USDA Case Study - SharePoint Server 2010 - ECM and ROI EPC Group, SharePoint Consulting Services, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Consulting, EPC Group.net EPCGROUP

1. Customer Solution Case Study
Federal Agency Ensures Compliance, Saves
Costs with Records Management Solution
Overview “We created the Records Center using our existing
Country or Region: United States
Industry: National government investments … and minimal programming resources.
agencies SharePoint Server 2010 helps us manage our costs
Customer Profile wisely and keep our fees as low as possible.”
The Agricultural Marketing Service
Doug Bailey, Chief Information Officer, Agricultural Marketing Service, United States
(AMS) of the United States Department Department of Agriculture
of Agriculture (USDA) administers
commodity programs to facilitate the The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of the United States
efficient, fair marketing of America’s
Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides grading services,
agricultural products.
market news reporting, school lunch purchase programs, and a
Business Situation
national organic program to support U.S. producers, processors,
AMS needed to implement reliable
records management to ensure and consumers. As a government agency, AMS needs to satisfy
regulatory compliance. It also needed
legal obligations concerning storage and discovery of its
to minimize IT expenditures to keep
costs low for agricultural producers. electronic business documents. AMS selected Microsoft
SharePoint Server 2010 as the foundation for an AMS enterprise
Solution
AMS used Microsoft SharePoint Server records management system. With the solution, AMS employees
2010 as the basis for an enterprise
file business documents as official records using familiar
records management system.
Employees create and file records Microsoft Office programs. Records cannot be altered or
using Microsoft Office programs.
deleted, and AMS records managers manage retention policies.
Benefits The solution takes advantage of the existing infrastructure,
 Familiar, easy-to-use system
which helps AMS minimize IT expenses and keep its service fees
encourages adoption
 Ensures regulatory compliance as low as possible for America’s agricultural producers.
 Reduces costs for USDA, helps keep
services affordable for producers

2. “Simply having a file out Situation week. These files include Microsoft Word
A primary objective of the United States documents, Microsoft Excel
on a shared file server Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to spreadsheets, and Microsoft PowerPoint
doesn't meet the facilitate domestic and international presentations. The files contain key
marketing of U.S. agricultural products. information and document how the
requirements of To this end, the USDA Agricultural organization arrives at its many critical
Marketing Service (AMS) administers business decisions. AMS did not have the
organized electronic programs that focus on the orderly capability to designate electronic
discovery.” marketing of agricultural commodities to documents as official records, locate
help ensure high-quality food, promote them easily, apply retention schedules, or
Doug Bailey, Chief Information Officer, agricultural trade and production, and place legal holds on them.
Agricultural Marketing Service, United
States Department of Agriculture achieve the best possible returns for U.S.
farmers and ranchers. AMS is responsible Employees could create a paper copy of
for familiar programs such as beef a document and file it as an official
grading, USDA organic product record, but, adds Doug Bailey, Chief
certification, and the well-known “Milk Information Offer of the Agricultural
Mustache” promotion. The organization Marketing Service at the USDA, “The
also administers programs such as the hard copy could not be readily accessed
AMS Market News service, which or used by others. And, it’s difficult to
provides up-to-date and unbiased price keep track of hard copies and ensure
and product volume information to help that they are maintained or purged as
farmers and ranchers determine when to required.” Further, the organization did
move their products into the nation’s not have thorough management of the
supply chain. AMS is based in electronic files that were stored on the
Washington, D.C., and has approximately hard drives of employees’ PCs. “The
2,000 full-time employees. agency has a responsibility to preserve
any document that could be pertinent to
AMS is a federal government agency, a legal proceeding, and, therefore, we
and, as such, it is subject to a high must provide a level of security and
degree of regulatory oversight forensic integrity over our business
concerning the way it stores and documents. This requires a sophisticated
manages its official email messages and document management system. Simply
business documents. AMS uses an email having a file out on a shared file server
archive system that provides electronic doesn't meet the requirements of
discovery (e-discovery) and other organized electronic discovery,” explains
regulatory compliance capabilities in the Bailey.
event that it must furnish email-based
information for civil litigation cases. AMS wanted to implement such a
However, the organization did not have system, but it was challenged by financial
the same capabilities for managing its constraints. More than 60 percent of the
business documents. work that the organization does is with
producers, processors, and exporters
AMS employees, who work with who voluntarily engage in AMS
agricultural producers, industry trade programs and pay for the services they
groups, and consumers to develop and receive. To keep its fees as low as
implement USDA programs and policies, possible, the organization strives to
create hundreds of electronic files each minimize its operating expenses. Says

3. “We have to control our Bailey, “Most agricultural producers Further, AMS could capitalize on its
operate on narrow margins. Any cost developers’ existing expertise in
expenses very carefully they incur as they certify their products Microsoft technologies, including the
to provide high-value into the supply chain erodes these Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft
margins. We can’t just go out and buy an ASP.NET. The solution also offered
services for the expensive document management excellent integration with the Microsoft
system. We have to control our expenses Office desktop productivity applications
agricultural community.” very carefully to provide high-value that AMS employees use every day.
Doug Bailey, Chief Information Officer, services for the agricultural community.” “SharePoint Server 2010 was a natural fit.
Agricultural Marketing Service, United It was the easy-to-use, low-cost solution
States Department of Agriculture AMS sought a cost-efficient, easy-to-use we were looking for,” says Bailey. AMS
solution for enterprisewide electronic also liked the fact that SharePoint Server
records management. It believed that 2010 provides records management
rather than invest in a costly, stand-alone capabilities in a context of collaboration.
records management system, which “The system would allow us to not only
would require extensive training and preserve content electronically, but also
users to switch to a different program to make the content easily discoverable and
manage records, the better approach readily available across the community to
would be to build records management inform our business decisions,” Bailey
capabilities into its existing environment. adds.
“We were looking for a toolset we could
add to what we had, rather than invest in AMS Electronic Records Center
an entirely new environment,” explains In late 2009, with help from Microsoft,
Bailey. AMS began to develop an enterprise
records management solution on a
Solution prerelease version of SharePoint Server
AMS relied on Microsoft Office 2010. “Microsoft was extremely helpful,”
SharePoint Server 2007 for its corporate says Bailey. “We saw right away that we
intranet and its business-partner could build a highly reliable, sound
extranet, and it considered adding technical solution on the SharePoint
custom capabilities to its Office Server platform.”
SharePoint Server 2007 environment to
enable records management. Then, in Using the solution, employees submit
late 2009, AMS evaluated Microsoft Microsoft Word documents, Microsoft
SharePoint Server 2010 and found that it Excel spreadsheets, and Microsoft
offered, out-of-the-box, many of the PowerPoint presentations directly from
records management capabilities AMS the program they are working in to a
needed, including retention policies, repository within SharePoint Server 2010
legal holds, and managed metadata for called the AMS Electronic Records
tagging records. “Upgrading to the Center. While the solution is compatible
newer version made sense because with the Microsoft Office Professional
SharePoint Server is already very popular Plus 2007 programs AMS was using, the
with our business users. We wanted to organization also decided to upgrade to
take advantage of this,” says Robert Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010
Fiduk, Division Director of the Enterprise as part of the project. Employees can
Application Services and Chief Technical also submit PDF files as records. Records
Officer at USDA AMS. are managed in accordance with key

4. drop-down menus and text-entry boxes
to provide descriptive information for the
record (which is applied as metadata
tags) to indicate categorization details,
audience, keywords for search, author,
and title. Then, the user clicks a File as
Record button, and the record is then
Figure 1. Customized Ribbon for transmitted to the Electronic Records
Center.
submitting files as records.
The Ribbon invokes a web service, which
requirements established by the National AMS also customized, “to send and
Archives and Records Administration receive information between SharePoint
(NARA) and are safeguarded from Server 2010 and Microsoft Office,”
alteration or premature deletion. explains Tacoukjou. “This communication
enables us to keep a list of appropriate
Customized Ribbon for Submitting records categories in the Electronic
Records Records Center, and automatically
AMS used out-of-the-box SharePoint provide these options to the users,
Server 2010 records management through the Records Management tab.”
capabilities, and also customized several
key components, to create the AMS To maintain a continuous look and feel,
Electronic Records Center. “The AMS used configurable Web Parts in
introduction of the service application SharePoint Server 2010 to create a
architecture and the ability to interact similarly styled, web-based interface that
with SharePoint sites using scripts really offers the Records Management tab
improves the scalability and ease of functionality, and from which users can
development in SharePoint Server 2010,” submit PDF files to the Electronic
says Fariba Tacoukjou, Senior Developer, Records Center.
Enterprise Applications and Databases at
USDA AMS. Record Categorization, Retention,
Permissions
An AMS developer used the Microsoft AMS includes nine program areas (such
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate as Dairy, Cotton and Tobacco, and Fruits
development system and Microsoft and Vegetables) and additional support
SharePoint Designer 2010 to create a units (such as IT Services). Typically,
Records Management tab in the Ribbon, records created within a program area
which is part of the Microsoft Office are used the most by other employees
Fluent user interface (see Figure 1). Using within that program. In the AMS
this tab, employees can easily designate Electronic Records Center, there is a
files as records and submit them to the SharePoint site for each program, and
Electronic Records Center directly from each site (and the records it contains) is
Microsoft Office programs. managed by a designated records
administrator within the program. The
To create a record, the user clicks on the metadata information that an employee
Records Management tab, and uses enters is used to automatically route the
record to the appropriate site, and then

5. particular branch within an AMS program
area (for instance, Enterprise Application
Service is a branch of the ITS unit), the
entire program area, or the entire AMS
organization.
When a record is created, retention
policies are applied to the record. Non-
permanent records are automatically
tagged for expiration according to these
policies—for instance, upon the close of
a court case, or after a specified amount
of time has passed after the end of a
fiscal year. Legal holds can be placed on
any record, which supersedes the
retention policy so that the record
Figure 2. AMS Electronic Records
cannot be purged until the legal hold is
Center for the IT Services released. AMS also customized a records
(ITS) unit. reporting system so that administrators
can easily see all records under their
purview and determine if any
to more detailed category folders for the information is missing. For example,
type of document within the site, such as periodically, each record administrator
general correspondence, activity reports, receives an automated email message
or presentations. The authority for these that contains a list of records that have
category folders corresponds to record been filed without sufficient information
schedule categories established by regarding the retention period. The
NARA. administrator can then enter the
required information into the system.
AMS created a security feature to
validate each user’s credentials, through AMS uses enterprise search in SharePoint
the Records Management tab, against Server 2010 to allow users to search for
credentials stored in Active Directory records across AMS sites. However, the
Domain Services. Once validated, the tab search results that are returned only
is prepopulated with information about display records that the user has
the user. “Microsoft Office pulls data permission to access. Users can search by
about the user, including which program subject, title, record category, or
area or unit they are from and what level audience (such as branch, program area,
of access they have,” explains Tacoukjou. or agency). SharePoint Server 2010 also
“It allows the user to file records in the allows AMS to assign each record a
appropriate site and category.” This unique identifier, an ID number that
security feature is also invoked when a always stays attached to the document,
user accesses records through the web- and can be used to locate the document
based Electronic Records Center through search no matter where the
interface in SharePoint Server 2010 (see document is located. When an employee
Figure 2). For instance, a record can be accesses a record from the Electronic
set to be seen only by members of a Records Center, it opens as a read-only

6. “With SharePoint Server file and can be printed or saved as a regulatory compliance requirements. To
copy to the employee’s local hard drive. create the solution, AMS took advantage
2010, our employees of existing infrastructure and in-house
Enterprise Solution expertise, which resulted in significant
have a convenient tool The AMS Electronic Records Center cost avoidance, helping the organization
that lets them do their operates in a virtualized environment, on keep its fees to its constituents as low as
three physical servers running the possible.
jobs as custodians of Windows Server 2008 R2 operating
system. SharePoint Server 2010 runs on Familiar, Easy-to-Use System
information for the these servers. Two are dedicated front- Encourages Adoption
government.” end web servers, and the third functions AMS extended its SharePoint Server
as the search and indexing server. A environment, and connected it to
Doug Bailey, Chief Information Officer, fourth server, which runs the Microsoft Microsoft Office programs, to enable
Agricultural Marketing Service, United SQL Server 2008 Enterprise data enterprisewide records management.
States Department of Agriculture
management software, functions as the The result is a familiar, easy-to-use
database for the Electronic Records system that allows employees to create
Center. AMS is implementing disaster records and submit them to the
recovery capabilities between its Electronic Records Center without
Washington, D.C., data center and its leaving the program in which they are
Denver, Colorado, data center. AMS also working. “One of the biggest obstacles
relies on Microsoft System Center to implementing records management is
Operations Manager 2007 R2 to manage that you often have to ask users to get
and monitor the health of its SharePoint accustomed to a different interface, with
Server environment to ensure top unfamiliar icons and commands, and to
performance and availability. leave the environment in which they are
authoring a document, or working on a
Currently, the solution is in a pilot phase spreadsheet or presentation. SharePoint
with employees in AMS IT Services and Server 2010 removes this obstacle,” says
the Dairy program. “We are working on Bailey. “No matter which Microsoft Office
final refinements to the folder taxonomy program they are in, the Electronic
before rolling out to a broader Records Center is just a click away.”
audience,” says Bailey. AMS plans to
deploy the solution to all employees by AMS expects a rapid uptake among
late 2011. “Soon, the Electronic Records employees, due to the system’s ease-of-
Center will be available across all of use. “An employee just has to click on
AMS,” says Bailey. “We’ve also seen high the Records Management tab, enter the
interest among other USDA agencies. As appropriate metadata, and submit the
soon as we complete the deployment record. With SharePoint Server 2010, our
here, we will make the solution freely employees have a convenient tool that
available to all agencies in USDA.” lets them do their jobs as custodians of
information for the government,” says
Bailey.
Benefits Ensures Regulatory Compliance
Using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Previously, AMS ensured that it met
AMS created an enterprise records regulatory compliance requirements for
management system that is easy-to-use email retention and e-discovery, but it
and ensures that the organization meets did not have a system in place by which

7. “With SharePoint Server it could help ensure the same to use in-house development expertise
management of its business documents. rather than to retrain or hire new
2010, we can ensure that “We were relying on employees to developers. Because of this, it only took
preserve content on their hard drives, the agency four months to develop and
AMS meets regulatory and that resulted in too many deploy the solution. “We created the
compliance vulnerabilities,” says Bailey. “We needed Records Center using our existing
to have the same control over our investments in Microsoft infrastructure
requirements for e- electronic documents that we had over and minimal programming resources,”
our email messages.” says Bailey. “SharePoint Server 2010
discovery.” helps us manage our costs wisely and
Doug Bailey, Chief Information Officer, The AMS Electronic Records Center keep our fees as low as possible.”
Agricultural Marketing Service, United provides sophisticated but easy-to-use
States Department of Agriculture methods with which to tag, file, store,
retain, purge, and search official business
records. “With SharePoint Server 2010,
we can ensure that AMS meets
regulatory compliance requirements for
e-discovery. We can control how
business documents that may be
relevant to legal proceedings are
managed and retained. And we have
great insight into the history of each
document,” says Bailey.
Reduces Costs for USDA, Helps Keep
Services Affordable for Producers
As a federal government agency, USDA is
accountable to its constituents—
including, importantly, the producers and
suppliers who pay AMS for marketing
services that enable them to certify and
trade their products across the domestic
and international food supply chain. “The
pressure is on us, as a government
agency, to make services affordable for
our clients,” says Bailey. “When we
purchase and implement new systems,
our costs increase, and we have to
recoup these costs by charging higher
fees for our services.”
To forestall fee increases for agency
customers, AMS took a cost-efficient
approach to records management by
upgrading a technology that already
existed in its environment. In addition to
lower implementation costs, it was able

8. For More Information Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
For more information about Microsoft Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is the
products and services, call the business collaboration platform for the
Microsoft Sales Information Center at enterprise and the Web.
(800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the
Microsoft Canada Information Centre For more information about Microsoft
at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the SharePoint Server 2010, go to:
United States and Canada who are www.microsoft.com/sharepoint
deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach
Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD)
services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the
50 United States and Canada, please
contact your local Microsoft subsidiary.
To access information using the World
Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about the United
States Department of Agriculture and
the Agricultural Marketing Service, call
(202) 720-1234 or visit the website at:
www.ams.usda.gov
Software and Services  Microsoft Office
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio − Microsoft Office Professional Plus
− Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 2010
− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 − Microsoft Office Professional Plus
− Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007
2010  Microsoft Visual Studio
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 − Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
− Microsoft System Center Ultimate
Configuration Manager 2007 R2  Technologies
− Active Directory Domain Services
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published May 2011