ADMINISTRIVIAL PURSUITS\
May 31, 2000

Guidance for Submission of Materials to GAO or the Inspector General

ITA staff are reminded that when they are completing materials for submission to either the General Accounting Office (GAO) or the Inspector General (IG), they should follow samples provided by OOMS. Staff are asked to contact Herman Dogan at (202)482-3031 for guidance and samples of IG/GAO responses.

Credit Hours

Credit hours are the excess base (non-overtime) hours an employee elects to work within a flexible time band in order to have an equal amount of time off on another workday, workweek or biweekly pay period. Credit hours are applicable only to employees working flexible work schedules whose operating unit's Alternative Work Schedule (AWS) Plan has a provision providing for them. Senior Executive Service members may participate in an AWS plan; however, they may not accumulate credit hours. By law, the maximum number of credit hours which may be carried over from one bi-weekly pay period into the succeeding pay period is limited to 24 hours. When used, credit hours are counted as a part of the employee's basic work requirement and are paid at the employee's basic rate of pay. They may not be the basis for overtime pay or compensatory time. Unused accumulated credit hours must be paid to an employee when he or she separates from the Department or moves to a work schedule which does not provide for credit hours. Additional information on credit hours may be found in the Department's Handbook on Hours of Duty and Leave Administration @ ita.doc.gov/hrm or contact Mary King at (202)482-3438 or via E-mail at Mary_King@ita.doc.gov.

SATO's Leisure Office

Effective May 12, 2000, SATO's Leisure Office, located at HCHB, has closed. However, if you would like to schedule vacations, cruises, tours, etc. please contact SATO's Travel Vacation Center at 1-877-304-8456 (toll free) or at www.satovacations.com.

Professional Liability Insurance Reimbursement Program

The Department will reimburse supervisors, management officials and law enforcement officers electing to purchase professional liability insurance one-half of the annual premium up to $150. Information regarding the Department's policy on professional liability insurance reimbursement and coverage terms is posted on the Office of Human Resources Management (OHRM) home page at http://www.ohrm.doc.gov./information/Policy/policies.htm. If after reviewing the information on the OHRM home page you believe you are eligible for this reimbursement and are interested in obtaining professional liability insurance, please contact Vanessa Lewis, Office of Human Resources Management, at (202)482-3071 or via e-mail at Vanessa_Lewis@ita.doc.gov.

Virus Attacks: We're Working to Protect Your Network and PCs

What does ITA do about virus threats? ITA's network support staff checks daily alerts from the SANS Institute, CERT, and FEDCIRC security advisory organizations for new viruses and other security alerts. When a new virus, like the recent lovebug, is released, we finds out whether and how ITA network could be affected and then take appropriate steps to block the virus. For example, depending on the virus, we may scan the servers, update your virus signatures, trap e-mail with certain subject headings, or run detection routines to see if your workstation contains certain files that may have been created by a virus. What should you do about viruses? Practice good antivirus behavior! Don't open attachments with a ".exe" or ".com" extension from anyone, don't install new software to your workstation yourself (it may install more than you were expecting), and don't circulate virus scare messages that have not been substantiated. Do, however, scan diskettes or files you receive for viruses, and do call User Assistance at (202)482-1955 if you suspect that your PC may have a virus.

Protecting Laptop Computers

Recent events have made it all too clear that employees utilizing government laptop computers must exercise extra care to protect these devices. The use of laptop computers introduces a number of security threats. The very nature of the portability provided by laptop computers introduces risk not associated with a standard office workstation. They are high value items, light in weight, and easy to move, therefore, they are a high risk target for theft and require special safeguards to protect them. Lock them up at night or when there is no one in the office to watch them. Laptop computers should not be left unattended in the workplace. Care should be taken so that they are not inadvertently left in taxi cabs or other modes of public transportation, or in hotel lobbies or hotel rooms while on travel. When flying, they should be treated as carry-on luggage and not checked. It is important that laptops remain in the control of the assigned employee at all times. The loss of laptops must be reported immediately to your supervisor and the ITA security staff, or the Regional Security Officer while on travel. If you have questions, please contact the ITA security staff at (202)482-0630.

How Do I Find

Directions to e-mail a financial report? Open up the Document Direct and find a financial report that you want to e-mail. Open up the financial report, Click on "clip board" (appears next to the printer icon), Select Pages that you want to send from the Print menu (all, current, page, or from....to...), Downsize the Document Direct by clicking one time on the upper-most "-", Open up Word (also works in WordPerfect) Click on Edit, Click on Paste, Click and drag so that the entire document is highlighted, Click on Format, Font. Change font to Courier New, font style to Regular, and font size to 8 Go to File, Page Setup. Change the page setup to landscape and click OK, After saving the document, you may attach it to any outgoing e-mail. If you have any questions, please call Halina Malinowski, Office of Financial Management at (202)482-4083.

Traveler's Corner

Question: What should a traveler do when a gift of cash or a check is offered for travel expenses by an outside source?
Answer: Under no circumstances may a traveler accept cash. Checks should be made payable to the Department of Commerce and not the traveler. However, in the event that a traveler receives a check made out to him/her, the check must immediately be endorsed over to the Department. Please remember that you must obtain advance approval to accept a gift of travel expenses from an outside source. If you have questions, call your travel contact or Sharon Russell at (202)482-3267.

Tips and Tricks

Rearrange your Corel WordPerfect Suite Toolbars

It's easy to customize the order in which buttons appear and to remove unwanted buttons from your toolbar and property bar. To move a button to a new position on the toolbar or property bar, press and hold [Alt], then click and drag the button to the new location. You'll see a vertical bar that moves with your mouse pointer as you drag the button. This bar indicates where the button will appear when you release the mouse button. To remove a button, again press and hold [Alt] and click and drag the unwanted button off the toolbar or property bar area. When the mouse pointer becomes a trash can icon, you can release the mouse button and the unwanted button will be deleted.

Canceling a drag-drop operation in Windows 98 or NT

Have you ever started dragging a file from one location to another while in Windows Explorer and then discovered that you grabbed the wrong file? If so, chances are that you dragged the file back to it original location in order to cancel the operation. While this technique works, there's a quicker way to cancel a drag- and-drop operation--just press [Esc]. When you do, the operation is immediately canceled. If you have any questions regarding these Tips, please contact User Assistance at (202)482-1955.