Advanced Search

Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG)

• Part I: Summary Information and Justification
  • Section A: Overview
  • Section B: Summary of Spending
  • Section D: Performance Information
  • Section F: Enterprise Architecture (EA)
• Part III: For "Operation and Maintenance" investments ONLY (Steady State)
  • Section A: Risk Management
  • Section B: Cost and Schedule Performance

1. Date of submission: May 30, 2008
2. Agency: 018
3. Bureau: 45
4. Name of this Capital Asset: Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG)
5. Unique Project (Investment) Identifier: 018-45-01-07-01-1070-00
6. What kind of investment will this be in FY2010? Operations and Maintenance
7. What was the first budget year this investment was submitted to OMB? FY2001 or earlier
8. Provide a brief summary and justification for this investment, including a brief description of how this closes in part or in whole an identified agency performance gap: The U.S. Department of Education (ED), FSA is responsible for managing and administering student financial assistance programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. In 2001, to reduce costs of delivering student financial aid, FSA management decided to move data transmissions in support of these programs from a proprietary network to Internet transmissions. The resulting SAIG Portal provides this telecommunications support and facilitates data transmission between FSA?s customers and the various Title IV Application Systems. SAIG is a store and forward mailbox application used by FSA?s customers (post-secondary schools, lenders, guaranty agencies, state agencies, and other electronic trading partners) for sending and receiving Privacy Act data to the Title IV application systems. There are currently 7,000+ customers participating in SAIG. Customers transmit data using their local Internet Service Provider (ISP) to reduce transmission costs to FSA. The Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) products that support the customers? transmissions were developed by the commercial vendor ClickCommerce. The software products include Easy Access (client), Secure Remote (mailbox application), and Online Secure Manager (web-based online query status of transmissions). SAIG is currently hosted the FSA Virtual Data Center (VDC) in Plano, TX operated by the vendor Perot Systems.
9. Did the Agency's Executive/Investment Committee approve this request? yes
   1. If "yes," what was the date of this approval? Aug 30, 2007
10. Did the Project Manager review this Exhibit? yes
11. Contact information of Program/Project Manager?

1. What is the current FAC-P/PM (for civilian agencies) or DAWIA (for defense agencies) certification level of the program/project manager? Senior/Expert/DAWIA-Level 3
12. Has the agency developed and/or promoted cost effective, energy efficient and environmentally sustainable techniques or practices for this project. yes
    1. Will this investment include electronic assets (including computers)? no
    2. Is this investment for new construction or major retrofit of a Federal building or facility? (answer applicable to non-IT assets only) no
       1. If "yes," is an ESPC or UESC being used to help fund this investment? [Not answered]
       2. If "yes," will this investment meet sustainable design principles? [Not answered]
       3. If "yes," is it designed to be 30% more energy efficient than relevant code? [Not answered]
13. Does this investment directly support one of the PMA initiatives? yes
    Expanded E-Government
    1. Briefly and specifically describe for each selected how this asset directly supports the identified initiative(s)? Expand Electronic Government Objectives: SAIG reduces the reporting burden on businesses. SAIG reduces the expense and difficulty of doing business with the government. SAIG increases access for persons with disabilities to agency web-sites and e-Government applications. SAIG Mailbox utilizes the Internet to enable citizens to penetrate the Federal bureaucracy to access information and transact business.
14. Does this investment support a program assessed using the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)? (For more information about the PART, visit www.whitehouse.gov/omb/part.) no
    1. If "yes," does this investment address a weakness found during a PART review? [Not answered]
    2. If "yes," what is the name of the PARTed program? [Not answered]
    3. If "yes," what rating did the PART receive? [Not answered]
15. Is this investment for information technology? yes

For information technology investments only:

16. What is the level of the IT Project? (per CIO Council PM Guidance) Level 3
17. In addition to the answer in 11(a), what project management qualifications does the Project Manager have? (per CIO Council PM Guidance) (1) Project manager has been validated as qualified for this investment
18. Is this investment or any project(s) within this investment identified as "high risk" on the Q4-FY 2008 agency high risk report (per OMB Memorandum M-05-23)? yes
19. Is this a financial management system? no
    1. If "yes," does this investment address a FFMIA compliance area? [Not answered]
       1. If "yes," which compliance area: [Not answered]
       2. If "no," what does it address? [Not answered]
    2. If "yes," please identify the system name(s) and system acronym(s) as reported in the most recent financial systems inventory update required by Circular A-11 section 52 [Not answered]
20. What is the percentage breakout for the total FY2010 funding request for the following?

21. If this project produces information dissemination products for the public, are these products published to the Internet in conformance with OMB Memorandum 05-04 and included in your agency inventory, schedules and priorities? n/a
22. Contact information of individual responsible for privacy related questions:

23. Are the records produced by this investment appropriately scheduled with the National Archives and Records Administration's approval? yes
24. Does this investment directly support one of the GAO High Risk Areas? no

2. Will this project require the agency to hire additional FTE's? no
   1. If "yes", How many and in what year? [Not answered]
3. If the summary of spending has changed from the FY2009 President's budget request, briefly explain those changes: [Not answered]

1. Is this investment included in your agency's target enterprise architecture? no
   1. If "no," please explain why? When the Target State Vision (TSV) is achieved SAIG will be subsumed.
2. Is this investment included in the agency's EA Transition Strategy? yes
   1. If "yes," provide the investment name as identified in the Transition Strategy provided in the agency's most recent annual EA Assessment. Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG)
   2. If "no," please explain why? [Not answered]
3. Is this investment identified in a completed and approved segment architecture? no
   1. If "yes," provide the six digit code corresponding to the agency segment architecture. The segment architecture codes are maintained by the agency Chief Architect. For detailed guidance regarding segment architecture codes, please refer to http://www.egov.gov/. 206-000

6. Will the application leverage existing components and/or applications across the Government (i.e., USA.Gov, Pay.Gov, etc)? no
   1. If "yes," please describe. [Not answered]

1. Does the investment have a Risk Management Plan? yes
   1. If "yes," what is the date of the plan? Jul 1, 2008
   2. Has the Risk Management Plan been significantly changed since last year's submission to OMB? no
   3. If "yes," describe any significant changes: [Not answered]
2. If there currently is no plan, will a plan be developed? [Not answered]
   1. If "yes," what is the planned completion date? [Not answered]
   2. If "no," what is the strategy for managing the risks? [Not answered]

1. Was operational analysis conducted? yes
   1. If "yes," provide the date the analysis was completed. Jul 2, 2008
   2. If "yes," what were the results? The overall state of this application is positive. The monthly random customer service surveys average a total score above 4.5 out of 5 since April 2007. This project is providing the end-user with the features and functionality required to meet the business requirements and objectives, in a timely manner. The cost and schedule variance equals zero because it is a fixed price contract in a maintenance and operations state. Since there have not been any enhancements to the system since the previous contract in 2003, there are only several minor enhancements, already available with this prodcut, that can be enabled. A few are as follows: Add EDconnect compatibility with Windows Vista, Business version. Add two new TDClient platforms, Linux and Windows (XP and Vista Business version), to the list of available platforms for mainframe/midrange users. Enable web transactions for all end-users through an encrypted secure thin client. Use Federal Student Aids Security Architecture (SA) environment to provide identity and access management into the Student Aid Internet Gateways (SAIG) environment.
   3. If "no," please explain why it was not conducted and if there are any plans to conduct operational analysis in the future: [Not answered]
2.  
   1. What costs are included in the reported Cost/Schedule Performance information (Government Only/Contractor Only/Both)? Contractor and Government

Return to OMB Exhibit 300 page