The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council has released guide for federal agencies that want to implement robotic process automation initiatives and understand the potential advantages of utilizing the emerging technology.

ACT-IAC said Tuesday the Intelligent Automation Playbook, Volume 1: Robotic Process Automation covers topics such as software evaluation, management of workforce impacts, governance and implementation of information technology platforms.

“The playbook is intended as timely assistance for the many agencies who are considering RPA, running pilots or seeking to accelerate deployment,” said Edward Burrows, vice president of intelligent solutions at Virginia-based technology company Brillient and former RPA manager at the General Services Administration.

The council presented examples of bot applications that were adopted in the public and private sectors during a forum that took place Oct. 31.

ACTI-IAC noted it plans to host another forum in January to discuss the government’s efforts to adopt intelligent automation and artificial intelligence approaches to manage operations, simplify processes and secure systems.

The Department of Commerce has announced the establishment of an advisory committee to review and offer recommendations on how to advance the use of government data for evidence building.

A notice says the committee will evaluate and provide recommendations to the director of the Office of Management and Budget on how to facilitate data linkage and data sharing and submit an annual report to the OMB chief on its findings and operations.

The department’s office of the undersecretary for economic affairs will oversee the advisory panel, which was created in accordance with the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 and in support of the Federal Data Strategy.

The notice also seeks nominations for the committee’s non-federal members. Nominations are due Dec. 4

The Information Technology-Information Sharing and Analysis Center is reviewing industry feedback on plans to establish a coordinated vulnerability disclosure program ahead of the 2020 presidential elections, Nextgov reported Monday. Previously, IT-ISAC released a request for information on the effort aimed at ensuring that vendors implement a system that would report and act on identified vulnerabilities in their products.

The nonprofit organization also plans to crowdsource the detection of system vulnerabilities on voting platforms.

“You want to make sure the people you are giving access to the voting machines aren’t agents of a foreign power, aren’t people with malicious intent,” noted Scott Algeier, executive director of IT-ISAC.

Responses to the RFI include recommendations on implementing the program to other election infrastructure as well as potential updates to the Election Assistance Commission’s certification procedures, Algeier said.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is working on migrating its information technology services to the consolidated Department of Defense Network aimed at providing a hub for tech support across defense agencies, FCW reported Monday.

The migration comes as part of the  Fourth Estate Network Optimization program, which seeks to transition the first five defense agencies to DoDNET and Defense Enclave Services by the end of fiscal 2021.

Col. Chris Autrey, military deputy for desktop services at DISA, said at an industry event hosted by the agency that it is in the process of selecting sources for the migration effort.Â

“By bringing the agency into a pre-competed set of equipment that’s approved, meets all the cybersecurity requirements, we have a known good baseline to work with and if you’re buying off that list we know we can support it,” he noted.

The General Services Administration’s inspector general released a report stating that the agency has complied with the 2014 Digital Accountability and Transparency Act but should make improvements to financial data reporting. The DATA Act mandates IGs to assess the completeness, accuracy, timeliness and quality of agency’s spending data. 

According to the report, GSA had a “higher quality” or less than 20 percent error rate for completeness, accuracy, and timeliness for fiscal year 2019. The GSA IG also found that the agency implemented government-wide financial data standards established by the Office of Management and Budget.

However, the IG noted that GSA overstated its FY19 obligations to USASpending.gov by 5 percent or $131M. The IG recommended that GSA “strengthen controls for accurately reporting obligation and de-obligation amounts” to the website.