Your first steps in developing your department’s COOP start with determining who will be your plan owner. The plan owner will be responsible for developing your COOP and maintaining it, working with your department’s personnel to determine your team’s essential functions and how they will be performed during a disruption to normal work processes.
Next, after your plan owner has determined your department’s essential functions, organize your team’s essential work and essential personnel under these sections. Essential personnel should also recognize backup people (at least 2 are recommended) that may perform essential work in case they are unavailable.
View this sample App State continuity plan.
Plan Owner(s)
All COOPs have a Plan Owner(s) assigned to them. This person follows the steps above to collect information to build your COOP, saves the COOP in Veoci and reviews the content annually. Though the plan owner will be the lead continuity planner for your department, the process of developing and reviewing a COOP requires collaboration with others in your department and possibly in other departments too. One of the most crucial factors of successful COOP development is having your entire team engaged in the initial process and each annual review.
Continuity of Operations Software
Veoci is the software application used by the University to manage a COOP. This application supports the process of documenting your team’s essential functions, your required resources for performing them and recovery locations where work can be performed (including remotely). To better navigate through Veoci, please view the Veoci Reference Guide.
When you are ready to begin developing your COOP, log in to Veoci or reach out to safety@appstate.edu or 828-262-4008 to get started. During the process, you will be prompted for your university credentials by the university’s single sign on service.
Existing Emergency Procedures
When you start your COOP, make sure to review any existing continuity plans or emergency procedures for your department. Much of the information you will need for your COOP may already be part of your existing plans, and can be repurposed.
Overview of Continuity of Operations Planning
There are 9 steps to creating a COOP. Each step builds on information from the previous step and is broken up into three sections. Each of these sections typically takes about one month to coordinate and complete, and so the entire process to develop your COOP may be completed over a three month period.
Month I
The first month you spend developing your COOP consists of three steps:
- Demographic Profile — Provide basic information about your department or unit.
- Essential Contacts — Identify the important contacts for your department or unit, as well as other important University contacts, essential vendors, or any other critical partners that may be of importance to your operations.
- Essential Functions — Identify the most critical functions that define your operations. These are the functions that are necessary for your department’s ongoing operations, and also for the university as a whole. If these essential functions were to cease, noticeable impacts to your department and the University could be experienced.
Month II
During the second month, you will identify critical resources, such as:
- Current Facility Requirements — Identifying the location, space type and utility needs for your department to continue to complete its essential functions
- Technology Requirements — Identifying information technology requirements and other tools that your department or unit needs to complete essential functions.
- Other Essential Resources — Any specialized equipment, supplies, vendors or critical services that are not easily replaced or replicated. If these resources were unavailable, your department’s critical functions would be negatively impacted or would cease.
Month III
In your final month of developing your COOP, you will identify the steps your department will take to enter into recovery operations using the critical functions, critical staff and essential tools you have already coordinated in Month I and II.
- Recovery Strategies — Outline the actions your team will take after a disruptive event to maintain or restore each of your department’s essential functions. Include clear, concise and specific information that anyone in your team can interpret and use.
- Alternate Site Resource Requirements — Predetermine possible relocation sites where your team will report in the event that your normal working location must be temporarily or permanently vacated. Determine your resource requirements for this location too, such as any IT considerations, security needs or specialized equipment that your team must have access to.
- Activation Strategy — Develop an emergency notification call tree amongst your team and any essential partners outside of your department. Remember that effective internal and external communication planning is crucial during any emergency!
Please note that there are further directions and information built into each step in Veoci to guide you as you create your COOP.
Submitting Your Plan for Review and Approval
After you have completed your COOP and entered it into the Veoci software, you are ready to submit it to App State’s Emergency Management Team for review and approval. Before submitting, be sure that your department leadership has thoroughly reviewed the entire plan; this is the plan owner’s responsibility.
Annual Updates and Reviews
Continuity of Operations Plans should be reviewed and updated on an annual basis. As your review your COOP each year, keep the following questions in mind to help guide your updates:
- What has changed since last year?
- Have there been any changes in personnel or leadership, or your organizational structure or alignment?
- Have there been changes in a process or system that supports an essential function?
- Have the results of testing, training, evaluation changed anything?
- Have any recent events, incidents, new legislation or policy changed your department’s processes, priorities, requirements or responsibilities?
Annual Testing and Exercises
Testing and exercising continuity of operations plans is crucial for all departments to ensure that they are prepared to respond effectively to unexpected disruptions in operations. Testing and exercising plans can also help identify areas where improvements can be made to minimize downtime and ensure that the University can continue to provide essential services and improve communication and collaboration between different departments and stakeholders. This can be especially important during a crisis when effective communication is critical to ensuring a coordinated response. Testing and exercising your COOP should be done annually.
Available Training and Support
There are resources available to assist you in the process of developing your COOP. In addition to the Veoci Reference Guide, as well as this Quick Start Guide and the directions and information available in your virtual Veoci room where you will save your plan, the University's Continuity and Resiliency Coordinator is also available to provide guidance and support as you develop your plans. Please reach out to safety@appstate.edu or Ext. 4008 with any questions you may have.
Helpful Definitions
- Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) or Business Continuity Plan (BCP)
- Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) or Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a document which provides guidance and steps for recovery in a specified period of time for a specified function or process. It is written in enough detail so that those required will be able to execute the plan with minimal delay. It is a collection of resources, actions, procedures, and information that is developed, tested, and held in readiness for use in the event of a major disruption of operations.
- Essential Function
- Essential functions are those services, programs, or activities that are necessary to on-going operations of your department and would directly affect the success of your department if they were to stop for an extended period of time. The success of your department and the support you provide to the University rely on these functions.
- Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
- Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the maximum length of time that a specific function or resource can be unavailable before causing significant disruption of operations. Also referred to as Maximum Allowable Downtime.
- Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
- Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. It is the maximum age of the files or data in backup storage required to resume normal operations if a network failure occurs.
- Orders of Succession
- Orders of Succession are provisions for the assumption of senior agency offices during an emergency in the event that any of those officials are unavailable to execute their legal duties.
- Delegations of Authority
- Delegations of Authority are the identification, by position, of the authorities for making policy determinations and decisions at HQ, field levels, and all other organizational locations. Generally, predetermined delegations of authority will take effect when normal channels of direction have been disrupted and will lapse when these channels have been reestablished.
- Alternate Facilities
- Alternate Facilities are locations, other than the primary facility, used to carry out essential functions, particularly in a continuity event. This also refers to not only other locations, but also nontraditional options such as working from home, telecommuting, and mobile-office concepts.
- Vital Records Management
- Vital Records Management is the identification, protection and ready availability of electronic and hard copy documents, references, records, information systems, data management software and equipment needed to support essential functions during a continuity situation.
- Upstream Dependencies
- Upstream Dependencies are those departments/units you depend on to get a critical function completed.
- Downstream Dependencies
- Downstream Dependencies are the departments/units that rely on you to complete this critical function. Ex: departments/units that would cease operations without your work, as well as those who need you to complete your services.