For release: 10-27-04
Release #: H04-358  

NASA named agency of the year by federal financial group

NASA has been named the 2004 Agency of the Year by the Federal Financial Managers Council, Western Region — a federal organization honoring excellence in financial management. It was cited for its implementation of the Web Time and Attendance Distribution System, or WebTADS — a Web-based system that helps more than 19,000 NASA employees record hours worked, manage overtime and process leave requests. Software developers at the Marshall Center created the application.

NASA has been named the 2004 Agency of the Year by a federal organization honoring excellence in financial management. NASA was honored for its implementation of the Web Time and Attendance Distribution System (WebTADS), a Web-based system that collects employee time and attendance information.

The Federal Financial Managers Council, Western Region award recognizes federal organizations that show skilled economic administration and cost-saving practices. The council is an independent committee of the San Francisco Bay Area Federal Executive Board.

WebTADS helps more than 19,000 NASA civil service employees at agency installations record hours worked; manage overtime hours and process leave requests. Software developers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., created the application.

The developers implemented the system in 2001 to replace Marshall's aging computer mainframe-based time and attendance system. Recognizing the advantages of the system, NASA established agency-wide standards for time and attendance, and began introducing WebTADS at agency field centers in 2002.

"WebTADS has become a tremendous asset throughout NASA, and this recognition speaks very highly of the team that developed it," said Susan Foster, chief financial officer at Marshall. "It's an honor to be recognized for a job well done, and even more gratifying to know that work done here has benefited all of NASA," she added.

"Our goal was to create a standardized system the entire NASA workforce could use to manage time and labor data," said Bill Vaughn, project manager for development of the WebTADS system at Marshall. "We created a program that's user-friendly and makes the collection of the data as simple as possible," Vaughn said.

The 28 Federal Executive Boards across the country provide closer coordination among U.S. federal agencies outside Washington. Council members are federal employees with interests in financial management, accounting and budgeting.

For more information about NASA, visit on the Internet:

http://www.nasa.gov

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