LOGIN TO LEARNING: Soldiers view milSuite login page on a tablet device. (Photo courtesy of milTech)
How milSuite is helping shape the future of the Army and DOD.
by Dan Lawton
As the U.S. Army moves toward achieving a unified network—an integration and convergence of enterprise and tactical networks—milSuite’s steady presence has helped to bridge the gap. In an environment where innovative technologies constantly materialize, providing modern solutions to today’s problems, many legacy systems are being replaced. That shift often leads to unforeseen challenges and speed bumps that can have dramatic effects on network stability and functionality as new, untested technologies are adopted. In the defense environment especially, those challenges can be catastrophic—which is why the U.S. Army and the DOD have repeatedly turned to milSuite, a continually evolving portfolio of information technology (IT) capabilities from military technical solutions (milTech) that has provided responsive and innovative information-sharing capabilities across the DOD for nearly 15 years.
THE MILSUITE DIFFERENCE
First launched in 2009, milSuite has supported over 2.25 million registered users since its inception and is one of the largest networks of personnel information-sharing across the joint domain. While most information systems within DOD are chain of command-centric—built from the top down with traditional organizational hierarchies in mind and limited in terms of who can access and acquire knowledge—milSuite offers a different solution. MilSuite was built for users. That means every individual who uses milSuite has a unique experience based on their distinct needs. Users can acquire information they may not have otherwise been able to with other systems and connect and collaborate with other members of the Army and DOD workforce.
“MilSuite provides the ability for users to discover information they never knew existed and connect with peers in their areas of interest,” said Tom Curran, milSuite product lead.
This information-sharing capability uniquely connects agencies in a way other chain of command-style systems do not. With information sharing comes knowledge, and with knowledge comes power—and for the U.S. military, that leads to better connectivity and readiness across the DOD.
MILSUITE’S CAPABILITIES
What began as a wiki and blog where Army personnel could share knowledge during the DOD’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) has evolved into a DOD-wide platform that allows those personnel to create solutions to meet mission requirements.
“MilSuite played a critical role in helping us communicate with our more than 32,000 Army Acquisition Workforce professionals last year as we streamlined 13 career fields into six functional areas,” said another milSuite user—Stefanie Pidgeon, chief, Communications Branch, Army Director for Acquisition Career Management (DACM) Office, U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center. “The Army Acquisition Workforce is geographically dispersed and, as every single workforce member was impacted by this transition, we needed a direct way to communicate important and timely information with them. MilSuite was the platform that helped us do that.”
Over the years, milSuite has grown into a suite of five programs used across the DOD: milWiki, milBook, milSurvey, milTube and milUniversity. Each offers a unique set of information-sharing tools that are significant communication vehicles across the joint domain.
POINT OF VIEW: Soldier viewing milSuite’s suite of program options. (Photo courtesy of milTech)
milWiki
milSuite’s initial product, milWiki, is a knowledge management system that is essentially Wikipedia for the military. Unlike Wikipedia, however, the information stored within it is secured behind a firewall and is not accessible by the public; only those with a DOD Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificate can access milSuite and contribute to milWiki articles. Subject matter experts are encouraged to share their knowledge about certain topics on an ongoing basis, and topics vary from leadership biographies to glossaries to organizational profiles. MilWiki is a powerful tool that provides organizations like the Army Corps of Engineers, Army Medical Command and Enterprise Cloud Management Agency with the ability to create living collections of articles to help build readiness for organizations in one cohesive location.
milBook
MilBook serves as a professional networking tool for military personnel. It is a place where military personnel can connect with like-minded people working in different fields. The greatest benefit is how it connects individuals across the DOD regardless of branch. Army users can communicate with U.S. Navy personnel and cross-functional teams to work in a common operating environment. Doing so not only strengthens the military community, but also opens lines of communication regarding the sharing of relevant and mission-critical information. MilBook is also home to Army professional forums like Army S1Net, one of the largest Army online communities where Soldiers and civilians converge to share and implement human resource (HR) processes, procedures, programs and knowledge, and best practices between the institutional and operational force. S1Net provides the information flow to over 100,000 Soldiers, leaders and Army HR professionals.
“The use of the S1Net and milSuite has had a significant positive impact on the HR community and the Army,” said Brig. Gen. Gregory S. Johnson, adjutant general of the U.S. Army at the Army Human Resources Command—a milSuite user. “This platform helps synchronize all of us while shaping the forces’ understanding of HR policies, changes to procedures and best practices. I rely on S1Net to help communicate what we need HR professionals to know and to understand in order to take care of Soldiers and drive readiness and talent management.”
milSurvey
MilSurvey allows members of the milSuite community to create custom surveys for enterprise distribution with advanced survey statistics to capture, review and share. MilSurvey keeps sensitive information secure for major organizations like the Army Inspector General and Army Special Operations Command and allows for robust reporting on mission-critical information collections. MilSurvey is the only approved survey tool in the U.S. Army, offering a secure platform for personnel to formally capture important data from the workforce on a variety of relevant topics. It replaces the use of unsecured survey tools, mitigating potential security issues of sensitive information being in the public domain.
MilSurvey adheres to the strict information-sharing management control protocols outlined in Army Regulation 25-98, Information Management Control Requirements Program, where Army organizations must obtain approval before administering an Army internal survey.
milTube
MilTube is a video sharing and streaming service that allows any member of the Army or DOD workforce to share videos with the DOD for viewing, downloading or embedding. Videos uploaded to milTube range from highly produced official content such as system and application training, news and event updates and senior leader messages from across the DOD, to ad-hoc content produced on demand by users and organizations to meet immediate mission needs. Once uploaded, a video can be streamed directly from milTube, downloaded for offline viewing in bandwidth-constrained environments or embedded in other milSuite applications such as milUniversity. Programs like Army Enterprise Staff Management System rely on embedded milTube videos in their milUniversity courses to enhance the learning experience and ensure a consistent training environment for the Army enterprise and DOD. MilTube is accessible with fully integrated closed captioning and the ability to upload transcripts.
milUniversity
MilUniversity provides a platform on which organizations can create learning and reference materials and make them available to their workforce, customers or anyone with an interest in learning. Military personnel can access and complete training courses for relevant certifications anywhere they are—all in a secure technological environment. MilUniversity is especially important for talent management and is a valuable tool for the military HR community. As vacant roles need to be filled throughout the DOD, HR personnel can find the talent with the skills, trainings and certifications needed to fill the positions. Having a highly qualified staff is a vital cog in ensuring Army and DOD readiness and enables the Army to recruit, educate and retain a highly skilled workforce to support operations at the strategic, operational and tactical levels.
“MilUniversity has allowed me to immediately create, publish and mandate a financial management-specific course for all Army personnel that approve or certify miscellaneous payments they may be held pecuniarily viable for,” said Carlos Arguello, U.S. Army contract and commercial pay action officer at the U.S. Army Financial Management Command (USAFMCOM). “I am also in the process of creating and publishing a second course based on the success and feedback I received for the previous one. This tool has allowed USAFMCOM to keep nine geographically dispersed financial management Army-operated offices informed of the latest policies, procedures and regulatory updates. Quick access to this information has helped achieve worldwide process standardization and overall compliance,” he added.
SUITE REALIGNMENT: PEO EIS’ Ross Guckert (left) answers questions about the organizational realignment at the Technical Exchange Meeting 10 held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in May. (Photo courtesy of PEO EIS)
CONCLUSION
As the Army continues to modernize and unify its tactical and enterprise networks, information sharing will continue to be critical across the service and the joint domain. The digital transformation of the Army is happening across multiple fronts. Establishing the unified network means not only convergence of separate organizational networks to collapse stove-piped, vulnerable networks, but also the convergence of people, processes and capabilities across multidomain operations to gain operational advantages and fiscal efficiencies.
MilTech’s ability to quickly innovate and iteratively adapt to evolving needs of the user, combined with the proven success of milSuite to connect people, processes and capabilities across the Army and DOD, make it an ideal integrator with A365 in establishing the Army unified network. As the Army bolsters its use of Army 365 to improve its business and operational processes as part of the Army Modernization Strategy, milSuite continues to evolve to meet joint information-sharing needs and multidomain collaboration across the Armed Forces, as well as to deliver a unique set of capabilities that complement A365 to provide enterprise-wide continuity.
For more information about milSuite, go to https://www.milsuite.mil.
DAN LAWTON provides strategic communication contract support to PEO Enterprise Information Systems at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, as a writer and editor for Bixal. He holds a B.A. in communications from New England College.
