News and Spotlights

All news and spotlighted items are listed below by the month it appeared on the home page.

VTrckS Deployment to Complete in May

May 2013 will mark a major VTrckS milestone as the final group of awardees successfully transitions to VTrckS.

To date, 49 awardees (79%) have made the transition to full VTrckS for vaccine ordering and management of their vaccine business processes. Of the 49 awardees, 32 awardees (65%) are submitting or will submit data via their ExIS, while 17 awardees (35%) are entering vaccine data including orders directly into VTrckS. Congratulations to awardees on this important milestone!

For more post-deployment information about VTrckS, please visit VTrckS Topics.

Spend Plan Report Enhancements to Launch in April

The VTrckS Spend Plan team has made improvements to the spend plan reports. Enhancements include a quarterly and yearly rollup and additional formats for the Spend Plan Monitoring Report.

Three webinars were held to discuss the new report formats and functionality including:

• Original Format vs. New Format
• Additional Reports
• 317 Funds Tracking
• 2012 Report Reconciliation

The Spend Plan Reports Enhancement Presentation covered in the webinars is now available in the VTrckS Training Library.

Reminder: New VTrckS spend plan budget functionality went into effect October 1, 2012!

(Posted: October 2012)

CDC has implemented a new budget process that includes an overall annual limit to help ensure an accurate budget. In addition, there will be increased visibility into VFC and state funds in the same way as 317 is currently tracked.

Here are a few highlights of the changes you can expect beginning October 1:

• The same controls as for 317 have been added for VFC and state funds
• All funds will have limits; FLU pre-books will also be tracked for state funds
• Budget Status will be displayed on Grantee Spend Plan Home Page
• Reference tables from the grantee home page have also been added to the spend plan screens

How can you learn more about this new process?

The spend plan team held webinars on September 27 and 28 to discuss programmatic and system information related changes to the budget process and how they will affect you in managing your spend plans going forward. In addition, the new spend plan functionality was demonstrated in the VTrckS test system. If you were unable to attend one of the sessions or would like to review again, you can submit a request to the Contact Center at vaccineordermgmt@cdc.gov to view the recorded webinar.

If you have any questions regarding the new VTrckS spend plan budget process and functionality, please reach out to your Vaccine Advisor or to the Contact Center via phone at 877-878-6247 or email at vaccineordermgmt@cdc.gov.

VTrckS Spend Plan Deployed!

(Posted: October 2012)

August 2012 marked a significant VTrckS milestone as all CDC immunization grantees successfully transitioned to VTrckS to create and manage their annual vaccine spending plans. All 64 grantees are now not only able to but have also already established 2013 spend plans in anticipation of the new fiscal year start in October 2012. In doing so, CDC will be able to retire the legacy spend plan system called VOFA.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of this transition. Your collaboration, dedication, and hard work have been instrumental in making this strategic endeavor a success, and have set the pace going forward as grantees continue to deploy onto full VTrckS over the coming months.

VACMAN & VTrckS Blackout Period Planned for Friday 9/30/2011–Monday 10/3/2011

(Posted: September 2011)

A short blackout period for all VACMAN and VTrckS orders, including provider orders delivered by McKesson, direct-ship orders, and state-funded bulk replenishment orders, will occur on Friday, September 30, 2011, in preparation for the new federal fiscal year that begins on October 1.

Your last entry or transmission of orders should be on Friday, September 30, 2011, by 12:30 pm Eastern. Please do not place or submit any orders in VACMAN or VTrckS after this time.

Ordering/order transmission will resume on Monday, October 3, 2011, for both pilot and non-pilot grantees. At that time:

• Pilot grantees and providers can resume using VTrckS
• Non-pilot grantees can transmit VACMAN orders to CDC

You will receive an email notification once ordering resumes.

VTrckS Functionality Upgrade Goes Live for Pilots

(Posted: June 2011)

The VTrckS functionality upgrade for pilots, which was formerly referred to as “Phase 2,” went live on June 13, 2011 and includes various grantee and provider enhancements. A few grantee functionality highlights include various usability improvements as well as the ability to export mailing lists and flag certain provider orders for review. Additionally, grantees may reject supporting documentation as needed, run a provider aged attributes report, and designate main contacts for a provider. For providers, they may now perform returns for all products, save/submit/delete supporting documentation, and log in as different facilities as needed.

VTrckS Project User Group (VPUG) to Launch in June

(Posted: June 2011)

Designed to serve as an advisory body to represent the enhancement interests of both grantee and provider VTrckS users, the VPUG is scheduled to commence on June 22, 2011. This user group will include pilot grantees initially as well as two non-pilot grantees nominated by the Association of Immunization Managers (AIM) for a six month rotation. When an enhancement is submitted through the VPUG, it is not a guarantee that it will be included in a future release of VTrckS. However, CDC does guarantee that the enhancement request will be assessed to determine if and when the enhancement can be included in a future release. The VPUG is designed to evolve VTrckS in a mutually-beneficial, systematic way that will meet the expectations of CDC and users of VTrckS.

System Optimization is in The Works

(Posted: June 2011)

On August 1, 2011, the VTrckS Operations and Maintenance team will start development and implementation of changes to optimize the VTrckS system. This optimization will include the first wave of recommendations from the VTrckS Project User Group (VPUG). These enhancements are slated for implementation on February 13, 2012.

VTrckS Rollout For Non-Pilots to Occur in 2012

(Posted: June 2011)

CDC is pleased to announce a VTrckS deployment plan for all remaining grantees and health care providers. Spend plan functionality will be implemented first in April through June of 2012 for all grantees. Concurrently, beginning with ExIS/registry-ready grantees first, a full VTrckS solution roll-out will be implemented in weekly waves starting in April of 2012 through June of 2013. CDC will continuously evaluate and reassess strategy to potentially accelerate rollout strategy based on success.

Vaccine Order Blackout Period Planned for VTrckS Upgrade

(Posted: May 2011)

A short blackout period for all VACMAN and VTrckS orders, including provider orders delivered by McKesson, direct-ship orders, and state-funded bulk replenishment orders, will occur on Friday, June 10, 2011, in preparation for a June 13th functionality upgrade within VTrckS. 

Your last transmission of orders should be on Thursday, June 9, 2011, by close of business.  Ordering/order transmission will resume on Monday, June 13, 2011, for both pilot and non-pilot grantees.  At that time, pilot grantees and providers can resume using VTrckS, and non-pilot grantees can transmit VACMAN orders to CDC. Grantees will receive an email notification once ordering resumes. 

If you have questions regarding this information, please contact your POB project officer.  Reminder emails will be sent prior to the blackout period.

Identity Proofing Reminder for Non-Pilots

(Posted: May 2011)

Your Security Access Management System (SAMS) accounts will expire and be deleted if there is no activity for one year (365 days).

If you are a non-pilot grantee and were Identity-proofed at VTrckS training (September, 2010) or at the Program Managers’ Meeting (November, 2010) and have not logged into VTrckS, please complete the following activities to keep your SAMS account active.  This will ensure that you will not have to complete the ID-proofing process again. 

• Log into SAMS
• User Name is the full email address with which you registered
• If you forgot your password, click on the link at the bottom of the SAMS login page and you will be prompted to answer your security questions
• If you need further assistance, please contact the Vaccine Order Management Contact Center at  1-877-878-6247

As a reminder, those individuals who need to reset the “timer” should have received an e-mail from the Vaccine Order Management Contact Center with the above information.

 

VTrckS Vision for 2011

(Posted: March 2011)

The VTrckS team is looking at 2011 as a year of refining its vision for managing future releases and transitioning remaining grantees and health care providers to the system.

Currently live on Release 1 of VTrckS, pilot grantees are slated to receive additional functionality for the Spring/Summer period of 2011. Once the pilots have used this additional functionality for a minimum two months, the VTrckS team will perform a comprehensive pilot assessment to capture best practices and lessons learned from the pilots. The team will then use this information to guide the deployment plan for all remaining grantees.

It is expected this deployment plan will be presented to grantees during this summer of 2011 and will include specific deployment dates, staggered by waves of grantees, as well as readiness activities that can begin to get a head start on implementation.

The VTrckS team expects that remaining grantees will go live no earlier than first quarter of 2012.

Vargas-Rosales to Receive Federal 100 Award

(Posted: March 2011)

Hearty congratulations to all for Anjella Vargas-Rosales’s selection as one of this year’s Federal Computer Week Federal 100 – the top executives from government, industry and academia who had the greatest impact on government information systems community in 2010. Find more information at Federal Computer Week.

VTrckS Goes Live!

(Posted: December 2010)

CDC is pleased to announce the official go-live of Vaccine Tracking System (VTrckS) on December 13, 2010, for four pilot grantees which include Michigan, Colorado, Washington State, and Chicago.

Countless hours of input, participation, and leadership have gone into making this go-live a reality. The VTrckS team gratefully recognizes the pilots’ contributions to this strategic CDC endeavor that lays the foundation for managing and distributing publicly-funded vaccine.

VTrckS Slated to Go Live in December

(Posted: November 2010)

On December 13, 2010, VTrckS will be implemented across six pilot grantees (Washington State, Michigan, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Chicago) and their respective Vaccine Provider Order Pilot (VPOP) health care providers.

Vaccine Order Blackout Reminder

(Posted: November 2010)

As a reminder, there will be an order blackout period for all grantees in preparation for the December 13, 2010 go-live for pilot grantees. The blackout period includes the following:

1. Last day for placing direct-ship orders: November 19, 2010
2. Last day for placing state-funded bulk replenishment orders: November 19, 2010
3. Short order blackout period of 2-3 days for provider orders delivered by McKesson, including flu vaccines (dates to be announced shortly)

In regards to direct-ship vaccines, you may want to consider implementing contingency plans such as creating stock available for transfers by placing and having supplemental orders shipped to local health departments or large providers who can store additional stock for transfers in the event of an emergency.

Grantee Advisory Committee Update

(Posted: November 2010)

CDC gratefully recognizes the 49 grantee members (from 31 different grantees) of the VTrckS Grantee Advisory Committee (GAC) for their work and dedication to ensuring that the needs of all grantees were well represented throughout the phases of VTrckS development. Future meetings of the Grantee Advisory Committee will be postponed until discussions about Release 2 begin in 2011.

 

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