Project. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Joint Spectrum Center (JSC) on the Electromagnetic Spectrum Engineering Services Contract

Customer Background. The U.S. Department of Commerce provided estimated costs and timeline information associated with relocating federal operations from the 1710-1755 MHZ band. The total number of frequency assignments that will be relocated by 12 federal agencies is 2,240 and the cost for the relocation of Federal Government operations is estimated to be $936 Million. This effort is part of the 90 MHZ of radio spectrum that is to be made available for the near term for advanced wireless (including third generation or "3G") telecommunications services to meet the demand for new wireless services.

Business Challenge. MicroLink was required to engineer a solution to the Federal Government by providing a coordination portal that would automate the routine processing of AWS coordination requests, commonly referred to as prior coordination notices (PCNs).

In order to meet the tight deadline of showing capability to the Federal Government by December 2006, Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software would needed to be leveraged to stand up the coordination portal quickly.

Solution. ITT AES engaged MicroLink to provide a coordination portal by December 2006 that would allow:

• AWS Licensees to submit a PCN
• Checking the status of a PCN
• Corresponding with the Federal Government regarding their request
• ITT employees the ability to receive a PCN
• Processing of the PCN
• Providing the results to the Federal Government
• Facilitating the federal spectrum managers PCN decision process
• Providing a means to communicate with the AWS Licensees
• Recording the history of the PCN decision for “blank” purposes

MicroLink recommended the COTS products Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 (Microsoft CRM) and c360 Customer Portal for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 (c360 Customer Portal) to provide initial capability quickly while providing a strong foundation for future growth and enhancements.

MicroLink leveraged the rich Case functionality in Microsoft CRM to meet the basic coordination portal requirements while using the extensive Microsoft CRM customization capability to extend the Case model to meet the unique requirements associated with processing a PCN. A significant time and cost savings was realized by using Microsoft CRM’s out-of-the-box security model and activity entity which facilitates communication between ITT, AWS Licensees, and federal spectrum managers. By using the core security model and activity entity MicroLink had additional time to develop a custom PCN file parsing program that takes the spectrum analysis results from ComSearch’s IQClearXG software and parses it into manageable pieces that are assigned to the appropriate federal spectrum manager for review and disposition. Thus allowing the federal spectrum managers to concentrate on a few potential interferences rather than wading through the full analysis results.

MicroLink implemented c360 Customer Portal to serve as the interface between ITT and the AWS Licensees. The c360 Customer Portal is fully integrated with Microsoft CRM and was easily extended to meet the unique requirements for the coordination portal. This piece serves as the public face of Microsoft CRM and allows AWS Licensees to submit PCNs, review the progress of their PCNs, communicate with ITT regarding their PCNs, and see the history of the PCN progress. The c360 Customer Portal also includes a robust customization capability and MicroLink was able to extend the portal by adding a custom communication tab that enabled e-mail communication between parties with a complete communication audit trail.

The coordination portal solution MicroLink has provided ITT and ultimately the Federal Government with the following benefits:

• Saving thousands of dollars in development costs and significantly reducing implementation time by using COTS products that provided over 70% of the required capability out-of-the-box
• Reducing the PCN processing and analysis time from weeks to days
• Reducing the amount development time to extend the coordination portal solution by leveraging the existing COTS functionality rather than producing custom code
• Providing the AWS Licensees with a single coordination point for submitting PCNs to the Federal Government agencies
• Providing the Federal Government with a tool that enables them to focus on the aspects of a PCN request that has a potential interference rather than wasting hundreds of hours reviewing analysis details that do not require action
• Providing a tool that automates the PCN coordination process and enables high-quality service at a reasonable cost to the Federal Government.
• Microsoft CRM uses the Microsoft Office user interface paradigm thus reducing the time and effort required to familiarize ITT and Federal Government resources with the software. This allows ITT and MicroLink more time to focus on training resources on the process rather than on the tool.

Technologies or Products and Services Provided by MicroLink.

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0
• c360 Customer Portal for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0
• Implementation services to install, configure, and customize Microsoft CRM and c360 Customer Portal.
• Implementation services to extend Microsoft CRM by developing components that parse the analysis results from Comsearch iQ•clearXG™ and load it into Microsoft CRM.
• Implementation services to extend c360 Customer Portal by developing components that enable email communication and adding a communication tab to provide access to the capability.

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