(e-Office)
Launch: eOffice was launched in CBIC on 15th June 2020 and DGPM was assigned the responsibility for its implementation. All the offices of CBIC i.e. 430 offices were brought on eOffice in a phased manner by Oct 2020. Each Commissionerate/CCO or equivalent office was created as a separate organization. eOffice was upgraded to Version 7 in February 2022 and Version 7.2.5 in July, 2022
Infrastructure: The infrastructure for hosting the application has been obtained in terms of the prescribed guidelines of the NIC and is hosted at the National Data Centre, Bhubaneswar of NIC. A Deployment Team, to manage the servers and a Roll Out Team, to assist the users have been hired by DGPM for the operational maintenance of eOffice. The users were divided and mapped on two servers (called Instances), CBIC 1 and CBIC 2. The files can be sent by any user to another in CBIC/MOF as the two CBIC instances are integrated with each other and also with the MOF Instance. eOffice can also be accessed through the AIOs provided/maintained by the DG Systems.
Support and Problem Resolution: For issues faced by the users in eOffice, the Roll Out Team in DGPM provides immediate resolution. Users, through their Local Admin (EMD Managers), escalate the issue on the WhatsApp group or send an email to DGPM. For this purpose, four WhatsApp Groups, two for each Instance- one for Gr. A Nodal Officers and one for the EMD Managers- have been created as also a dedicated email, ‘e-office.cbic@gov.in’. The WhatsApp groups are monitored by the senior officers for the quickness of the resolution provided as also its correctness. The issues that cannot be resolved by the team are escalated to NIC.
Manuals/SOPs: The NIC’s manual on eOffice for version 7.0 has already been shared with the users. Manuals/SOPs are also available under the tab ‘Learning Resources’ in ‘Home’ page of the eOffice portal. Besides, DGPM has created a no. of Manuals/Handouts for the assistance of the EMD Managers/users to fill the gaps felt in the NIC Manual. It has also prepared and circulated SOPs on some important areas viz. Dak Diarisation, Inter Office Communication, Electronic Communication, De-activation of Users, Use of DSC etc.
Support at Local Level: For initial phase of launch of eOffice, DGPM had advised hiring of local support from the NIC empaneled vendors to organizations for on-site assistance. Some organizations have hired such resources. It has helped users in getting their problems resolved quickly at local level in the initial stage. However, it has lived its purpose and now DGPM is able to provide support centrally though the Roll Out team
Security: eOffice is hosted on infrastructure provided by a National Data Centre and it is secured as per the latest cyber security guidelines of the Govt. of India, MeitY. The application cannot be accessed from a public network and is accessible only through VPN (Virtual Private Network) provided by NIC or NICNET, making it completely secure and reliable. After VPN, the application requires username and password to enter ‘Parichay’ page. Thus, there is a two level security to access eOffice application. Besides, each layer has two factor authentication, i.e., user id/password and OTP/token requirement. To allay any apprehension that the users may have on security of their files on eOffice, FAQs dated 27.05.2020 were prepared and circulated.