Suite of Tools for the Review and Creation of Automated Workplans and Schedules (STRAWS) replaced Program for Automated Work Plan System (PAWS) as the tool in preparing work plans. In addition, STRAWS replaced System for Automating Work Schedules (SAWS) as the tool in preparing work schedules. STRAWS is a National Standard Application (NSA) and became effective for all organizational use on April 9, 2007. The IRS no longer maintains the programming for PAWS and SAWS. Both applications were retired from further use effective January 1, 2008.

Management within each campus environment must communicate security standards contained in IRM 1.4.6, Managers Security Handbook, to employees and establish methods to enforce them. Employees must take required precautions to provide security for the documents, information, and property they handle while performing official duties.

The Program Management/Process Assistance (PM/PA) Branch, Resource Section, Program Analyst manages IRM 3.30.127, and maintains current information for the operations necessary to develop workload plans and schedules using STRAWS.

Each Headquarters office sets up their organizations work plan data. In addition, each Headquarters office establishes their organization cut-off dates in accordance with the business owner’s (Submission Processing) final transmission dates.

Submission Processing is the business owner of STRAWS. However, each Business Unit’s Headquarters Office will assign, for their organization, one Campus Administrator for each center and a backup, if necessary.

Campus Administrator will perform the campus level administrative requirements of STRAWS.

The table lists commonly used acronyms and their definitions.

STRAWS is described in IRM 3.30.19, Work Planning and Control, Production Control and Performance Reporting.

Instructions for developing data for the system hinge upon the use of unique numeric or alphanumeric codes for each Organization, Function, and Program (OFP). For additional information on authorized OFP codes, check the OFP Home Page online at http://ofp.ds.irsnet.gov/index.asp.

The monitoring component consists of computer runs which:

A weekly OFP History Report (Project Literal for Campus Workload Scheduling, Project PCB (562) (PCB-03-40)) provides a summary of the previous reporting period's WP&C data. The report may be generated and used as a planning tool for scheduling purposes. The OFP History Report data is generated by the Headquarters Submission Processing Resource Section who initialize the reporting period data by requesting a PCB 00Q Initialization run from the Enterprise Computing Center-Martinsburg (ECC-MTB)/Enterprise Computing Center-Memphis (ECC-MEM) scheduler and a PCB 03H History Dump. The Headquarters Submission Processing Resource Section must request these runs within thirty days after the previous reporting period has concluded. See IRM 3.30.127.9.2, Initializing a Scheduling Period and Generating Prior Year History.

STRAWS replaced SAWS as the tool in preparing work schedules. The work schedule is developed using both the Work Schedule Review and Campus Work Schedule Modules in STRAWS. These modules are used by various organizations within the IRS that report to the WP&C.

The work plan provides the total volume, rates, and staff hours by OFP Code and reporting period. The work schedule allows schedule workload and resources on a weekly or daily basis within each period. Thus, developing a unique work schedule for each of the three reporting periods of the year. These Work Schedule periods are as follows:

The first step in the development of a work schedule is to identify any prior year reports that relate to the scheduling period. While the type of reports available might vary, the following is a list of the most commonly used reports.

Consideration of changes planned for the current work schedule period that are different from the same period last year is a commonsense approach to developing a good work schedule. Some of the examples of known changes are as follows:

STRAWS currently consists of six modules that will assist the Work Schedule developer. These modules are as follows:

The Work Schedule Review (WSR) module in STRAWS is used to schedule only the totals for each period at the parent OFP level. These total hours are then loaded into the Campus Work Schedule module and spread out on a weekly or daily basis at the fifth digit level if applicable.

The Campus Work Schedule module in STRAWS will create a Work Schedule file (PCB 0128.OUT), which is converted to a PCB 0128 Schedule Master File and used in the mainframe PCB runs to print the daily (PCB-04-40) and weekly (PCB-05-40) workload schedules.

The PCB 0128 Schedule Master File is used to generate the Schedule Review Report (PCB-85-40), which is a comparative report of Work Plan, Work Schedule, and Prior Year Actual data. It is sometimes referred to as the Three-Way Comparison Report.

Date records (e.g., PCB 0121 Scheduling Date Master, PCB 0122 and PCB 0124 Schedule Conversion Record) are input by Information Technology (IT) Schedulers. A ticket is initiated to ECC-MTB or ECC-MEM via email from Headquarters Submission Processing Resource Section.

Only the business owner and Headquarters administrators will have access to the data setup screen.

Each Headquarters office must set up their organizations work plan data. In addition, each Headquarters office must establish their organization cut-off dates in accordance with the business owner's (Submission Processing) final transmission dates.

The data setup screen is used to copy and then move work plan data for a selected Business Unit Office, Organization, Function and Program from one or more Phase/Period and Fiscal Year to another Phase/Period and Fiscal Year.

To begin data setup, each Headquarters office will select the WP Data Setup menu option under the Administration screen. The following steps will assist the user to select, copy and then move Work Plan data at the WP Data Setup screen:

Only the business owner and Headquarters administrators will have access to the data setup screen.

Each Headquarters office must set up their organizations work schedule data. In addition, each Headquarters office must establish their organization cut-off dates in accordance with the business owner final transmission dates.

The data setup screen is used to copy and then move work plan data for a selected Business Unit Office, Organization, Function and Program from one or more Phase/Period and Fiscal Year to another Phase/Period and Fiscal Year.

To begin data setup, each Headquarters office will select the WSR Data Setup menu option under the Administration screen. The following steps will assist the user to select, copy and then move Work Schedule Review data at the WSR Data Setup screen:

Following the completion of each reporting period the Weekly OFP History will be generated thirty days after the conclusion of that period. This listing can be used as a planning tool for preparation of the next year's schedule. The Weekly OFP History contains weekly actual prior year data, by OFP code, for all organizations with Operations and/or Department totals.

In order to produce the Weekly OFP History, the Headquarters Submission Processing Resource Section will start the initialization process within thirty days of the end of the OFP History period. The Headquarters Submission Processing Resource Section will perform the following steps:

The following table lists the processing dates for the Weekly OFP History (PCB 03-40) file.

Currently only Headquarters administrators will have access to the data setup screen.

Headquarters administrators will oversee the initial setup in Pipeline.

The initial setup includes:

The first step in creating a new schedule is to load data.

To begin data setup from WSR, each Campus Administrator will select the CWS Data Setup menu option under the Administration screen. The following steps will assist the user in setting up CWS from WSR:

User has successfully loaded CWS for the new scheduling period. To retrieve the data just loaded, at the CWS data setup screen do the following:

Before importing a text file to load into CWS, user must first format the data to be compatible with the STRAWS application. There are two main steps to creating the file for import to STRAWS:

The cell format for all fields other than Fields 8 through 15 should be text so the leading zeros are not lost. User will need to select the data and change the format to text by selecting Format from the menu and select Cells, choose Text from the list of categories and then click OK.

Other than Standard, all of the other fields from 8 through 15 should be set as numbers with no decimals and no commas.

Use the following chart to properly lay out the file in Excel.

The field lengths for the "Production," "Standard," and "Hours" fields listed above are maximums. User will only need to put the actual numbers in these cells; leading zeros will not be necessary because these fields will be separated by commas when the file is converted.

Please note the following before converting your file to the correct file format to avoid potential errors:

Once all of the above steps have been taken, user is now ready to save your file to a comma-delimited file format:

The first step in importing a text file is to UPLOAD the file to the STRAWS server. To begin this process, each Campus Administrator will select the Files Upload - Text File menu option under the Administration screen. The following steps will assist the user in setting up CWS from an imported text file:

User has successfully loaded CWS for the new scheduling period. To retrieve the data just loaded, at the Text File Import screen do the following:

The data generated in the Campus Work Schedule (CWS) Module is exported out and converted to a PCB 0128 Schedule Master File which is used in the mainframe PCB runs to print daily and weekly workload management reports. These reports assist each campus in comparing, tracking, projecting and negotiating their resource usage.

Prior to submission of the PCB Runs to ECC-MTB or ECC-MEM, the Headquarters Submission Processing Resource Section must submit to ECC-MTB and ECC-MEM the Form 8242, Scheduling Date Master, (PCB 0121), and the Form 8244, Schedule Conversion Record, (PCB 0122) for the period being scheduled.

The Headquarters Submission Processing Resource Section will create the PCB 0128 Schedule Master Files for each campus and exporting each PCB 0128 file to the ECC-MTB and ECC-MEM for processing. However, each Campus Administrator will validate their schedules via Control-D for accuracy before ECC-MTB and ECC-MEM processes the Work Schedule PCB 9011 Schedule Analysis Tape (Quarterly Data) file for their campus.

Once validation is complete, each Campus Administrator will give the go ahead to ECC-MTB and ECC-MEM to process the Work Schedule PCB 9011 for their campus. In turn, ECC-MTB and ECC-MEM will provide each campus with the PCB 9011 Reel number for their campus. These numbers must then be submitted to the Headquarters Submission Processing Resource Section to finalize the work schedule.

The following lists the PCB runs generated by ECC-MTB and ECC-MEM: