Microsoft crisis management solutions for government
In a crisis, your people and preparation will decide whether a federal agency's response is effective or fragmented. Crisis Management tools from Microsoft can help agencies mitigate against, prepare for, work through, and recover from crises by helping people streamline actions and focus on outcomes.
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Challenges
There are many challenges to effective first response in a crisis. The best approach is to put resources in place before your people need them. Turn the tools and capabilities you regularly provide for agency operations into high-performance assets for emergency situations with crisis management solutions from Microsoft.
| • | Do more with less: Help your agency meet Department of Homeland Security and National Incident Management System (NIMS) requirements with the people, software, and technology you already know. By incorporating familiar desktop and remote technologies into an emergency management solution, you can deliver a new level of readiness that helps you minimize training, time, and cost. |
| • | Add capabilities, not complexity: Speed interoperation between unique agency environments with XML and Web services. Designed to address the legacy systems common to government agencies, Microsoft technologies can deliver emergency capabilities through familiar Microsoft Office system products—allowing you to add emergency capabilities without adding another layer of complexity for your IT staff or the people who rely on you. |
| • | Eliminate common system hurdles: Unique agencies and specialized, inconsistent systems frustrate compliance with NIMS requirements. Through the communications and collaboration technologies offered by Microsoft Office and Groove products, Microsoft can help people access critical information offline or online, then establish team communications from remote locations if necessary. The result: a clear, common operating picture that helps groups and individuals focus on the most effective actions during a crisis situation. |
Why choose Microsoft?
Microsoft can help you combine familiar technologies and tools with your agency's processes to create a crisis management solution that meets your requirements:
| • | Interoperation among systems is supported by the 2007 Microsoft Office system to help agencies with unique requirements to collaborate in a crisis. The tools are easy to deploy and use, and can save agencies money by extending the value of existing Microsoft products. |
| • | Virtual office tools and services support a virtual, secure meeting space for distributed people and agencies. First responders can share and update files, establish rapid connections even among very different IT environments, monitor permissions and rights to information, and have awareness of each individual's status. |
| • | Security-enhanced online portals provide more than an easy-to-use, central location for collaboration. They provide the means to create custom Web applications and tools that can apply to anticipated emergency scenarios and save precious time during actual crisis operations. |
| • | Virtual meeting capabilities help first responders establish real-time Web conferencing when face-to-face communications can make the difference. |
| • | Extensive potential from industry partners includes leading companies in emergency response and management technology who will continue to add their specialized expertise to the technology platform already used by people and agencies across the federal government. |
Microsoft products
These and more familiar Microsoft products can be part of a crisis management solution for a federal agency:
| • | Microsoft Groove Virtual Office, Groove Enterprise Data Bridge, and Groove Hosted Services |
| • | Microsoft SharePoint products and technologies |
| • | Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 |
Please see the related links for more details, or contact askfed@microsoft.com with any questions.
Overview
Technology
