The ATF of taxes eyes case management systems

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is interested in streamlining case management, with an emphasis on interoperability with outside systems.

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WHAT: A request for information on case management systems from the Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

WHY: Charged with taxing and permitting the alcohol, tobacco and firearms trade, TTB is exploring case management systems and asking for information on commercial or government off-the-shelf products that could provide a streamlined way to manage the bureau’s investigative work.

The system would need to handle a case's entire life cycle, from creation through investigation and possible criminal proceedings.

TTB, which collects more than $22 billion annually and oversees more than 76,000 permittees, is looking for case category standardization as one benefit of a new CMS.

Given TTB's focus, fetching information from outside sources will be a critical CMS function. TTB officials would like a system that could auto-populate files with information gleaned from relevant databases, support cross-case searching and perhaps perform searches of external databases, such as Public Access to Court Electronic Records and LexisNexis.

The CMS would need to interface with other IT platforms, including SharePoint and AutoAudit, and gather metrics for external reporting. It must also support uploading and attaching documents to cases and be able to export investigative casework for criminal referrals. Further, TTB wants a dashboard to provide a visual overview of activity.

With plenty of sensitive information to protect, TTB's request emphasizes the importance of strong role-based access controls to manage who sees what.

Click here to read the RFI.