October 25, 2005
Tele – conference Call

Participants
WRC: Billie Clark, Steve Trujillo, Lou Hamm, Diane Osborne, Al Wilhelm, Bob Welsh, Bill Kannawin, Mary Greene, Veronika Eskova, Greg Morlock
MCRC: Bill Joseph, Len Meier, Kevin Garnett, Paul Behum
ARC: Susan Stoyek, Mike Dunn
KFO: Bill Card, Jo Gault
Big Stone Gap FO: Harry Morris

Topic: FY 05 Annual Report Status

Discussion: Final numbers for FY05 have been added to the draft report and submitted in final form.

Topic: FY 06 Budget Planning

Discussion: Working from a $1.1M base, the Director allotted an additional $1M. Half of the additional $1M went to new personnel costs. The remaining $1M was added to the TIPS base to bring the total TIPS Non-Personnel operating budget to $1.6M. Last year TIPS spent $1.3M.

TIPS staff compiled a requested budget of $2.2M which had to be cut to meet the $1.6M granted.

Regional representatives and TIPS budget staff will meet on Wednesday, Nov. 2 to finalize the budget. TIPS Team members are encouraged to review the draft budget and provide comments to Steve Trujillo prior to the Nov. 2 meeting.

Topic: Software Distribution – Configuration of new Hard Drives

Discussion: TIPS core software has been successfully loaded onto one of the new distribution external hard drives for testing purposes. Daniel Lewis has devised a menu system on the drive to access each software component for installation. ArcGIS data sets will be included. Remote Sensing data will be available via website download.

Some TIPS software packages have limited licenses available such as Geochemist Workbench, Terrasync, and ArcPad. Such software components will be listed on the menu, but the user will be referred to contact the appropriate Software Manager for obtaining the software.

Testing of the hard-drive distribution initiative continues and distribution is not anticipated before January. Image Analyst and Stereo Analyst will be added to the hard drives.

Future plans to make TIPS software available on the TIPS website are continuing. This idea will not be available for at least a few months.

Decision: ArcGIS 9.1 and Xwin32 will be distributed in the next two weeks or so via CD’s rather than waiting for the new hard drives to be ready.

Topic: FY 07 Greenbook Planning

Discussion: The Annual Report concerned FY 05 projects. The Greenbook concerns planned FY 07 projects as well as work ongoing in FY 06. Please plan to submit articles about ongoing FY 06 TIPS work and planned FY 07 projects to Diane by November 2. Please include graphics. The FY 05 Annual Report information will be automatically included into the Greenbook as appropriate.

Topic: Training Program

Discussion: Training is having problems with the nomination form at the Headquarters level. Greg Morlock has developed a workaround that will allow training nominations to resume. TIPS course nominations from customer representatives are due on November 30.

The FY 05 GPRA standard was exceeded by 2%.

Topic: Mobile Computing Team

Discussion: Distribution of recently purchased new equipment is on temporary hold to coordinate equipment needs with the Western Region’s Technology Transfer group.

Additional ArcPad software and new software to translate Trimble language to the ArcGIS language will soon be purchased.

A feedback form for those folks prototyping mobile computing devices is under development by the team.

The Mobile Computing Team will conduct a 4-hour workshop at the Billings Symposium. Team members are asked to submit ideas this week regarding the content of this workshop.

Topic: National Surface Mining Geospatial Committee and EGIM status.

Discussion: Al Wilhelm attended Geospatial Architecture training and discovered that the Department has developed architecture for all business lines in the Department including Geospatial. OSM is the only bureau that has not participated in the same way.

Greg Morlock attended a Data Architecture Committee meeting where a Department-level Data Steward position was discussed. The Department is asking for nominations for this Data Steward position.

The National Surface Mining Geospatial Committee conducted its inaugural meeting in Denver, on September 13 & 14. The Committee hopes to reach out to states and tribes for a meeting of their principal GIS contacts next year.

Committee members are – Bill Card (OSM-KFO), Rick Koehler (NM), Larry Evans (WV), Doug Mullins (VA), Alan Wilhelm (OSM-WR), Stephen Parsons (OSM-HQ), and Len Meier (OSM-MCR).

Topic: TIPS Web-Team Status

Discussion: The prototype of the new TIPS website will be completed for TIPS Team review on November 4. Team members will have until November 14 to review the site information and comment. Content is expected to be finalized by December 1 and go online shortly thereafter.

Compliance with OMB requirements for Federal websites, and the new Departmental guidelines for websites are fundamental reasons for the effort in TIPS website revision.

Topic: GeoFluv Review Team

Discussion: Training in relation to the San Juan Mine will be conducted December 12-16 in Farmington, NM.

Topic: FY 06 Annual Steering Committee Meeting Planning

Discussion: No significant issues to report. Planning continues.

Topic: National TIPS Input for OSM FY 2006 Goals

Discussion: Billie Clark is soliciting comments from the Team regarding these goals. They can be found on SharePoint under “Shared Documents” – “Goals.”

Topic: AutoDesk License Issue

Discussion: The keys for the 2006 version are not compatible with the current license server. New keys must be obtained. There are also issues with the new menus on version 2006 regarding compatibility with SurvCADD.

AutoCAD version 2006 will not be available for the hard-drive distribution in January.

Topic: ABC/M Codes for TIPS FY 06

Discussion: Team members are asked to be especially vigilant about accurate accounting for time spent on TIPS projects. This issue has become especially pertinent because of OMB requirements and tracking via the CPIC process. TIPS’ continued existence weighs in the balance on this issue.

A table of relevant TIPS ABC/M codes can be found on the SharePoint site under “ABC – FY 2006.”

Topic: Network Downtime

Discussion: Dan Rivers is tracking system down time. Team members are asked to document any time the TIPS license servers are not available along with Email and other network services. OSM is a small bureau and the Department and MCI are not paying much attention to OSM’s downtime issues. This problem must be elevated before we can get some relief, and documentation is required before we can successfully elevate the issue. Please Email Dan Rivers with downtime documentation.

Topic: Team Member Reports

Discussion:

Susan Stoyek – New monitors have been received in both the Appalachian and Mid-Continent offices.

Mike Dunn – Two of the new computers ordered were not as specified. A critical order has been placed for remote sensing data for a coal-fire in the Anthracite region of PA – Please expedite!

Len Meier – New Training Room computers have been received bringing the MCR Training Room capacity to 17 persons.

Bill Card – ArcPad Class in KFO is scheduled for Dec. 6-8. 

Next Meeting: November 10, 2005 at 9:30 CST.