1.4.61. Automated Collection System Guide for Managers and Systems Analysts

(1) Overview: This IRM provides guidance on process and procedures for managing systems related to answering taxpayer telephone calls in Compliance. It provides general operational objectives, various techniques, methods, and guidelines for managing the call center. The IRM should be used in conjunction with other guidelines provided by call center management and staff, the business operating division (BOD), and the Joint Operations Center (JOC) and is not intended to circumvent established lines of authority. Additionally, this IRM is not intended to supersede negotiated agreements. Some subsections are directed to a specific operation identified in the subsection title.

(2) Purpose: Management and the telephone system staff (TSS) works with the BOD and JOC to effectively manage the call center systems and staffing.

(3) Audience: The primary users of this IRM are Management and the telephone system administrators and analysts in the call sites and the BOD analysts.

(4) Policy Owner: Director, Collection Inventory Delivery and Selection (CIDS)

(5) Program Owner: Director, Collection Inventory Delivery and Selection (CIDS), Automated Collection System, Systems and Inventory (ACSSI).

(6) Primary Stakeholders: ACS.

(7) Program Goals: This IRM will provide guidance for managers, telephone system administrators and analysts to effectively manage the call center systems and staff to meet the business goals of the organization

(1) The work priority and selection process is designed to ensure that cases are selected with integrity and fairness.

(2) Work priority generally falls into two categories; immediate (customers calling in) and delayed (inventory processing) demand. Cases in the immediate demand category have the same priority for selection whereas inventory work selection uses a priority scheme.

(3) Work selection is based on a combination of factors such as case priority, current organizational program needs, and available staff. Case selection generally occurs as shown below.

(4) Systemic Processes:

1. FERDI and Non-FERDI /FPLP – no limits are placed on these systemic processes.

2. ACS systemic levies and letters – limited as part of the phone demand forecast prepared by the SB/SE HQ Collection Joint Operations Center (JOC) liaison staff.

(5) Calls from taxpayers requiring assistance to resolve their accounts.

(6) Use the table below to identify types of inventory work maintained by various work factors:.

(7) To ensure adequate case coverage, cases with the oldest expired follow-up date are selected first.

(1) ACS Call Site or Operations Managers: Provide general oversight to ensure approvals are done promptly.

(2) ACS Call Site Team Managers: should take the following actions on a daily basis:

• Address your own employee's cases requiring approval and ensure your employees are making case prints when approvals are required or a query/listing process is used.

• Address cases remaining in the zero functions by working through the managerial approval inventory assigned to your team using next case access. If the work is correct, approve the case or if it can be resolved with a simple input, that action should be taken without referring the account

• Address work done by another Call Site employee that is not correct and/or cannot be resolved by providing your Call Site's ACS managerial approval process contact person with the TIN, the employee ID, and the date moved to the managerial function (or Screen 1 print). The information will be forwarded daily to the Call Site of the employee taking the case action for appropriate follow-up. Please DO NOT forward cases that you can correct easily.

(1) The role and responsibilities of a system administrator (analyst) are as follows:

• Ensuring system is properly configured to meet organizational and operational objectives;

• Maintaining a trouble log to monitor response time problems, circuit problems, unusual staffing situations (snow days, building closures, etc.) or any other factor which could distort telephone data and affect circuitry or staffing plans;

• Ensuring circuitry meets standardization requirements;

• Adhering to schedule;

• Checking the Automated Collection System/Integrated Collection System (ACS/ICS) Parameter File for the correct date and cycle;

• Reviewing the reports that are generated from the system to determine if the operation is achieving its goal and identify system problems that may exist within the system;

• Distributing ACS/ICS and QMF Reports to appropriate managerial levels, providing assistance to managers and employees, and creating user profiles and assigning passwords;

• Checking voice disk space;

• Printing and reviewing Telephone Routing Interactive Systems Management Information Statistics (TRIS MIS);

• Monitoring agents for long wrap and idle times as needed;

• Analyzing systems impact resulting from Headquarter office maintenance, TRIS Project Office Master Customer Service Script changes, etc.;

• Advising Operation management and facilitate implementation with involved parties;

• Instructing site employees on new features and procedures and troubleshoot system and equipment problems resulting from changes;

• Creating QMF and Aceyus reports as requested by the Operation Manager.

(1) Each site should have Query Master File (QMF) extracts to allow for a complete picture of the status of inventories in the site. Those extracts should be requested as needed or on a regular basis and be reviewed by the appropriate level of management to look for possible inventory issues or problems.

(2) Systems Analysts have the ability to create, modify and run extracts

(3) Extracts should be reviewed for various reasons, including but not limited to:

• Age of the inventory related to past follow-up dates in each inventory,

• Inventory levels in conjunction with priority case definitions,

• Closures and new inventory receipts on a weekly basis.

(4) Operation management should identify inventories beyond the time-frames established in IRMIRM 5.19 ,Liability Collection, as well as from Headquarter Operations, and take immediate steps to resolve the situation(s). Some possible solutions include:

1. Reassignment of work among other operation employees,

2. Consideration for overtime,

3. Consideration of details from other functions.

(5) Next level management and Headquarter Operations should be notified when inventory is beyond the established guidelines.

(1) The ACS security system exists in the appropriate campus and is used to control access to the ACS host system. To add or remove users from the ACS system the following steps must take place:

1. The ACS employee must complete an online Form 5081 request. These are routed through the appropriate channels for management approval and then routed to the security office at the campus. The security office issues a RACF user number for all new employees.

2. Following issuance of the RACF user number, the ACS systems analyst will create a temporary RACF password.

3. The RACF user member is entered on the ACS Security Maintenance Screen (SMOO) with the appropriate team, function and unit.

(1) The ACS application is subject to Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and Cybersecurity guidelines which requires annual testing of the application to ensure security guidelines are maintained. In addition, annual disaster recovery testing is completed to ensure the system can be recovered should a disaster occur. ACS HQ participates in theses annual tests on behalf of the business to provide evidence of compliance to security requirements

(2) The ACS application is two tiered which requires user to have a valid RACF ID, ACS User ID and a password to access. The ACS application has a systemic process to inactive RACF IDs after 45 days of inactivity then delete them after 90 days. ACS HQ receives daily reports of users meeting the deleted criteria then inactivates the ACS ID on these accounts. ACS HQ notifies the site SA staffs weekly of the accounts that have been deleted. In addition, since ACS also provides access to external customers such as TAC offices and TAS, ACS HQ also deletes these accounts based on the daily reports and notifies the areas.

(3) The process of granting access to the ACS system uses a multi-step approval process. This ensures that only users who have a business need to obtain access to the ACS system are granted the correct permissions. To protect system integrity and taxpayer information the Online 5081 process has three levels of approval at the site. The first level is for the employee to request access, the second level is for manager approval, and the third level is for the system office SA approval. This process was setup to conform to FISMA and Cybersecurity procedures which operate under three primary principles

• Separation of duties – separate levels to ensure that the request for access are reviewed by more than one person.

• Least Privileged Access – employees should be granted the lowest level of permission necessary to perform their required duties.

• Accountability – audit trails that ensure that Agency has taken steps to protect taxpayer information from unauthorized access.

(1) Telephone Systems Analysts (TSA) can use the Query Management Facility (QMF for Windows) desktop application to query for information and create reports for ACS. QMF offers multiple interfaces, (build, prompted, or SQL) to help users build queries based on their skill level. TSAs can query most fields in the ACS database for open and closed cases. An ACS data dictionary provides the definitions of each field and can be used to assist with creating queries. The ACS Data Dictionary is stored on the ACSSI Systems Analyst (SA) SharePoint site.

(1) Follow IRM 1.4.20.29, ACS Telephone Program and System Reports.

(1) Other systems and applications are used by the ACS program as follows:

• Account Management Systems (AMS)

• Employee User Portal (EUP)

• eWorkforce Management (EWFM)

• E-Leave

• E-Gain (ACS Text Chat)

• Automated Time Tracking System (ATTS)

(1) The ACS work planning process begins with labor review resource funding estimates provided by the Finance Office. Finance builds their analysis on:

1. Current staff on-rolls counts as of certain pay-periods

2. Expected future hiring

3. Projected attrition and unpaid leave factors

(2) Once Finance provides these resource needs estimates in terms of Full-Time Equivalent funding (FTE), Collection Planning and Performance Analysis (PPA), works with ACS Headquarters, JOC and Campus Collection to establish assumptions and set ACS Enterprise level targets for the upcoming fiscal year.

(3) Assumptions and targets are established at the ACS Enterprise level based on history and known changes that will affect business results and include:

1. Direct time – expressed as a percentage of total time ACS expends on taxpayer service and supporting activities

2. Phone time – expressed as a percentage of total time ACS expends handling taxpayer phone calls

3. Telephone level-of-service (LOS) – the percent of total calls ACS expects to answer based on JOC projected call volumes for the upcoming year, total ACS FTE and projected phone hours

4. Balance Due (TDA) and Return Delinquency (TDI) case closures

5. Customer Accuracy – expectations are based on past National Quality Review Service (NQRS) results

(4) ACS work plan resources are allocated to three planning periods; October – December, January – June, and July – September.

(5) While work plan resources are allocated to the ACS sites based on each site’s staff levels, most work-plan targets remain at the Enterprise level.

(6) Campus Collection staff and Directors may choose to set Directorate level targets such as a direct time target based on the ACS Enterprise level target.

(7) ACS Headquarters monitors proper function and program usage as well as ACS performance against plan and periodically make recommendations to Campus Collection and the ACS sites based on their analysis.

(8) More information about the overall Campus Collection Work Plan Process is contained in IRM 1.4.20.5, Work Plans and Staffing.

(1) Follow IRM 1.4.20.25, Quality for guidelines on the Quality Measurement Process, Role of Centralized Quality Review (CQRS) and Program Analysis System Reviewer (PAS), EQRS/NQRS Standard Reports and Role of the Campus Analyst.

(1) Follow IRM 1.4.20.22, Training and Employee Development for guidance on Core Training, ACS Interactive Training, On the Job Training and Training for All Employees.

(1) To DISPLAY an employee on ACS to see if they are REVOKED take the following actions:

(2) AT YOUR IAP SCREEN

1. TypeLogon

2. HitSpace Bar

3. Type your RACF ID

4. HitControl

5. Type in yourPassword

6. HitControl

7. When you see *** hitControlagain

8. Type inTSO

9. Hit Space Bar

10. TypeALU

11. HitSpace Bar

12. Type inEmployees’ RACF ID

13. HitControl

(3) If your screen looks like this (see example below) before you hit your final Control you are correct.

• Example: TSO LU J955555

(1) To RESUME an employee on ACS that has been REVOKED take the following actions:

(2) AT YOUR IAP SCREEN

1. TypeLOGON

2. HitSpace Bar

3. Type yourRACF ID

4. Hit Control

5. Type in yourPassword

6. HitControl

7. Type inTSO

8. HitSpace Bar

9. TypeALU

10. Hit Space Bar

11. Type inEmployee’s RACF ID

12. HitSpace Bar

13. TypeRESUME

14. HitControl

(3) If your screen looks like this (see the example below) before you hit your final Control, you are correct

• Example: TSO ALU J955555 RESUME

(1) To Resume an employee on ACS that has been Revoked and issue a new password, take the following actions

(2) From your IAP Screen

1. TypeLogon

2. HitSpace Bar

3. Type yourRACF ID

4. Hit Control

5. When you see *** hitControlagain

6. Type inTSO

7. HitSpace Bar

8. TypeALU

9. TypeSpace Bar

10. Type inEmployees’ RACF ID

11. HitSpace Bar

12. Type the wordPassword

13. HitSpace Bar

14. Type(

15. Typethe temporary password you want to assign to the employee

16. Type)

17. HitControl

(3)

• Example: TSO ALU J955555 PASSWORD (NEW9$you)

  Note: Passwords should be a combination of 8 letters/numbers including capital and small and also special characters. This format works the best.

(1) ACS applications were created for each call site and/or support sites with separate applications for each RACF profiles. In addition, applications were created for TAC offices based on region, Lions World Service clients and HQ applications for Analysts and Quality. The RACF profiles are as follows:

• USER applications for the Customer Service Representatives (CSRS) with the RACF "USR" profile

• MGR applications for Supervisors with the RACF "MGR" profile

• SA (SRP) applications for Systems Analysts with the RACF "SRP" profile

Note: The XXX in the chart below represents the" USER", "MGR "or "SA (SRP)" application

(1)