is accomplished through interfaces provided by the dashboard. Below are the frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answers related to the agencies use of the dashboard.
The IT Dashboard displays a subset of data from agency Exhibits 53 and 300, and agencies update milestone information, agency CIO evaluations, and other collected investment information. For a comprehensive list of data elements available to the public on the IT Dashboard, see "Publicly Available Data Fields" at the end of this document.
The following agencies have data available on the IT Dashboard:
Only agency-authorized ITWeb users will have access privileges to the IT Dashboard "My Investments" screen, where data updates are made. This screen will not be visible to those without access, or the general public.
Agencies will be given an opportunity to update full investments until April 30th. After this, agencies will only be able to do monthly updates using XML API or IT Dashboard interface. It is the agency’s responsibility to maintain the consistency between the data in their internal systems and the data on IT Dashboard.
No. The IT Dashboard does not include data regarding the security or privacy investments (as reported in Section E of the Exhibit 300). Furthermore, procurement information is provided for active contracts only (as reported in Section C of Exhibit 300) and out-year milestone costs are not displayed. USAspending.gov is the source of the award information for much of the procurement data. USAspending.gov pulls data from the publicly-accessible Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) every two weeks. To prevent the exposure of potentially sensitive data, agencies should always review submissions for possible sensitive data in inappropriate data fields and proper identification of data in published fields as sensitive (e.g., avoid identifying contracts not yet awarded as "awarded" or aspects of the agency acquisition strategy.)
The final Exhibits 300 and 53 for the FY 2011 Budget Year (as submitted in March 2010) should be based on Presidential Budget decisions. Exhibit 53 and 300 data that agencies submit this fall for the FY 2012 Budget cycle will be considered pre-decisional and will not be publicly posted on the IT Dashboard until after release of the FY 2012 Presidential Budget. At this point, future spending, defined as beyond the budget requested year and as provided in the Summary of Spending table in Section B of the Exhibit 300, will not be displayed on the IT Dashboard. Future milestones (as provided in Section C of the Exhibit 300) are not considered pre-decisional and will be displayed on the IT Dashboard, with the exception of the associated cost data (see also Question #13.)
The IT Dashboard displays no procurement-sensitive information from Exhibit 300. Additional acquisition data associated with contracts identified in Exhibit 300 (e.g. contractor name,) are pulled from publicly available USAspending.gov (see Question #7.)
The IT Dashboard displays no security-related information. Any decisions related to publication of security data, in the future, will be done in coordination with submitting agencies and reflected in future guidance.
The IT Dashboard only displays information that has been authorized to be released via application and database controls. As always, it is incumbent upon the agencies to review their submissions for the inadvertent inclusion of private data in an inappropriate field.
The IT Dashboard does not provide the name of the Program/Project Manager of an investment. Release of this information will be decided on in the future and will be done in coordination with agencies and reflected in future guidance.
No. Planned cost date for future milestones will be obscured in the ITDB public views, but will be displayed at the aggregate level. However, schedule data for future milestones is displayed.
All performance metrics will be displayed on the IT Dashboard for all years reported in Exhibit 300.
For the IT Dashboard, cost and schedule data, contracts data, Performance Metrics, Reports and Evaluations by Agency CIOs (Evaluations) will be updated using XML API (System-to-System Integration or Manual XML Load) or the built-in interface available via the application. Only to users with valid MAX credentials will be able to do the data updates.
Yes. Details of the XML API can be found on the IT Dashboard in the manual "Updating Agency Data in the IT Dashboard".
Cost and schedule reporting are only required for major investments, on a monthly basis. At this time, there are no plans to enable monthly updates to non-major investments.
Agency CIOs’ biographical information, photos, and contact information available on IT Dashboard will be supplied via data feeds from www.cio.gov. Make any necessary updates to CIO.gov
Evaluations are one of three component ratings driving the overall investment score; the other two are "Cost" and "Schedule." The agency CIO should rate each investment based on his or her best judgment, using a set of pre-established guidelines (see Question 20.) As a rule, the Evaluation should reflect the CIO ’s assessment of the risk of the investment ’s ability to accomplish its goals. While cost and schedule reflect past and current performance, the Evaluation should consider these as only two of several key indicators of future investment success. CIOs should consult with appropriate stakeholders in making their evaluation, such as Chief Acquisition Officers, program managers, etc.
The following factors and supporting examples should be used to inform the Evaluation:
| Evaluation Factor | Supporting Examples |
|---|---|
| Risk Management |
|
| Requirements Management |
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| Contractor Oversight |
|
| Historical Performance |
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| Human Capital |
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| Other |
|
| Evaluation (By Agency CIO) |
Points | Color |
|---|---|---|
| 5-Low Risk | 10 | Green |
| 4-Moderately Low Risk | 7.5 | Green |
| 3-Medium Risk | 5 | Yellow |
| 2-Moderately High Risk | 2.5 | Red |
| 1-High-Risk | 0 | Red |
The Evaluation can and should be updated at any time throughout the life of the investment. CIOs should update the rating as soon as new information becomes available that impacts the assessment of a given investment. Evaluation scores are be assessed on a five-point scale, as follows:
An IT investment can be made up of one or more IT projects. Each IT investment should be a discrete line item in the agency’s Exhibit 53. Projects are generally reflected as individual items in level 1 of an investment’s work breakdown structure (WBS). IT contracts are not necessarily IT investments but are generally used to support IT investments and IT projects.
For each investment, provide the milestones used to measure cost and schedule performance, representing only one level of the investment’s Work Breakdown Structure. This should generally show Level 3 of the Work Breakdown Structure. See the Exhibit 300 for more information.
Cost Rating
Cost rating is calculated as the variance between the actual costs of an investment’s milestones and their planned costs to date in dollars as a percentage of total costs.Using the above variables, the following calculation will be used to compute the Cost rating for each investment:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Planned Cost to Date | Planned Cost * Planned % Complete |
| Milestone Cost Variance | (Planned Cost to Date) - Actual Cost |
| Investment Cost Variance | sum(all milestone cost variances) |
| Investment % Cost Variance | (Investment Cost Variance) / sum(Planned Costs to Date) |
Schedule Rating
Schedule rating is calculated as the variance between the investment’s planned and actual progress so far, in days as a percentage of the scheduled work so far.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Milestone Schedule Variance (Completed Milestones) | Planned Completion Date - Actual Completion Date |
| Milestone Schedule Variance (In-Progress Milestones) | (Actual Percent Complete - Planned Percent Complete) * (Planned Completion Date - Planned Start Date) |
| Investment Total Schedule Variance | sum(all schedule variances) |
| Investment % Schedule Variance | sum(all schedule variances) / sum(duration of completed and in-progress milestones) |
The investment’s Cost / Schedule Rating (0-10) is determined by translating the Investment % Cost / Schedule Variance to 0-10 scale using a continuous scale described by the following values:
| % Cost / Schedule Variance (use absolute value) |
Cost / Schedule Rating (0-10) |
|---|---|
| 3.33% to 0% | 9.00 to 10 |
| 6.67% to 3.33% | 8.00 to 9.00 |
| 10% to 6.67% | 7.00 to 8.00 |
| 15% to 10% | 6.00 to 7.00 |
| 20% to 15% | 5.00 to 6.00 |
| 25% to 20% | 4.00 to 3.00 |
| 30% to 25% | 3.00 to 4.00 |
| 36.67% to 30% | 2.00 to 3.00 |
| 43.33% to 36.67% | 1.00 to 2.00 |
| 50% to 43.33% | 0 to 1.00 |
| >50% | 0 |
| Cost / Schedule Rating | Color |
|---|---|
| Greater than 7 up to and including 10 | Green |
| Greater than 3 up to and including 7 | Yellow |
| Greater than 0 up to and including 3 | Red |
The Evaluation, Cost, and Schedule ratings will each represent one third of the Overall Rating for the investment. Where the CIO's Evaluation is lower than or equal to both the Cost and Schedule ratings, it entirely overrides those ratings and represents 100% of the Overall Rating.
Any investment not yet rated will default to an Evaluation rating of "0".
The IT Dashboard does not have an approval workflow function. Only baselines approved in accordance with agency policy should be entered into the IT Dashboard by an authorized user.
The IT Dashboard does not distinguish between DME and SS (as collected in Exhibit 53) for Cost and Schedule ratings. The planning and acquisition, and operations and maintenance (O&M) milestones (from Exhibit 300) will be used for Cost and Schedule calculations.
The exhibit 300 has a field in the contracts table to identify interagency agreements and agencies should continue to report this data. Since this type of spending is not collected in FPDS, the IT Dashboard does not identify these contracts as invalid procurement IDs. OMB recognizes there is no authoritative source to validate these agreements at this time.
The IT Dashboard clearly indicates an invalid procurement ID for those contracts for which a matching contract number cannot be found in FPDS, and there is no link available for further contract information. Each contract line item that is not matched by the agency with FPDS (or USAspending.gov) is clearly indicated with a red "x" symbol in the IT Dashboard as an invalid procurement ID.
To assist in the linkage of Contract/Task Order Numbers from the Acquisition Strategy table to FPDS, agencies should provide the following information for "Contract/Task Order Numbers" based on the FPDS-NG data requirements (as specified in the FPDS-NG Data Element Dictionary-http://www.fpdsng.com/downloads/FPDS-Data-Dictionary-Version1.3.pdf):
| Part of Indefinite Delivery Vehicle (IDV)? | Procurement Instrument Identifier | Example |
|---|---|---|
| No | Data Element 1A (NTE 50 characters) | "00063200203DNBCHC020042" |
| Yes | Data Element 1A, and the Referenced PIID, Data Element 1C (NTE 100 characters) | "GS09Q08DN0165-IDV-GS10F0216N" |
| Data Element | Source |
|---|---|
| Unique Project Identifier (to identify investment to update) | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section A |
| Date of Submission | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section A |
| Investment Name | Exhibit 53 |
| Investment Description | Exhibit 53 |
| Agency CIO Name | CIO.gov |
| Agency CIO Email | CIO.gov |
| Agency CIO Photo | CIO.gov |
| Agency CIO Bio | CIO.gov |
| Awarded Contracts: Contract Number | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section C |
| Awarded Contracts: Award Date | USAspending.gov |
| Awarded Contracts: Total Value of Contract/Task Order | USAspending.gov |
| Awarded Contracts: Vendor Name | USAspending.gov |
| Awarded Contracts: Type of Contract | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section C |
| Awarded Contracts: Start Date of Contract | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section C |
| Awarded Contracts: End Date of Contract | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section C |
| Performance Information: Strategic Goal Supported | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section D |
| Performance Information: Measurement Area | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section D |
| Performance Information: Measurement Indicator | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section D |
| Performance Information: Baseline | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section D |
| Performance Information: Actual Results | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section D |
| Performance Information: Target | Exhibit 300, Part I: Section D |
| Performance Information: Rating | System (input) |
| Cost/Schedule: Milestone Description | Exhibit 300, Cost/Schedule table |
| Cost/Schedule: Percent Complete | Exhibit 300, Cost/Schedule table & System (input) |
| Cost/Schedule: Planned Completion Date | Exhibit 300, Cost/Schedule table |
| Cost/Schedule: Actual Completion Date | Exhibit 300, Cost/Schedule table & System (input) |
| Cost/Schedule: Planned Start Date {NEW} | System (input) |
| Cost/Schedule: Actual Start Date {NEW} | System (input) |
| Cost/Schedule: Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (to date) or Planned Value (to date) {NEW} | System (input) |
| Cost/Schedule: Total Planned Cost | Exhibit 300, Cost/Schedule table |
| Cost/Schedule: Total Actual Cost | Exhibit 300, Cost/Schedule table & System (input) |
| Cost/Schedule: Cost Variance | Calculated |
| Cost/Schedule: Schedule Variance | Calculated |