General Services Administration. STAR-PBS' New Program for Tracking and Managing Real Property,
Abstract
STAR is a real estate inventory management software application that maintains data on projects, leases, buildings, and space assignments that is, who is in what space-in an integrated database environment. The data in STAR are used to generate bills to clients for their assigned space, develop budget plans, track and manage leases, and evaluate performance. STAR's input/output functions include direct on-screen access to the data, the ability to update the data, access to standard reports, and the ability to sort data and create ad hoc reports. Users identified problems with STAR as well as benefits derived from using the system. The 128 users we interviewed identified 18 types of problems that they had experienced using STAR. These problems included complaints such as taking too long to enter data and having too many steps or screens. According to the STAR project manager, all of the problems that were reported to us by users had been reported to the STAR project team through the contractor-operated STAR Help Desk. Also, STAR users had submitted nearly 8,000 requests, which were recorded on service tickets, to the Help Desk between October 1997 and August 1999. These tickets, many of them concerning the same issue, identified problems that users reported having when working with STAR as well as STAR enhancement suggestions and other issues related to STAR's operations. Further, 116 of the 128 users we interviewed saw at least 1 benefit from using STAR, such as data being current and readily available.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1999
- Accession Number
- ADA369145
Entities
People
- Bernard L. Ungar
- Mike Yacura
- Ron King
- Tom Keightley
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office