RMO No. 35-2022 — Prescribes the use of standard templates on system advisory/notification Digest | Full Text | Templates 1-4 | Template 5 | Process Flow

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE BUREAU OF INTERNAL REVENUE July 25, 2022 REVENUE MEMORANDUM ORDER NO. 35-2022 SUBJECT : Prescribing the Use of Standard Templates on System Advisory / Notification TO : All Revenue Officials, Employees and Other Concerned I. OBJECTIVE This Order is issued to simplify and standardize issuance of Advisory / Notification for: 1. Systems, applications and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure unavailability (planned or unplanned) 2. Systems, applications and ICT infrastructure restoration / availability 3. New application software features / upgrade II. DEFINITION OF TERMS 1. Downtime � refers to a period of time during which an ICT infrastructure/application system/service is unavailable, offline or not operational. 2. Planned downtime � refers to a period of time during which an ICT infrastructure/ application system/service and system accessibility are restricted in order to implement upgrades, maintenance, migration and configuration changes. 3. Unplanned downtime � refers to an unexpected shutdown or failure of ICT infrastructure/ application system/service due to circumstances such as technical problem, system wide failures and power outages. 4. System/infrastructure availability � refers to restoration of ICT infrastructure /application system/service to its normal state/condition after remedial or preventive maintenance, fixes and recovery from downtime. 5. ICT infrastructure � refers to all the information and communications technology infrastructure and systems (including software, hardware, firmware, networks, and websites) that are used in an organization. III. GUIDELINES 1. The Information Systems Group (ISG) shall ensure that systems, applications and ICT infrastructure are always available to all authorized users at any given point in time. It is of utmost importance that internal and external stakeholders are immediately and P a g e 1|4

properly informed of any service interruptions or systems-related activities like system maintenance, product upgrades or new application features. 2. The following Advisory / Notification templates are prescribed for use when announcing specific activity. For uniformity, the use of font Times New Roman and font size 12 is recommended. TEMPLATE DESCRIPTION ADVISORY CODE NO. 1 System Maintenance/Unavailability SU (planned or unplanned) SUR (for Revenue 2 Data Center {RDC}- 3 Slow or Intermittent Connection specific downtime) 4 System/Application/Infrastructure SIC Availability SA Application Software Updates/Upgrades (i.e.MS Teams, Zoom, Chrome, etc.) AU 3. In coordination with the Process Owner, Advisory/Notification shall be prepared in two (2) copies by: TYPE OF ACTIVITY RESPONSIBLE OFFICE Application-related activities Concerned Project Proponent Hardware-related activities Data Warehousing and Systems Operations Division (DWSOD) Network-related activities Network Management and Technical Support Division (NMTSD) Security-related activities Security Management Division (SMD) Only the duplicate copy of the Advisory/Notification shall be initialed and signed by the concerned Officials. The original copy (without the initials/signatures) shall be posted/emailed to authorized users once the duplicate copy of the Advisory/Notification is signed/approved. 4. Advisory/Notification shall be issued if the reported downtime/outage cannot be resolved on expected resolution time after it was reported (such as resolution time for urgent/critical issue is within 4 hours for network-related, or as indicated in the Service Level Agreement with Managed Service Providers/Contractors) and upon restoration of the system/service. 5. Localized issuance of Advisory/Notification for system unavailability/availability shall be issued and approved by the concerned Revenue Data Center (RDC) Head. Said Advisory/Notification shall be emailed to the concerned Revenue Region (RR)/ Revenue District Office's (RDO) generic official email account; copy furnish the following: Concerned Assistant Regional Director P a g e 2|4

Concerned Assistant Revenue District Officer/s NMTSD SMD 6. Before posting/emailing the Advisory/Notification to affected users, the NMTSD/RDC Service Desk Analyst shall validate the original copy (without the signatures) with the duplicate copy (with signatures) to ensure that the copies are one and the same. The duplicate copies with signatures shall be filed by NMTSD/RDC Service Desk Analyst for future reference. 7. The NMTSD / RDC Service Desk Analyst shall assign a unique Reference Number to all Advisory/Notification, whether for internal or external stakeholders, for monitoring purposes. A Reference Number shall be written in format as: yyyymm-xxxx-Advisory Code, where: <yyyymm>: represents the year and month the Advisory/Notification was prepared <xxxx>: number series i.e. 0001, 0002, 0003 and so on. <Advisory Code> : SU, SUR, SIC, SA or AU (please refer to Section III.2 of this RMO) The number series shall be reset to start again from "0001" at the beginning of each year. For localized Advisory/Notification, RDC name shall be indicated before the number series i.e, <mmddyyyy>-<RDC Name>-0001-Advisory Code following the naming convention as follows: NODC for National Office Data Center RDCL1 for RDC Luzon 1 RDCL2 for RDC Luzon 2 RDCVis for RDC Visayas RDCMin for RDC Mindanao 8. The System Unavailability Reference Number of a certain Advisory/Notification shall be used as Reference Number, except for the Advisory Code, once the particular system is restored and a System Availability Advisory/Notification is issued. Illustration # 1 An Advisory/Notification for ITS unavailability was issued on July 10, 2022 with Reference Number 202207-00010-SU. When ITS becomes available, an Advisory/Notification for System Availability shall be issued using the same Reference Number 202207-00010-SA except for the Advisory Code which shall be changed to SA (which stands for System Availability). Illustration # 2 A Slow/Intermittent Connection Advisory/Notification was issued on July 10, 2022 with Reference Number 202207-00020-SIC. When the connection becomes stable, P a g e 3|4

an Advisory/Notification for System Availability shall be issued using the same Reference Number 202207-00020-SA except for the Advisory Code which shall be changed to SA. 9. For issued Advisory/Notification containing multiple application systems that were not simultaneously restored, the Advisory Code for succeeding restored application system shall be followed by a series number starting from 1, 2, and so on. Illustration An Advisory/Notification for three (3) systems i.e. eCAR, eReg and eLAMS unavailability was issued on July 11, 2022 with Reference Number 202207-00012- SU. For instance, only eCAR and eReg becomes simultaneously available, an Advisory/Notification for System Availability of eCAR and eReg shall be issued using the same Reference Number 202207-00012-SA1 except for the Advisory Code which shall be changed to SA1. When eLAMS becomes available, the same Reference Number 202207-00012-SA2 shall be used except for the Advisory Code which shall become SA2. 10. Advisory/Notification for unavailability and availability at the same time may be issued in one advisory/notification when the system or infrastructure is restored instantaneously. 11. Concerned ISG Proponent shall be responsible in forwarding the signed/approved Advisory / Notification for proper posting to: NMTSD - for internal users Internal Communications Division (ICD)- external users / stakeholders 12. The NMTSD/RDC Service Desk Analyst shall monitor all Advisories/Notifications on systems unavailability and shall remind Process Owner/Proponent to prepare/release Advisory/Notification on system / service availability, once system/service is restored. 13. The NMTSD/RDC Service Desk Analyst shall devise an automated report (see Template 5) which shall contain details on the frequency of system downtime, duration/date and site. Said report shall be prepared and submitted to the Office of the Deputy Commissioner-ISG; copy furnish ISG Assistant Commissioners every 5th working day of the following month. IV. EFFECTIVITY This Order shall take effect immediately. (ORIGINAL SIGNED) LILIA CATRIS GUILLERMO Commissioner of Internal Revenue G-2 P a g e 4|4