CACI

About CACI

CACI provides professional services and IT solutions needed for defense, intelligence, homeland security, and IT modernization and government transformation. With over 13,700 employees across 120 locations, CACI is among the largest U.S. government contractors and is a member of the Fortune 1000 largest companies.

After CACI put its first Micro Focus-based helpdesk solution into operation, its customers saw the obvious benefits for themselves. One of the biggest selling points is the fact that the applications are accessible from anywhere. Most customer applications are hosted within the confines of a secure network, and inaccessible from other networks – even from another secure government network. The Micro Focus solution offers a secure web-based interface that is accessible from anywhere with Internet access, including handheld devices, with no client software to install. Existing directory services or smart cards handle user authentication, with multiple levels of access. The switchover was a positive experience, with at least half of the users comfortable with the new system within two days, and the remainder within two weeks.

The solution readily connects to different data sources with Web services, making it easy to leverage resources inside and outside the organization – for example, automatically sending proposals to a supplier’s quote request system, putting approved purchase orders directly into an order management system, and getting back purchase order numbers or other task identification to retain links between the tasks.

After implementing the first four workflows, CACI and its customer saw the potential for broader deployment. “We never intended to go past the first four workflows, but we saw how easy it was to do that and how any business process could be automated,” said Tyson. Where appropriate, processes are extending and integrating directly with customer applications and data. SBM is becoming one of the most significant growth areas for CACI’s business, as customers realize the benefits of easier enforcement of business policies, increased accountability, and enhanced tracking and task history.

Automating processes with Micro Focus not only avoids user resistance, it also makes it easier to enforce business process rules. For example, expense report policies are automatically applied, violations flagged, and sent to the appropriate person for approval and payment. As Tyson observed, “We saw that processes were not being followed in a standard fashion across the team, but all the ones we released with the Serena (now part of Micro Focus) solution were.”

Using the solution, accountability for each task is directly and clearly attributed to the owner. Organizations need information on historical activities, for auditing, and retaining intellectual capital. Tyson remarked that, unlike emails, which are archived on individual desktops and may omit key people, “even if you weren’t in the chain, you could see its history.”

As areas for improvement are identified through user comment or historical analysis, workflows can be modified quickly and easily. “Our motto is months, not years, to release major workflows; and days, not weeks, to add fields or minor modifications,” Tyson concluded.