Unisys Unveils New Reporting Solution for Recipients of Federal Stimulus Funds

Reporting tool deploys quickly to help government agencies and stimulus fund recipients meet American Recovery and Reinvestment Act mandates

BLUE BELL, Pa. – Unisys (NYSE: UIS) today announced the availability of the Unisys Recovery Act Reporting Environment (RARE), a new reporting solution designed to help government agencies and recipients of U.S. federal economic stimulus funds meet stringent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) reporting requirements.

ARRA mandates that federal, state and local government organizations receiving stimulus funds report data on how and where these funds are being spent, so that citizens can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds.

Guidance published by the Office of Management and Budget and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, a board created under ARRA to oversee stimulus funds to prevent fraud, waste and abuse, requires all agencies to provide the required reports as web data feeds. These feeds are then aggregated by the Recovery.gov web site for presentation to citizens and other stakeholders.

The Unisys RARE solution provides an innovative and affordable reporting tool that enables agencies and other entities to respond quickly and cost-effectively to ARRA reporting requirements. Using the tool, organizations can produce the required reports to feed Recovery.gov while leveraging their existing IT resources.

RARE integrates readily with commonly used IT environments without additional software licensing costs. The solution also features geospatial rendering of stimulus spending, “red-yellow-green” accountability scorecards, and special alerts and notifications – providing a platform onto which agencies can build out future “Data.gov” transparency requirements without additional infrastructure.

“RARE enables the kind of transparency and accountability that the Obama administration is asking for from recipients of federal stimulus funds,” said Andy Hoskinson, vice president for technology strategy and consulting, Unisys Federal Systems. “It makes the reporting process easy by extracting data elements from existing financial systems, translating that data into ARRA-mandated reports, and delivering the reports over the web using formats suitable for aggregation by the Recovery.gov web site. Unisys also provides consulting services to help agencies optimize ARRA-related data collection, data quality and risk mitigation processes to ensure appropriate use of stimulus funds.”

Before deployment of the RARE solution, Unisys consultants conduct a one- to three-week discovery phase to match required data elements with agency systems. Unisys solution architects then develop a blueprint for integrating the reporting solution into the agency’s existing systems architecture, and develop and configure adaptors for integrating specific agency systems with the reporting solution. Deployment times usually range from one to three months, depending on complexity.

“Unisys understands the challenges that government agencies face in meeting extensive ARRA reporting requirements designed to expand transparency and accountability,” said Venkatapathi “PV” Puvvada, vice president and managing partner, Unisys Federal Systems. “Unisys RARE is designed to help organizations achieve rapid compliance through a cost-effective solution built on open source technology and which enables them to leverage existing IT infrastructure investments.”

About Unisys
Unisys is a worldwide information technology company. We provide a portfolio of IT services, software, and technology that solves critical problems for clients. We specialize in helping clients secure their operations, increase the efficiency and utilization of their data centers, enhance support to their end users and constituents, and modernize their enterprise applications. To provide these services and solutions, we bring together offerings and capabilities in outsourcing services, systems integration and consulting services, infrastructure services, maintenance services, and high-end server technology. With more than 27,000 employees, Unisys serves commercial organizations and government agencies throughout the world. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.