FSOs Stop Using Email to Execute FSO Tasks

https://www.nispomcentral.com

https://www.nispom.com

Stop Managing FSO Tasks by Email: Use Fillable Forms and an FSO Workbook for DISS and NISPOM Compliance

Jeff Bennett, an FSO expert with NISPOM Central, explains why using email to execute FSO tasks creates excessive administrative burden and potential security vulnerabilities, especially when emails are not encrypted. He uses visit authorization requests (VARs) as an example, noting that repeated email back-and-forth often happens because employees don’t provide all required information needed to enter data into DISS. While some organizations use dashboards to capture required fields, many FSOs serve as additional-duty personnel without resources or experience, making email-driven workflows inefficient and time-consuming. He recommends replacing task execution via email with standardized fillable forms that capture DISS-required fields once, storing and archiving them in an “FSO workbook” that can also support NISPOM compliance and self-inspections. Email should be used only for notifications and reminders (e.g., training reminders), not for collecting VAR, training, foreign travel, or other reporting information through multiple messages. He offers sample forms, consultations, and access to the FSO workbook and downloadable files via NISPOM Central’s websites.

00:00 Welcome & Why FSOs Struggle With Task Management

00:58 The Email Trap: VAR Requests Turning Into 10+ Messages

02:19 Why VARs Need So Much Data (and Why Employees Miss It)

02:47 Big-Budget Dashboards vs. Additional-Duty FSOs

04:22 A Better System: The FSO Workbook & Fillable Forms

05:01 Security Risk: Unencrypted Email and Sensitive Data

05:17 How to Build Your Own Forms + Shared Drive Workflow

05:54 Use Email for Notifications—Not for Doing the Work

07:06 Get a Sample Form, Consultation, and Download Resources

07:46 Final Takeaway: Stop Running FSO Tasks Through Email

NISPOM Central
Providing security clearance books, training, and resources for cleared defense contractors.

Clearance, NISPOM, and FSO Consulting
Thrive Analysis Group Inc is your resource for security clearance, NISPOM, and FSO consulting.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to DOD Secure, and I'm your host, Jeff. Thanks so much for joining us. Very important discussion that we're going to have in this podcast. I'm Jeff Bennett and I am the FSO expert and I work with NISPOM Central. And welcome to our latest podcast and YouTube video. So I want to talk to you today about how you handle your FSO tasks. Now many of you, as I've gotten to know you, have managed your FSO tasks via an email, just like everybody else, right? We're all waiting for our next email to be able to execute our work. Or maybe we already have systems in place that help us to maintain our focus and we just use email for communication. But many of us are still using email for executing responsibilities or tasks. This is no different than FSOs, but here's where it gets tricky. If FSOs continue to use email to do their tasks, they're going to soon be burdened by cumbersome administrative requirements. And I'll explain this to you real quick. So here's a quick question for you. How many emails does it take for you as an FSO to get a visit authorization request approved? Or maybe you're not an FSO and maybe you're a cleared employee who just wants to go on a visit. How many emails are you sending to your FSO before they have enough information to get that request to you? Is answer A4, B 10, or C one? Hopefully that answer is zero. It's likely that many of you take more than 10 emails to get visit authorization requests complete. For those of you not in the know, a visit authorization request is how a cleared employee gets access to another classified facility so they can perform work there. Many times for non-possessing facilities, their employees might work at an alternate location. So the VAR is used as instances where these employees might work at alternate locations or maybe just to simply attend a classified meeting somewhere. So if these take up to 10 emails to get that VAR approved, that's a lot. Especially if you multiply it by the number of employees who need a VAR approved so they can go on their visit. That can be daunting. The reason why it takes so many emails is because the FSO requires a specific amount of information so he can enter the VAR data onto the defense information system for security. There are fields that are required for these VAR requests. And if the cleared employee is not providing enough information to the FSO, they're not going to be able to do that in a quick fashion. Some of you who work in cleared facilities with large budgets, you might be asking, why use email at all for FSO tasks? You're asking that question because you probably have a third party or a proprietary dashboard that you have for the FSO or the cleared employees where they can go through and put in that information that they need to get that VAR accomplished. And using that dashboard, you know that those required fields that DIS has can be answered quickly by the employee filling out that information. However, there are a large number of cleared facilities who have FSOs that are appointed to the position as an additional duty. They are not security professionals and they may not have insight into how to manage administrative FSO tasks. Having that lack of insight might require the FSO to practice what they need to do before they're clear about what the requirements are for a VAR. So imagine learning this for the first time and your employees need to go to a meeting and you don't know how to execute it. So they're naturally going to be inclined to have requests made through the email. These emails soon become tedious and burdensome, and it takes a lot of their time that they're trying to devote to performing their full-time job, be it on contract or overhead. Some of you know what I mean. You might be the CEO slash FSO or the contracts administrator or the HR director or IT director, and you're also serving as an FSO. You've got enough to do. So let me tell you about a better way to do things. Here are some clues into how other FSOs are handling it. And again, you don't need to buy an expensive third-party dashboard or develop one yourself. This is by using a product I call the FSO workbook. Part of that FSO workbook has filtable forms that your employees can complete and submit to you, and you don't have to have all these email exchanges. So while FSOs in the situation that I'm describing may not have resources and funding to provide those security dashboards, the danger with email, if it's not encrypted, you might be sending sensitive information that gets provided to this through an unsecured mean if you don't do not encrypt those emails. So there is one danger to that, and it could create a vulnerability. So there is a better way, and as I mentioned, you could create a fillable form. This filtable form, you can go to disk and find out what the required fields are and create your own fillable form. Now you can take that form and upload it onto a shared drive where your employees can access it and fill it out on the shared drive, or you can create a fillable PDF that they can download, fill it out, and provide to you. And then you create that FSO workbook where you store these forms, you archive these documents that you need, and then you can also use this FSO workbook to demonstrate POM compliance. So we can see that email is definitely a great communication tool. As a matter of fact, when you put those filtable forms on a shared drive or somewhere where the employee can pull it down, then you can get an email notification that you have a task to complete. You're not completing your task by email, you're just getting notified that it's there, and you can go at your own time or as the priority dictates to take that form and create that var end. So, for example, email can be used to notify you that a form has been filled out and you can process it. It's a great way also to remind employees to take their training. However, it's not a good way to execute training or to have people fill out these emails and multiple email attempts to get that VAR approved or multiple email attempts to get training done, or email attempts to get any other types of reporting that you need your employees to provide. For example, foreign travel or any kind of update to their information that you might need to report in this. So email is not the way. Forums are the way to do this. Um, if you'd like a sample form that I've created, I'll be happy to send you one. If you're looking for a consultation or somebody to guide you through this process of building your FSO workbook or establishing a way for you to be able to execute your FSO tasks other than via email, you want to remain NISPPOM compliant and be able to incorporate this into some type of self-inspection, I can help you out with there. Alternatively, you can go to NISPOMcentral.com or now I own NISPOM.com. You can go to any one of those websites and access our FSO workbook or access our files that you can download and execute at your convenience. So to sum up, if you're conducting your FSO tasks via email, stop doing that and use emails as a way to communicate. Develop a system in place where your employees can fill out a form or provide information to you once, and then you'll have all that information you need to execute any report or requirement that your clear employees might have. Once again, I thank you for joining DOD Secure. This is your place to go for all things NISPOM, all things contract requirement, and all things security clearances. We hope you come back for another episode. And please look at our show notes and you can find more resources that might answer your questions on how do I perform once I win a classified contract, and what do I do once I get a security clearance? And the other question is how do I get a security clearance? We are here to help you out. And I hope you remember that when you visit our show notes, that you will find those resources, as well as access to my other company, Thrive Analysis Group, where we actually perform NISPOM tests and as well as FSO or NISPOM consulting in case you have that need. Wish you all the best and we'll see you next time.