Tracking Foreign Travel by Employees and Contractors of a Major Government Agency

On September 12, 2001, a major government agency wanted to know where every employee currently on travel outside of the United States was located. The information was available from a real-time system developed and maintained by Project Performance Corporation.

In an average year over 15,000 trips are made outside the United States by employees and contractors traveling for the agency. Travelers originate from over 120 work locations across the United States. Until 2001, the agency relied on a mainframe system to track all foreign travel. The system was cumbersome to use, required an intimate knowledge of confusing two- and three-digit codes, and could not provide real-time information on traveler location or conference attendance. Travel approvals required the transfer of hard-copy documents from the travel offices in the field to headquarters and back again. Record maintenance was inconsistent and security was minimal.

In January 2001, the agency awarded a contract to PPC to develop an enterprise-wide, web-based workflow system that would streamline the foreign travel approval process, provide record maintenance in a central location, support report generation, and include state-of-the-art security features. The system went live in December 2001 and PPC continues to support the system.

As developed by PPC, the system provides a secure environment for entering, reviewing, and approving travel plans as well as one-stop access to overseas conference attendance and travel data. The system assists the counterintelligence officers at the agency in monitoring travel to sensitive countries, and provides detailed reporting capabilities for all aspects of the agency's foreign travel program. In addition to the web application development, PPC provided a complete set of documentation including a User's Guide, Training Modules, a Disaster Recovery Plan, and a Cyber Security Plan.

The system has been highly praised by agency employees and contractors for its ease of use. It is accessible to travelers as well as travel officers, and allows the burden of entering trips to be moved out to the sites and to individual travelers if so desired. Currently the system has over 1,700 users, and over 11,000 travelers. Project Performance Corporation has been praised for its responsiveness to user requests and its willingness to "go the extra mile" for our client and users.