Business Continuity Planning Our office is responsible for promoting business continuity planning throughout the entire campus—each School, each department, each unit. We assist campus departments in defining critical functions for themselves, and help to ensure that financial and material resources are conserved and used effectively before, during and after a disaster or serious interruption of business activities. Essential functions vary by department, but they are generally defined as those tasks or activities that must be maintained in order to ensure financial or operational survival. Asking, "What is the minimum level of service or activity my department can offer and still consider myself to be 'in business,'" can assist with identifying essential functions. Resilience is defined by the ability to absorb the impact of a business interruption and continue to provide a minimum acceptable level of service. Our office can help define these functions and strategize with campus units to ensure they have the resources necessary to maintain essential functions during a disaster. Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) Our office will provide campus units with and guide them through the completion of COOP templates, which detail how each unit's essential functions will continue and/or resume should the work place be affected by a disaster or significant interruption. The Business Continuity Office has developed three specific COOP templates to address the most significant losses of any disaster: human resources, loss of work area, and/or loss of information technology/utilities. Each unit on campus is expected to complete all three of these templates. Participation in these efforts ensures the entire campus is well prepared to meet any interruptive challenge. Campus units are not expected to complete these templates alone; in fact, your COOPs are coordinated with all other University departments' COOPs to ensure the best management of resources. The Business Continuity office will assist you in identifying your essential functions, determining potential locations for work area recovery, and developing work-around procedures. Crisis Coordination Upon activation of a COOP, or any other business continuity plan, it is appropriate to call the Business Continuity office. We will provide you hands-on assistance when possible, and help coordinate your efforts with other University units. Disaster Recovery Contracts and Agreements Prior to an interruption or disastrous event, the Business Continuity office assists University units in assessing disaster recovery services from outside vendors and helping units secure appropriate contracts for large scale recovery if appropriate. We will also help develop and manage reciprocal agreements between campus departments to better promote our campus-wide business continuity planning. Exercises and Drills No plan is completed until it has been tested. The Business Continuity office offers a variety of exercises and drills to assist you in testing your COOPs, your call tree, and your readiness for a variety of threatening scenarios. The most popular exercise is the Tabletop Exercise (TTX). The TTX is a discussion based exercise, which allows you to consider a specific threat and the ramifications of your preparedness level. Drills focus on more narrow aspects of your preparedness, such as your call tree. Full Scale Exercises (FSE) are live-action exercises in which participants actually put their plans in action.
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