I N T H I S I S S U E

ROSS will be turned off at 24:00 EasternStandard Time on Thursday, March 5th. Alldispatch and coordination centers will needto initiate their Continuity of Operations(COOP) plans at 00:01 Eastern StandardTime on Friday, March 6th. At that time,IROC developers will immediately startpulling data from ROSS and start preparinga data package to dump into IROC. On Tuesday, March 10th, IROC will start theGo Live process, utilizing a phasedapproach. All Geographic Areas will bebrought online by Friday, March 13th.Depending on fire activity, GeographicAreas will be brought on-line in thefollowing order:

IROC IS GOING LIVE! The Go Live Process:

IROC NEWSLETTER-SPECIAL EDITION-

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Go Live Time Table

Train the Trainer

IRWIN Integrations

DMT vs. Portal

IROC Authentication

User Accounts

GACC Liaisons

Web Status Tutorial

Post Go Live Features

NICC..........................................................3/10/20

Southern Area........................................3/10/20

Eastern Area...........................................3/10/20

Southwest Area ....................................3/10/20

Southern California Area.....................3/11/20

Northern California Area.....................3/11/20

Rocky Mountain Area...........................3/11/20

Great Basin Area...................................3/11/20

Northern Rockies Area........................3/12/20

Northwest Area.. ..................................3/12/20

Alaska Area.............................................3/12/20

As Geographic Areas come online, it isanticipated that COOP plans will be phasedout organically. Dispatch centers will thenbe responsible for “playing catch up” andentering any data into IROC that occurredwhile centers were utilizing theirCOOP plans. Please note these dates are not set in stone.Geographic areas will need to remainflexible, dates may change and delayscould occur.

Pre Go Live Readiness: A smooth transition from ROSS to IROCrelies heavily on data integrity. It is highlyrecommended that dispatch centers have alltheir transactional data “buttoned up” inROSS before the program is shut off onMarch 5th. Transactional data refers toROSS data that is constantly in flux, such asincidents, requests, and travel. A fewexamples of “buttoning up data” include:

Go Live Timetable Closing all incidents that do not haveany open requests. Filling all open requests. Setting travel for all resources goingon assignment. Ensuring that all travel is complete.

The less transactional data "hanging out"there when ROSS is turned off, the better.In theory, when dispatch centers log in toIROC for the first time, the ROSS datapulled on March 5th will be there, exactly asit was when ROSS was turned off.

Post Go Live Support: The Integrated Project Team anticipates theusual bumps and hiccups that occur whenany new program rolls out. The InteragencyIncident Application (IIA) Helpdesk willcontinue to be the first line of support forusers. The IIA Helpdesk will also have theirlead helpdesk agents on site during Go Live.Tier 2 level Subject Matter Expert (SME)support will also be available. Users can alsoreach out to their Geographic Area IROCLiaison SME.

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" C H A N G E I S H A R D

A T F I R S T , B U T

A M A Z I N G O N C E

Y O U R E A C H T H E

E N D . "- U N K N O W N

GACC Liaisons:  Alaska Area and NICC:

Nancy Moore nancy.moore@usda.gov

Northern California Area:Laurie Fornilaurie.forni@usda.gov

Southern California Area: Shayne CanadyShayne.canady@fire.ca.gov

Eastern and Southern Area:Melinda Brogdenmelinda.brogden@usda.gov

Great Basin Area: Shep Crimshepard.crim@usda.gov

Northern Rockies Area:Jerry Clementsjerry.clements@usda.gov

Northwest Area:Megan Kephartmegan.kephart@usda.gov

Rocky Mountain Area:Angie Hinkerangie.hinker@usda.gov

Southwest Area: Nicole Finch nicole.finch@usda.gov  

Training Package 1: Navigating the DMT. Training Package 2: Create and MaintainIncidents, Create and Maintain Resources, andRosters. Training Package 3: Advanced DMT andincident/resource conflict resolution. Training Package 4: The request life cycle.

Train the Trainer IROC is an Agile Project, which means developerswork on sections of the IROC program, and if anychanges need to be made, they makes those changesbefore moving onto the next section. This methodworks great for development purposes, but becomesa challenge when trying to create an end-to-endtraining curriculum. Therefore, the current focus is finalizing four virtualtraining packages that will be delivered to the "Trainthe Trainer" group over the next few weeks. The goalis for this group to take what they learned during the"Train the Trainer" courses, and present the materialto users in their respective Geographic Areas as theysee fit. The training packages involve:

An IROC training database, similar to the ROSSTraining Database, will be available for users toschedule. Course Coordinators and Lead Instructorswill need to contact Nancy Moore atnancy.moore@usda.gov to reserve the IROC trainingdatabase. All virtual training provided by the Integrated ProjectTeam will utilize the Wildland Fire Learning Portal.For more information on the Wildland Fire LearningPortal, and distance learning, please go to: https://wildlandfirelearningportal.net

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IRWIN Integrations On Monday, March 9th, IRWIN 6.0 will rollout, followed by IROC 1.0 on March 10th.What does this mean for the user community?Full blown IRWIN integrations! ROSS iscurrently a read only program with IRWIN,while IROC is a read/write program. ROSScan only ingest data from IRWIN, such asincident header information for example,whereas IROC will be able to ingest data andsend data back to IRWIN. Full integrations willbenefit the user community in the followingways: Initial Attack Incidents and CAD Systems:When a resource is assigned to an incident viaa CAD system, that resource willautomatically be assigned in IROC. When thatresource is released by CAD, that resourcewill be released in IROC. IROC Assignment History and theQualification Systems: As overhead resources complete assignments,their assignment histories will automaticallyfeed into IQS and IQCS, generatingexperience records. Committed Resources in IROC and SIT/209:For incidents that require an ICS-209, allresources committed to that incident, with aa valid IRWIN Resource ID, will automaticallypopulate into the 209 resources table.

This new functionality will greatly benefitthe user community and alleviate theworkload of entering the same data intomultiple programs.

Finally, the biggest change the usercommunity needs to be aware of is thatafter IROC is implemented, the ResourceClearinghouse will no longer exist. IRWINwill now function as the system thatidentifies potential duplicate overheadresources. In the past, Integrated ProjectTeam members managed the ResourceClearinghouse and resolved duplicationissues. This responsibility now lies withthe individual entering overhead resourcesinto IROC, IQS, or IQCS. IRWIN will sendpotential duplicate error messages back toeach program, and program specificresource conflict procedures will need tobe followed. It is highly anticipated thatduplicates will make their way intoIROC. With that in mind, the IntegratedProject Team asks that individuals pleasedo their due diligence and ensure that datais correct when entering resources intoIROC, IQS, and IQCS.

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Question and Answer Session: The Data Management Tool (DMT)and Portal

What is the Difference?

Maintain user accounts and grant user roles. Maintain frequencies, locations, financial codes, etc.Transfer resources. Create and edit selection areas. Resolve incident and resource conflicts with IRWIN.

Question: What is the Data Management Tool (DMT) and who has access? Answer: The DMT is basically IROC’s brain. It is a database that houses all the foundationaldata and business logic that drives IROC. Users with Dispatch Manager, Selection AreaManager, and IROC Administrator roles will be able to access the DMT. Question: What can users do in the DMT? Answer: Users can perform any number of functions in the DMT, however, a majority ofusers will utilize the DMT to:

Question: What is portal and who has access? Answer: Portal is the actual IROC user interface where users will spend most of their time.All users with the dispatcher role will have access to the IROC Portal. Question: What can users do in portal? Answer: All dispatching functions take place in portal. Creating incidents, creating requests,filling requests, setting travel, etc. Question: How can I tell if I am logged into DMT or Portal? Answer: The DMT interface is pretty distinctive and has a black and orange background.Portal can be identified by the wood banner at the top of the screen, and the fourlanding tiles located in the middle of the screen.

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DMT Portal

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IROC Authentication and AuthorizationThe USDA has been mandated to implementSingle Sign on and PIV Card Enablement foruser authentication to IT Applications. ForestService, Fire and Aviation Management will bemoving to FAMAuth to meet thoserequirements. What is FamAuth? FAMAuth is an authentication portal for Fireand Aviation Applications. IROC will be usingFAMAuth to authenticate users when loggingin. There are two paths of authentication; e-Authentication (eAuth) and Login.gov. Usersthat have a federated PIV card (Lincpass) willuse the eAuth method and users that do nothave a PIV card will use Login.gov. After loginthe user will be presented with a tile page ofavailable applications. Click on the tile of yourchoice and the application will launch.

NAP Linking The first time a user clicks on the IROCtile, they will be asked to enter theirStandard NAP Account credentials. Thiswill link the FAMAuth account to the NAPaccount. If a user does not haveauthorization to an application, they willbe able to request access after clicking ona tile. IROC is the first application toimplement FAMAuth. Users will need tomaintain their NAP credentials to accessother applications, like WIMS, forexample. If a user has both an eAuthaccount and a Login.gov account, the usershould use eAuth and their PIV card toauthenticate. Even if a PIV card readerdoesn’t exist, users will have the ability touse their eAuth username and passwordto access applications. What's Next? After IROC Go Live, FAMAuth willcontinue to onboard other Fire andAviation Applications. Each applicationwill make notifications as to when theswitch to FAMAuth will occur.

Web Status Tutorial Video

The IROC Integrated Project Team is currentlydeveloping a "Web Status How To" video for the usercommunity. It will focus on how users and vendors canaccess and utilize IROC Web Status. The video will behoused on the NIFC You Tube Channel. A user noticewill be sent out when it becomes available.

Incident MergePre-orders Tactical Aviation ScreenTravel Itineraries

Post Go Live IROC Features

The following features will not be available upon the initialIROC rollout. These feature will be available in subsequentreleases of IROC.

User Accounts

Privileged accounts will no longer exist after IROC isimplemented. All accounts will be standard accounts.Users will have access to different parts of theprogram based on the roles they are assigned. TheIntegrated Project Team is currently establishinguser accounts with the Dispatch Manager role ateach center. Dispatch Managers will be responsiblefor adding their users and granting roles after GoLive. Step by step directions on this process will bedistributed during the next couple of weeks.

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