Defense Business Systems

In the July 2016 Defense Business Systems (DBS) Senior Review Group (SRG) the Under Secretary of the Army (USA) and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army (VCSA) directed the staff to establish three Lines of Effort oriented on optimizing the DBS portfolio.

The objective was to implement a standardized solution for capturing and reporting sustainment costs for the Defense Business Systems (DBS) to support the evaluation and determination of long-term affordability and sustainment funding needs. The goals being to drive cost down over the long-term and give more predictability in the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) process.

In September 2018, the USA sent memos to the Domain Portfolio Managers for all six Business Mission Area domains and directed the DBS system owners from each domain to accomplish several tasks:

• Update and confirm data within the Army Portfolio Management Solution (APMS) system
• Integrate approved FY19 business initiatives into the Army Reform Initiative framework to allow commands to seek assistance from DASA-CE. The process ensures that relevant parties are engaged in the creation/update of CFs and that the resulting artifacts are stored in an accessible location
• Establish a plan to retire legacy DBS and assist retiring DBS owners with legacy system termination
• Coordinate recovery of each domain’s portion of the EE and SS PEG POM 20-24 decrement of $500M in FY23 and FY24
• Map Budget-to-Report end-to-end (E2E) process
• Complete the Enterprise Process Model for the Order-to-Cash (O2C) E2E process
• Create and maintain unique cost objects by DBS and capture actual costs against these objects within GFEBS, LMP, or CEFMS
• Complete migration of Financial and Asset Management Systems (FAMS) to Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)

The USA instructed domain owners to identify retiring legacy system investments and recoup associated funding from respective PEGs in order to overcome FY23 and FY24 EE PEG decrement of $500M; drive costs down by retiring legacy DBS; and capture costs for remaining systems.

DASA-CE will publish instructions for DBS owners on how to create and maintain cost objects, and capture actual costs against these objects within GFEBS, CEFMS, and LMP.

In response to the Army Data Implementation Plan, beginning in FY20, Defense Business Systems are now responsible for capturing and reporting Cloud related Costs and Services. As such, all DBS Templates and Reference Materials have been updated to include the necessary procedures to create Cloud Cost Reporting WBS Elements.

Suspense Date: 3/28/19
 Sample APMS Required Data 03072019 (CAC Required)

• Column V "Fund" - i.e. 202010D19
• Column W "Functional Area" - i.e. 438001VGFB
• Column X "Fund Center" - i.e. A5XI4
• Column Y "Main Account (1st 4 characters of Fund)" - i.e. 2020
• Column Z "Responsible Cost Center" - i.e. 40593544
• Column AA "Person Responsible" - i.e. 3713
• Column AB "Applicant Number" - i.e. 3713
• Column AC "Plant" - i.e. PEOE

1. Populate the correct WBS Mass Upload Excel Template (see below) using your Defense Business Systems information from the DBS Data Call Sheet (Tasker 3 tab), and your DBS’ Weapon System and Weapons SubSystem values (see below). Instructions to fill out the WBS Mass Upload Excel Template appear on Slide 24 of the Concept Slides (see below) and on the full DCS recording of your domain’s Tasker 4 Training Session (see below). A completed WBS Mass Upload Excel Template sample is also provided as guidance (see below).
2. Utilizing the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP – see below) as a guide, upload the WBS Mass Upload Template into GFEBS to create a unique Project/WBS structure.Video Demonstrations (see below) of all GFEBS steps are included. Also, all GFEBS steps are available to view on the full DCS recording of your domain’s Tasker 4 Training Session.
3. Provide a screenshot or record of the Unique Project/WBS Structure created to your Domain Portfolio Manager and DBS Mailbox and Fund and Release Project/WBS Structure (see SOP).

• For any new Defense Business Systems established in FY20 or later, a Weapons Subsystem Value must be created. In order to have the value created, contact the GFEBS Helpdesk - usarmy.belvoir.peo-eis.mbx.gfebs-helpdesk@army.mil
• For your email to the help desk, the following is enough to get a ticket assigned to the SSO-Cost Management queue:
  “Helpdesk, please open a ticket for the following issue: Business/Technical Service = Create Weapons Subsystem Value for a New Business System. Here is the DBS AITR Number: _________, DBS Acronym: ________, and DITPR Number _______. Thank you. (your signature block).

1. Using the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP – see below) as a guide, access the Defense Business System – Current Execution Identification BI Webi Report in GFEBS.
2. Select the Fund Center that your DBS is managed within and run the Defense Business System – Current Execution Identification BI Webi report.
3. Export the Defense Business System – Current Execution Identification BI Webi report to MS Excel and save to your local drive.
4. Open the saved MS Excel file, add column filters to the MS Excel file so that you can view lines filtered by funding source (2040, 2035, and 2020).
5. Filter the MS Excel file for each different funding source (2040, 2035, and 2020) and Save each filtered report as a separate file, locally, with the funding source in the file name. Video Demonstrations (see below) of all GFEBS steps are included. Also, all GFEBS steps are available to view on the full DCS recording of your domain’s Tasker 4 Training Session.

Tasker 6 Cost Mapping is focused on determining how a Defense Business System’s current execution maps to the cost reporting categories outlined in the published DBS Investment and/or Sustainment Cost Reporting Structures. Using the results generated by the DBS Current Execution Identification Webi Report in the previous task (Tasker 5 Current Execution Identification) as the starting point for this tasker, DBS functional proponents, system owners, and resource management partners will now map a Defense Business System’s current vendor/suppliers, the resources/inputs they provide, to the cost reporting structures. This will support the next tasker in determining if the current WBS’ used to capture execution costs contain one and only one type of cost related to the cost reporting structure or contain pooled costs (many) on a single cost object, but must be allocated to multiple cost reporting categories using multiple cost objects/collectors (WBS elements).

The outputs from this process include a breakdown of how a DBS’ current execution WBS elements are currently aligned to the DBS Cost Reporting Categories, and if there is a one-to-one cost relationship between a WBS Element and a Cost Reporting Category or a one-to-many cost relationship (pooled cost).

1. Download the correct DBS Cost Reporting Structure PDF files (investment and/or sustainment) below for your DBS CAT. Refer to this file when performing the mapping exercise.
2. Download the correct DBS Template Excel files (investment and/or sustainment) below for your DBS CAT. This file is setup as a matrix. These are the file(s) you will submit upon completion of this tasker.
3. Locate your submitted Tasker 5 Current Execution Identification output (separately for each funding source) Excel file(s) for your FY20 Vendor/Suppliers and Resource/Inputs. Filter on column U so that only those cells with a “Yes” entered are displayed. Using the correct technique, copy the filtered results into the correct Tasker 6 cost mapping matrix template. There are separate CAT 1 & 2 Sustainment and Investment templates to choose from.
4. After pasting your execution into the correct Template Excel file, analyze each execution line (who is the vendor/supplier, what resource/inputs did they provide) and place a “x” in each cost reporting category column cell (one or many) that represents the output generated until all execution lines have been analyzed. If you selected the correct Template Excel file, only reportable categories are shown in your matrix. Repeat for 2020, 2035, and 2040.
5. After completing all execution rows, review the results of your cost mapping exercise to see instances where current execution aligns one-to-one or one-to-many with the cost reporting structure to begin to understand the scope of your required allocations.
6. Submit your completed Tasker 6 Cost Mapping matrices for each funding source (2040, 2035, 2020) to the DASA-CE Mailbox and include your Domain Portfolio Management team.

The focus of Tasker 7 Cost Tagging is to take the output from both Tasker 5 Current Execution Identification and Tasker 6 Cost Mapping to identify the correct values for the 5 WBSE Acquisition attribute fields. The 5 WBSE Acquisition Fields are as follows:

• Weapon System – The selected value (1 of 6) identifies the WBSE as both a Defense Business System and the Domain Portfolio (i.e. FMC, HRM, LOG, ACQ, IEE, or T&R) it belongs to.
• Weapon Subsystem – The selected value (there is a value for every DBS) identifies the specific Defense Business System the WBSE is for. The description of each code includes the DITPR#, DBS Acronym, and AITR#.
• ACAT – The selected value (1 of 4) identifies the Business System Category that the WBSE is for. Business System Categories are as follows:
  • Category 1 (CI): $250M and above across the FYDP
  • Category 2 (CII): $50M – Up to $249.9M across the FYDP
  • Category 3 (CIII): $1M – Up to $49.9M across the FYDP
  • Category 4 (CIV): Up to $0.9 across the FYDP
• Phase – The selected value (1 of 5) identifies the Business Capability Acquisition Cycle (BCAC) Phase that the WBSE belongs to. There BCAC phases are as follows:
  • Capability Needs Identification (CNI)
  • Business Solution Analysis (BSA)
  • Functional Requirements and Acquisition Planning (FR&AP) – Map your WBSE’s that use 2040 funds to this phase Acquisition, Testing, and Deployment (AT&D) – Map your WBSE’s that use 2035 funds to this phase
  • Capability Support (CS) – Map your WBSE’s that use 2020 funds to this phase
• ACS – The selected value represents the cost reporting category that the WBSE has execution for. There are two scenarios you must consider when selecting the correct value. Is the execution cost on this WBSE for one and only one purpose (cost reporting category), or are there pooled execution costs (more than one cost reporting category)? If the answer is for only one purpose, select the value that represents that cost. If the answer is there are pooled execution costs (more than one), select the 1-ALOC code. Selecting the 1-ALOC code is a trigger that the execution sitting on this WBSE must be allocated on a quarterly basis to report the cost across the relevant cost reporting categories. The Cost Allocation process is described in Tasker 8 Cost Allocations.

Each time you create a current execution WBSE for your Defense Business System using CJ20N, you must also populate the 5 Attribute fields in the Acquisition section located on the Custom Enhancement tab. For the Wave 1 fielding exercise, the DASA-CE DBS GFEBS Fielding team performed this activity on the behalf of all Category 1 & 2 systems that had complied with the Tasker 6 timeline. To perform the cost tagging exercise, DASA-CE followed the following process:

1. Utilizing the Tasker 5 Current Execution Identification output for each funding source (2020, 2035, 2040), identify the following:
   1. All WBSE’s for each Defense Business System
   2. The first 4 attribute fields to be tagged and their values: Weapon System, Weapon Subsystem, ACAT, Phase. Note, Phase was determined by looking at the funding source. See above in Purpose.
2. Utilizing a combination of a WBSE mass change program and manual entry, enter into CJ20N to update each WBSE.
3. Manually identify the unique WBSE IDs created in Tasker 4 to update the Receiver-side WBSE on each DBS Tasker 6 file submitted.
4. Utilizing the Tasker 6 Cost Mapping output for each funding source (2020, 2035, 2040), apply a custom developed VBA/Excel macro to read each output file to determine the following:
   1. WBSE’s that have a One-to-One cost relationships and the associated ACS attribute field code (i.e. 1-CONE - Communications/Network) that should be tagged on that WBSE.
   2. WBSE’s that have a One-to-Many or Pooled cost relationship and the associated ACS attribute code that should be tagged on that WBSE. For all one-to-many or pooled cost WBSE, the ACS code will always be 1-ALOC.
   3. For WBSE’s that had a One-to-Many or Pooled cost relationship, the VBS/Excel macro also identified the receiver-side WBSEs and their associated ACS code. This information will be used to build the Tasker 8 Cost Allocation for each DBS.

Defense Business System owners are required to report cost using a pre-defined set of cost reporting categories as outlined within the Investment and Sustainment cost reporting structures. To achieve this level of reporting fidelity, many system owners will have a requirement to perform cost allocations. Cost allocations are required when a current execution WBSE or Cost Center has execution for more than one purpose. We refer to these scenarios as one-to-many or pooled cost scenarios. For example, a DBS may have an existing contract with ABC company to acquire Labor. The contract has a single Labor CLIN and the DBS has set up a WBS Funded Program with funding to pay for the ABC company labor. The DBS owner knows that the labor they are acquiring is for 1 Program Management, 2 Tier II Help Desk, and 3 System Engineering. As we learned in Tasker 7, we can only tag a WBSE with one particular cost and we do that using the ACS attribute field. So in the scenario above, the ACS field would have the 1-ALOC code entered signaling that the WBSE for ABC company labor requires an allocation to see the labor reported under the 3 separate cost reporting categories indicated above. In Tasker 4, we mass created a unique WBSE for each cost reporting category. Those WBSE’s now become receiver-side WBSE’s for the cost allocation process and the WBSE that has been setup to fund the ABC company labor become the sender-side in the cost allocation scenario. Therefore, in order to see cost for each cost reporting category where we have a pooled cost scenario, DBS owners must setup and execute quarterly allocations.

1. Identify all DBS cost allocation scenarios. These scenarios are driven by WBSE’s (sender-side) that have the ACS attribute field populated with the 1-ALOC code.
2. Identify all the receiver-side WBSE’s for each cost allocation scenario. These are the cost reporting categories that you need to allocate the cost from the sender to.
3. Determine your method of allocation using either the Fixed Percentages or Variable Amounts approach.
   1. Fix Percentages use a predefined percentage allocation to each receiver-side WBSE.
   2. Variable Amounts use another data source to drive the allocation. An example would be an FTE count or Metrics Report provided by the Vendor. This approach will be less likely unless you have a current CDRL on your contract.
4. Using the KB15N Upload Mass Cost Allocation MS Excel template, setup one for each of the FY Quarters (1 – 4) and populate the File Level Information, Header Section, and Record Section. Note that the File Name in cell B2 MUST match the name of the MS Excel file when you save it in order to process correctly in GFEBS. Also, each Key that you enter in the Header Section will correspond to a unique cost allocation scenario (sender-side). There will always be one and only one Key for each sender-side WBSE or Cost Center. In the Record Section, you will use the same corresponding Key for each receiver-side WBSE you need to allocate to. So using the ABC company example above, you will have Key 1 on the Header Section and on the Record Section you will have Key 1 on the row you enter the sender-side WBSE, and you will have Key 1 on each of the rows representing Program Management, Tier II Help Desk, and System Engineering.
5. Run your preferred report in GFEBS at the end of each Quarter to obtain the Obligated amount for each scenario and apply your allocation method (fixed or variable) to determine the dollar amounts to be allocated to each receiver-side WBSE.
6. Update the amounts in the KB15N Upload Mass Cost Allocation template as well as the other required fields if you have not previously done so during setup and save the template in Excel.
7. Next, save the completed KB15N Upload Mass Cost Allocation in the Text (tab delimited) format.
8. Log into GFEBS and run T-Code: ZSCM_COST_ALLOC_LOAD and perform the upload process to generate your cost allocations for the quarter. Upon complete, you should have an unallocated balance for your DBS equaling $0.

The DBS Dashboards, developed and deployed through Business Objects, is a Web Intelligence (Webi) report that uses the traditional Status Of Funds (SoF) Detail Report as its data source, and leverages the web and dashboarding capabilities inherent in Business Objects to present Defense Business System reporting visuals for users.

EPS_BO_BI_BUDGT_REPORTER__0000 SR - Business Objects (BO) Budget Reporter

DBS and DBS Cloud service contracts will implement BMA-DBS and BMA-DBS Cloud Standard Minimum CLIN structure moving forward. The proposal would significantly reduce the burden on Resource Managers and Budget Analysts in maintaining and reporting DBS costs, performing plan vs actual analyses, and assessing cost and performance across portfolios and systems.

By having direct alignment of these DBS Standard Minimum CLINs with both the DBS ACES and DBS CRS a closed loop information framework is established, increasing the ability to perform comparative analysis across the entire portfolio. The proposal would include a standard CDRL for all BCAT 1 DBS’ (already required for OSD) to drive costs from the CLIN down to the lowest level of the required CRS using a clearly defined mapping, with a much higher level of accuracy, through standard cost allocation procedures, eliminating the management and guesswork that is prevalent today. For BCAT 2 – 4 DBS’ that are required to capture and report cost at a summary level, the BMA-DBS and BMA-DBS Cloud Minimum Standard CLIN structures would eliminate the need for cost allocations entirely, but would still allow for more detailed reporting if desired by leadership.

If you are currently preparing a new DBS or DBS Cloud services contract in the future, we highly recommend using this new BMA-DBS and/or BMA-DBS Cloud Standard Minimum CLIN structure.