Federal Program Agencies: Correspondence

Meeting Minutes
ASAP Federal Program Agency User (FPA) Group Meeting
Baltimore, Maryland
June 16, 2005

Financial Management Service (FMS) Representatives:
Elizabeth Oldenburg, Director, Intergovernmental Programs Division; Christine Ricci, Manager, ASAP Customer Liaison Staff; Carol Cole, ASAP Operations; Myron Pinkney, Holly Robedeau, Christopher Tighe, ASAP.gov Development Staff; Margie Springer, ASAP Customer Liaison.

Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) Representatives:
Adele Allen; Customer Business Application Function (CBAF) Staff; Janet Lee, Business Application Services (BAS) Staff.

General Remarks:
Introductions of the presenters and audience participants took place with a record number of Federal Program Agency (FPA) representatives in attendance. More than 60 representatives from several Federal agencies and bureaus attended including: The Departments of Health and Human Services, Interior, State, Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, and Defense (Tri Care).

Enrollees will receive their IDs via email and their passwords via U.S. Postal Service mail.

An overview of Federal agencies using ASAP.gov was provided. They include:

• Denali Commission
• Department of Agriculture
     Food and Nutrition Service
• Department of Commerce
     National Institute of Standards and Technology
     National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
     National Telecommunication & Information Agency
     International Telecommunications Agency
• Department of Energy
• Department of Interior
     Bureau of Indian Affairs
     Bureau of Land Management
     Bureau of Reclamations
     U.S. Geological Survey
     Office of Surface Mining
• Department of Justice
     Office of Justice Programs
• Department of the Treasury
     Departmental Offices
     Bureau of the Public Debt
     Comptroller of the Currency
     Financial Management Service
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Library of Congress
• National Science Foundation
• Social Security Administration

It was noted that the Department of Interior had made a recent decision to migrate all its bureaus to one grants payment system: ASAP.gov.

Future Federal agency users include:

• Department of Education
• Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The process to request a change to ASAP.gov was also discussed. An Enhancement Request Form (formerly known as a Change Management Request Form) is a formal process by which an enhancement to the ASAP.gov system can be requested, reviewed, and approved or declined by FMS. The form and instructions can be found here.

Calendar year statistics for 2004 were provided:

ASAP.gov Release Schedule:
A brief overview of the updated ASAP.gov Release Schedule was provided.

The following detail was provided:

Notification Enhancement

• Updates the Notification function to identify the user name and provide a description of the Notification
• Eliminates duplicate or repetitive Notifications
• Allows users to delete Notifications without reading them

ACH Debit for Returns

• Allows recipients to return payments or partial payments if a grant recipient draws down too much money and wants to return some of it.
• Recipients will use ASAP.gov to initiate an ACH debit to their bank account for the amount they want to return.
• Your bank must allow the account to be debited.

Current Debt Offset

• Current debt is defined as debt that is less than 18 months old
• Allows a Federal Agency to withhold a percentage or whole dollar amount from each payment drawn by an organization that owes money to that Agency
• This applies only to outstanding current debt with that Agency

Reports

• Implements previously approved user requested changes to Reports (e.g., customized search for specific date ranges).

Preview of the New Internet Enrollment for Recipient Organizations:
In light of the total dollar transactions previously discussed, it is not surprising that ASAP.gov has one of the world's most advanced secure internet payment systems. Due to the heightened security measures, users may have noticed that the ASAP.gov site can be a little slow. No other system in the world transfers more money to recipients. ASAP.gov has multiple firewalls due to the dollar volume of transactions. We are working to make the system faster and more efficient. Although preliminary tests have proven use of Netscape 8.0 extremely fast, Federal agency Certifying Officers are required to use Internet Explorer.

A brief overview of the redesigned enrollment process was provided:

• Federal Program Agency Enrollment Initiator (EI)
    Identifies Recipient Organization and Point of Contact to be enrolled
• Point of Contact (POC)
    Identifies organization officials:
      Authorizing Official
      Financial Official
• Head of the Organization (HOO)
    Approves organization officials
• Authorizing Official (AO)
    Enters organization's information and identifies users
• Financial Official (FO)
    Enters banking information

The biggest difference in Release 2.0 is that Payment Requestors will no longer viewed as organizations. Instead, the payment requestor will be a role under a recipient organization.

First, there is a new role for the FPA in the Enrollment process. The EI starts the enrollment process by identifying the recipient organization with a DUNS number, TIN (October 2003 requirement) and POC.

Next, the POC identifies three organization officials: The HOO, AO, and the FO. The HOO then approves the AO and FO. While there may be multiple POCs within a recipient organization, there can only be one HOO to approve the organization officials. The HOO can also appoint a Redelegated Head of Organization (RHOO) to approve future designations and approvals.

It is important to note that within recipient organizations, the POC, the organization officials (the AO and FO), and the HOO can be the same person.

The POC within a recipient organization can name more than one AO. The AO is responsible for entering the recipient organization's contact information (address and phone numbers) as well as user information (i.e., payment requestors and inquirers).

The POC within a recipient organization can also name more than one FO. The FO is responsible for entering the banking information to receive payments via ACH, Fedwire, or both. Per FMS' Green Book rules for ACH transactions, ASAP.gov sends a Prenote to the financial institution to verify the bank account. A financial institution has six days to respond to a prenote. For Fedwire, the new banking relationship becomes available for use in three business days. This allows time for Federal agencies to review the new banking data.

It is important to point out that for the new enrollment process, each person gets up to 45 days to complete their action. If one person exceeds their 45 days, the entire enrollment process has to be restarted.

Previously, FMS' Regional Financial Centers (RFCs) had verified a recipient organization's banking information on behalf of FPAs as part of the enrollment process. With new enrollment process contained within Release 2.0, we will rely interdependently on the FPA Certifying Officer (CO) as well as the Recipient Organization's (RO) Financial Officer to provide and verify banking information. When adding new banking data, the FO must acknowledge that the FPA, FMS and the United States are not responsible for a misdirected payment in the event that the RO enters incorrect banking data. The CO is responsible for the certification of the correct banking information to ensure that funds are disbursed to the correct payee.

Inherent in the new Enrollment process is the interdependency of each role in the process. This structure was intentionally developed so that if there were any criminal activity associated with grant funding, collusion would be needed at various levels.

To provide as much flexibility as possible in developing the Internet Enrollment process, organization officials named by the POC do not have to be employees of the recipient organization but may be at the payment requestors organization. For example, if the payment requestor owns the bank account where the funds will be delivered, the FO may be located at the requestor's organization.

Screen shots were shown to demonstrate the new look and feel for the ASAP.gov application.

Several points were briefly discussed concerning the ASAP.gov system:

• FPAs can have multiple Enrollment Initiators (EIs)
• Only 1 person can be the Head of the Organization (HOO).
• The following roles do not have to be at the recipient organization, but may be at the payment requestor's organization, or an employee of the organization:
    Point of Contact (POC);
    Authorizing Official (AO);
    Financial Official (FO)
• Insert only the Recipient Organization's legal name.
• DUNS and TINs are required going forward and must be provided by the FPA to initiate an enrollment.
• FPA will no longer send matrices to the RFCs to initiate enrollments, but will start the process online.
• RFCs will no longer provide weekly status updates on enrollments but agency users will use online enrollment inquiries.
• Users will be notified when an action is pending and notified again when the 45 day deadline is approaching if the action isn't taken.
• Pending ROs will be deleted if an official fails to take a required action in 45 days.
• POC is a key player at the organization.
• ROs are not allowed to change their name unless they work with the RFC who will coordinate with every FPA connected to the RO.
• If an RO changes a DUNS or a TIN, they must re-enroll as ASAP.gov views them as a new organization.

New enrollments to the ASAP.gov system are on a first come/first served basis. If one FPA begins the enrollment process with a recipient organization, other FPAs will receive a message saying "Other FPA already started Recipient Enrollment" and must wait until the enrollment process is completed for the first FPA.

Q: Are there any requirements to enroll foreign entities?
A: Any foreign entity must use a U.S. bank to receive payment through ASAP.gov.

Q: Is the use of the DUNS required?
A: Yes, the use of DUNS has been a requirement since the fall of 2003.

Q: What about the use of DUNS plus 4?
A: The use of DUNS plus 4 won't be used in ASAP.gov in Release 2.0

Q: How do international or non-domestic users of the system obtain an EIN?
A: As of 1999, EINs are required to do business with the Federal Government. EINs are obtained from the Internal Revenue Service.

Q: Is it possible for the ASAP.gov system to link to the Central Contractor Registry (CCR)?
A: ASAP.gov tested our information against the CCR database. Less than a 5 percent of our users are registered in the CCR at this time. While there is language requiring recipients of Federal grants to have a DUNS number, currently there is no requirement for users to register to the CCR.

Q: What if the Recipient Organization does not have a DUNS number?
A: They must obtain one. The Regional Financial Centers (RFCs) have been calling Recipient Organizations reminding them of their requirement to have a DUNS number. An email was sent reminding users how to get a DUNS number. Go to http://www.dnb.com/us/ to obtain a free DUNS number.

Q: If another FPA has begun the enrollment process, what can the other FPAs do?
A: They must wait until the enrollment process with the other FPA is complete. The enrollment status inquiry is available to provide the status of an enrollment.

Q: Why is there a delay to receive ACH or FedWire funds?
A: With the release of 2.0, the RFCs will no longer be calling to verify account numbers. The waiting period was instituted for ACH so that ASAP.gov can send a Prenote to the financial institution to verify the bank account. A financial institution has six days to respond to a prenote. For Fedwire, the new banking relationship becomes available for use in three business days. This allows Federal agencies to review the new banking data.

Q: Can the CO be the EI for organization enrollment?
A: No, the CO cannot be the EI.

Q: Can FMS provide a listing of roles and their description?
A: The listing is available here.

Q: What if a user needs to change their address?
A: There is a "my info" screen where any user can change personal information such as address or phone number. The CO would then approve the change.

Preview of New Internet Enrollment for Federal Program Agencies (Release 3.0): The new role at Federal agencies for Release 3.0 is the Point of Contact.

These officials currently exist on paper but will have an active role in Release 2.0.

The Enrollment Initiator (EI) can have the same role as the POC. Currently, the Certifying Officer (CO) cannot be the POC. However, based on some preliminary feedback from participants, we will be looking into the separation of duties for the CO and POC.

The RFC begins the FPA Enrollment process by identifying the following information for COs and POCs:

• First, Middle, Last names of each individual
• Title
• Mailing Address
• E-mail Address
• Telephone Number and Extension
• Official's Role

Similar to the Recipient Organization enrollment process, the User ID will be emailed to the user and the password mailed via the U.S. Postal Service.

Q: Does a user who needs access to more than 1 ALC or ALC/region need to be enrolled multiple times?
A: The POC can assign multiple ALCs/Regions to an FPA user at the time the user is being enrolled.

New Certifying Officer Functionality/Digital Signatures
Digital Signatures are used for Internet transactions to:

• Uniquely Identify the Sender (via Digital Code)
• Guarantee the Identity of the Sender (Signature)
• Prevent Later Denial (Non-Repudiated)

As noted earlier, CO's are required to use Internet Explorer. The hardware tokens and certificates issued to COs for the Secure Payment System (SPS) will also be used by ASAP.gov. A CO will only need to be in-person proofed and given a token once. This may be done by SPS or ASAP personnel.

The use of Digital Signatures by FPA COs will be implemented on an agency-by-agency basis. Digital Signatures are not tied to the Redesigned Enrollment and Release 2.0 effort.

The Authorization transactions that are affected by digital signatures are:

• Certify Online
• Certify Batch
• Certify an Individual Authorization within a Batch

Samples of forms were provided and discussed.

ASAP.gov Update and Speakers Panel:
Legacy Sunset
Access to the legacy application will be cut off on October 31, 2005. We will post this information as a broadcast message on the legacy application, as well as on the ASAP.gov home page, and the FMS ASAP website (www.fms.treas.gov/asap). We will also send a letter to all agency primary contacts.

Enrollment Cutoff
The FMS Regional Financial Centers will not accept new enrollments after October 1, 2005. FMS will be processing enrollments received before the cutoff throughout the month of October with a goal of completing all enrollments by October 31, 2005. Beginning November 1, 2005, the FMS Regional Financial Centers will focus on ensuring the proper transition of existing ASAP.gov accounts to the Release 2.0 operating environment and will provide user training for the new release. New enrollments will begin in ASAP.gov February 2006.

Password Policy Changes
The new Treasury Web Application Infrastructure (TWAI) policy for password expiration will be increased from 45 to 90 days. Users will be notified before the change is effective. If your password has expired, you should call the CBAF Staff to have your password reset at 1 (804) 697-8384.

Dedicated Training Environment
The current schedule for the training environment availability is posted on the FMS ASAP website. By the end of October, the training environment will be moved to another platform to provide greater availability and accessibility.