Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Merge pull request #88 from GSA-TTS/jadudm/mar1-update
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
Jadudm/mar1 update
  • Loading branch information
lauraherring authored Mar 1, 2024
2 parents c908ec9 + 74717a1 commit 108cfbb
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 10 changed files with 126 additions and 54 deletions.
Binary file added assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2016.png
Loading
Sorry, something went wrong. Reload?
Sorry, we cannot display this file.
Sorry, this file is invalid so it cannot be displayed.
Binary file added assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2017.png
Loading
Sorry, something went wrong. Reload?
Sorry, we cannot display this file.
Sorry, this file is invalid so it cannot be displayed.
Binary file added assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2018.png
Loading
Sorry, something went wrong. Reload?
Sorry, we cannot display this file.
Sorry, this file is invalid so it cannot be displayed.
Binary file added assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2019.png
Loading
Sorry, something went wrong. Reload?
Sorry, we cannot display this file.
Sorry, this file is invalid so it cannot be displayed.
Binary file added assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2020.png
Loading
Sorry, something went wrong. Reload?
Sorry, we cannot display this file.
Sorry, this file is invalid so it cannot be displayed.
Binary file added assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2021.png
Loading
Sorry, something went wrong. Reload?
Sorry, we cannot display this file.
Sorry, this file is invalid so it cannot be displayed.
Binary file added assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2022.png
Loading
Sorry, something went wrong. Reload?
Sorry, we cannot display this file.
Sorry, this file is invalid so it cannot be displayed.
Binary file added assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2023.png
Loading
Sorry, something went wrong. Reload?
Sorry, we cannot display this file.
Sorry, this file is invalid so it cannot be displayed.
90 changes: 89 additions & 1 deletion src/info/updates/archive.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -10,12 +10,100 @@ meta:

The FAC is committed to working transparently and openly. In addition to [our regular updates](https://www.fac.gov/info/updates/), you can find historical updates below.


<div class="usa-accordion usa-accordion--bordered">
<h4 class="usa-accordion__heading">
<button
type="button"
class="usa-accordion__button"
aria-expanded="true"
aria-controls="b-feb5"
>
Week of February 5, 2024
</button>
</h4>
<div id="b-feb5" class="usa-accordion__content usa-prose">

The team has been focused on completing a migration of data from Census to GSA. This update covers mid-December to the current week.

### Historic data transfer

**Single Audit submissions from 2016–present are now available from the GSA FAC, and the Census Bureau is shutting down their data distribution.** Single Audits from prior years will appear in our search results. This is a major milestone, and future work will involve documenting the data migration, our continued curation of this data, and improvements to how this data is queried and used.

The migration caused some disruptions to service. With 10 times more data, our system has struggled to keep up with volume for some of our search filters. The most affected filter is the ALN search. Results for this filter show whether an audit contains findings (“Findings My ALN/Findings Other ALN”). Before the migration, this filter applied to small amounts of data, but after adding prior years, this began crashing the system. We've removed this feature to resolve the system strain. Our team is working on a replacement feature to handle the larger amount of data.


### What we delivered

We work in [an agile manner](https://asana.com/resources/agile-methodology). That means we have a long-term strategy, medium-term features we work to deliver, and make continuous improvement and bug fixes to the existing product.

#### Customer experience
We achieved “helpdesk zero” in the last week of January. We had no questions come in on a workday, and we emptied our queue so we had no support questions left to answer. We have continued to empty our question queue on a near-daily basis.

The team currently replies to a ticket within 1.5 hours of receipt, and closes 75% of tickets within 8 hours. The helpdesk remains an excellent place to get timely support.

#### UX/Design

We completed user testing on navigation changes for [FAC.gov]({{ config.baseUrl }}). This validated a new site structure that will be easier for users to navigate.

The team finalized a research plan around audit resolution work. We began interviews with audit resolution officials, IG offices, and other users.

#### Submission improvements

We made multiple improvements to the submission experience. We use research and interviews with our users, as well as issues reported in the helpdesk, to guide this work.

- Added an SF-SAC summary report, allowing users to review the form data for in-progress and completed audits (PR [3025](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3025)).

- Significantly sped up PDF validation (PR [3057](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3057)).

- Submitters can now unlock an in-progress audit anytime up to the time of final submission (PR [3136](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3136)).

- Synchronization fixes between the audit state and submission checklist (PR [3144](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3144)).

- Users no longer have to log out and back in for changes to user access (e.g. changing the Auditee Certifying Official email address) to take effect. (PR [3194](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3194)).

- Simplified the submission checklist after an audit is validated and locked for certification. (PR [3197](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3197)).

- Improved validations regarding reference numbers (PR [3221](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3221)).

- Added the ability to download Audit Report Packages and the SF-SAC for in-progress review (PR [3212](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3212)).

- Many search performance improvements (PR [3283](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3283)).

- Fixes around our new “testing” banner and pre-certification report generation (PRs [3261](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3261), [3326](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3326), [3333](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3333)).

- Improved validation error reporting around ALNs (PR [3230](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3230)).

- Improved validation and error reporting around empty/zero loan balances (PR [3335](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3335)).

#### Intake, Search, and API

We also made multiple improvements to the audit search experience.

- A small update to SF-SAC summary exports (PR [3296](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3296)) that adds ALNs to the Federal Awards sheet.

- Fixed a performance bug within the FAC API (PR [3355](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3355)).

### What's next?

We're anticipating March to be a busy month. To support this, we'll be:

- **Focusing on performance improvements** and growing our team’s capacity for user support so that the auditors and auditees are well-supported during this time.

- **Providing documentation** regarding the migration of Census data to GSA and how to use it effectively.

- **Improving search**, both to support Federal oversight work as well as the public’s experience with FAC data.

- **Adding Tribal data access to the API** (PR [3359](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3359)) and writing documentation and legal agreements to accompany it.

</div>

<div class="usa-accordion usa-accordion--bordered">
<h4 class="usa-accordion__heading">
<button
type="button"
class="usa-accordion__button"
aria-expanded="true"
aria-expanded="false"
aria-controls="b-a1"
>
Week of December 18, 2023
Expand Down
90 changes: 37 additions & 53 deletions src/info/updates/index.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -19,80 +19,64 @@ The Federal Audit Clearinghouse team works in the open. Our day-to-day task boar
* Updates for [grantees and auditors](#grantees-and-auditors)
* Updates for [agencies](#agencies)

## Week of February 5, 2024
## Week of February 26, 2024

The team has been focused on completing a migration of data from Census to GSA. This update covers mid-December to the current week.
Our work through the end of February and into March is focused in three areas:

### Historic data transfer
1. Improving search.
2. Improving access to Tribal data.
3. Preparing for the March submission deadline.

**Single Audit submissions from 2016–present are now available from the GSA FAC, and the Census Bureau is shutting down their data distribution.** Single Audits from prior years will appear in our search results. This is a major milestone, and future work will involve documenting the data migration, our continued curation of this data, and improvements to how this data is queried and used.
### Improving search

The migration caused some disruptions to service. With 10 times more data, our system has struggled to keep up with volume for some of our search filters. The most affected filter is the ALN search. Results for this filter show whether an audit contains findings (“Findings My ALN/Findings Other ALN”). Before the migration, this filter applied to small amounts of data, but after adding prior years, this began crashing the system. We've removed this feature to resolve the system strain. Our team is working on a replacement feature to handle the larger amount of data.
We added new search filters, covered in ticket [#3407](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/issues/3407). These new filters allow for:

1. Searching audits by finding type.
2. Filtering by direct or passthrough funding.
3. Filtering by whether an audit is on a major program or not.

### What we delivered
We're continuing to improve search performance and are tracking our plans in story [#3388](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/issues/3388).

We work in [an agile manner](https://asana.com/resources/agile-methodology). That means we have a long-term strategy, medium-term features we work to deliver, and make continuous improvement and bug fixes to the existing product.
If you encounter issues with any of these new features, please let us know [via the FAC helpdesk](https://support.fac.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new).

#### Customer experience
We achieved “helpdesk zero” in the last week of January. We had no questions come in on a workday, and we emptied our queue so we had no support questions left to answer. We have continued to empty our question queue on a near-daily basis.
### Improving access to Tribal data

The team currently replies to a ticket within 1.5 hours of receipt, and closes 75% of tickets within 8 hours. The helpdesk remains an excellent place to get timely support.
We're reviewing ticket [#2298](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/issues/2298). This will make Tribal data available to Federal partners via the FAC API. The team is also close to completing ticket [#3331](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/issues/3331), which will make the public portion of Tribal audits appropriately visible in search.

#### UX/Design
### March submission deadline

We completed user testing on navigation changes for [FAC.gov]({{ config.baseUrl }}). This validated a new site structure that will be easier for users to navigate.
It's possible to [use the FAC API](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/fac-api-examples/tree/main/count-march-submissions) to predict what is coming in March. Here are plots of the submissions-per-day to the FAC from March of 2016 through 2022.

The team finalized a research plan around audit resolution work. We began interviews with audit resolution officials, IG offices, and other users.
<div class="grid-container">
<div class="grid-row">
<div class="tablet:grid-col"><img src="{{ config.baseUrl }}assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2016.png" alt="Histogram of submissions in 2016" /></div>
<div class="tablet:grid-col"><img src="{{ config.baseUrl }}assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2017.png" alt="Histogram of submissions in 2017" /></div>
<div class="tablet:grid-col"><img src="{{ config.baseUrl }}assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2018.png" alt="Histogram of submissions in 2018" /></div>
<div class="tablet:grid-col"><img src="{{ config.baseUrl }}assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2019.png" alt="Histogram of submissions in 2019" /></div>
</div>
<div class="grid-row">
<div class="tablet:grid-col"><img src="{{ config.baseUrl }}assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2020.png" alt="Histogram of submissions in 2020" /></div>
<div class="tablet:grid-col"><img src="{{ config.baseUrl }}assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2021.png" alt="Histogram of submissions in 2021" /></div>
<div class="tablet:grid-col"><img src="{{ config.baseUrl }}assets/img/updates/submissions-in-2022.png" alt="Histogram of submissions in 2022" /></div>
<div class="tablet:grid-col"></div>
</div>
</div>

#### Submission improvements
The Clearinghouse typically sees between 700 and 900 audit submissions on March 30th. In 2022, the Census Bureau saw close to 2000 audits submitted in one day.

We made multiple improvements to the submission experience. We use research and interviews with our users, as well as issues reported in the helpdesk, to guide this work.
We're doing many things to prepare for this submission volume. Since our launch, we've run two "copies" of the FAC to handle submissions. This means that, if two people are uploading audits to the FAC, one might get "FAC 1," and the other "FAC 2," so they both experience good web performance. As we go into March, we are increasing that number to 10, and can double that to 20 if necessary. This way, if 10 people are uploading data at the same time, they will each experience the same level of performance.

- Added an SF-SAC summary report, allowing users to review the form data for in-progress and completed audits (PR [3025](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3025)).

- Significantly sped up PDF validation (PR [3057](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3057)).

- Submitters can now unlock an in-progress audit anytime up to the time of final submission (PR [3136](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3136)).

- Synchronization fixes between the audit state and submission checklist (PR [3144](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3144)).

- Users no longer have to log out and back in for changes to user access (e.g. changing the Auditee Certifying Official email address) to take effect. (PR [3194](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3194)).

- Simplified the submission checklist after an audit is validated and locked for certification. (PR [3197](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3197)).

- Improved validations regarding reference numbers (PR [3221](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3221)).

- Added the ability to download Audit Report Packages and the SF-SAC for in-progress review (PR [3212](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3212)).

- Many search performance improvements (PR [3283](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3283)).

- Fixes around our new “testing” banner and pre-certification report generation (PRs [3261](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3261), [3326](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3326), [3333](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3333)).

- Improved validation error reporting around ALNs (PR [3230](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3230)).

- Improved validation and error reporting around empty/zero loan balances (PR [3335](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3335)).

#### Intake, Search, and API

We also made multiple improvements to the audit search experience.

- A small update to SF-SAC summary exports (PR [3296](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3296)) that adds ALNs to the Federal Awards sheet.

- Fixed a performance bug within the FAC API (PR [3355](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3355)).
This is possible because the FAC is built on top of technologies like [cloud.gov](https://cloud.gov) and [Login.gov](https://login.gov).

### What's next?

We're anticipating March to be a busy month. To support this, we'll be:

- **Focusing on performance improvements** and growing our team’s capacity for user support so that the auditors and auditees are well-supported during this time.

- **Providing documentation** regarding the migration of Census data to GSA and how to use it effectively.
We're keeping our focus on March. Looking ahead to the next few months, we'll be:

- **Improving search**, both to support Federal oversight work as well as the public’s experience with FAC data.
- Focusing on performance improvements and growing our team’s capacity for user support.

- **Adding Tribal data access to the API** (PR [3359](https://github.com/GSA-TTS/FAC/pull/3359)) and writing documentation and legal agreements to accompany it.
- Providing documentation on the migration of historical and how to use it.

- Improving search to support Federal oversight work and the public’s use of FAC data.

<h2 id="general" >General updates</h3>

Expand Down

0 comments on commit 108cfbb

Please sign in to comment.