EPC Entity Profiles Unlocked:
Effective last Monday, April 15th, USAC unlocked EPC entity profiles to allow applicant updates. Correct entity profiles — particularly those linking school districts and library systems to their associated schools, branches, or NIFs — will be particularly important beginning later this summer and fall as applicants begin filing Form 470s for FY 2020.
It is important to note that any changes applicants make in their EPC entity profiles now will not automatically carry through to their FY 2019 applications. To make entity changes that apply to pending applications, applicants must submit RAL modifications (see USAC’s Schools and Libraries News Brief of March 22, 2019).
EPC Funding Request Report:
An applicant’s EPC Landing Page now includes a link to a Funding Request Report.
The Funding Request Report lets you search for funding data within a given date range of Form 471 certifications from FY 2016 forward and by BEN, SPIN, and/or application number.
Search results display the following information:
- Funding Request Number
- Entity Number of Applicant — linked to the applicant’s basic EPC page
- SPIN (Service Provider Identification Number) — linked to the service provider’s basic EPC page (unfortunately not including SPAC information)
- 471 Application Number — linked to the Form 471
- Establishing FCC Form 470 — linked to the Form 470
- Applicant Name
- Application State Code
- Main Contact Person — linked to contact information
- Service Ordered
- Funding Commitment Pre-Discount Annual Cost
- Discount Percentage
- Funding Commitment Request Amount
- Service Start Date
- Contract Expiration
- FCC Form 471 Certification Date
- Consulting Firm(s) — link not currently working
Several practical points on using this tool should be noted.
- The starting and ending Form 471 certification dates are required search fields. This is a little less convenient than searching for a specific funding year, but it is manageable. Recognize, for example, that the range 01/01/2018 to 12/31/2018, for example, easily includes any Form 471 certified for FY 2018. Setting the “After” date as 01/01/2016 and accepting today’s default date in the “Before” field will pull down all associated data back to FY 2016.
- Searches by BEN are not restricted to the BEN(s) associated with a specific EPC Landing Page. You can search for data for any BEN — or leave the BEN field blank.
- Searches can generate a large number of FRN records. For example, a search for Verizon Wireless (SPIN 143000677) since FY 2016 generated a list of 12,227 FRNs displayed ten to a page.
- The search results page includes a button at the bottom to “Export Search Results.” That feature creates a Task to download the resulting file. The download indicates “CSV” in the filename but is actually a pipe-delimited “.rsp” file. Converted to Excel,* the file includes 35 unlabeled data columns.
Readers of this newsletter are reminded that an easier way to obtain E-rate funding histories by BEN or SPIN from year one of the program (FY 1998) is to use the “Funding History Search” on the homepage of the E-Rate Central website.
Forwarding Pending PIA Inquiries within EPC:
When PIA initiates an inquiry on a Form 471, an email is sent to the applicant contact listed on that application.** The request for information is also posted in EPC under the list of Pending Inquiries for that application. The inquiry can then be viewed by any user with access to that EPC account. As shown below, the Pending Inquiries display for full rights users includes a field allowing that user to forward the inquiry notice to another user of that EPC account.
Forwarding is a potentially useful feature if the inquiry is to be best answered by someone other than the applicant’s primary contact, the person who received the initial PIA email. Unfortunately, forwarding an inquiry merely moves a notice to the top of that user’s EPC News Feed. It does not generate a new email notification to the designated user nor does it create an EPC Task for that user. Most likely this means that the new user will learn of the forwarded inquiry only if alerted via phone or email by the original contact.
Two small points should be noted regarding the Pending Inquiries format shown above.
- The instructional text within the forwarding field references the name of the “reviewer.” Normally, when dealing with application inquiries, “reviewer” refers to the PIA representative shown in the inquiry line as the E-Rate Reviewer. In the forwarding context, the “reviewer” is another of the applicant’s EPC users.
- The “Phone #” field on each pending inquiry line is formatted to show only 833-205-1185. A ten-digit telephone number was fine last year when each Solix reviewer had a unique number. This year every Maximus reviewer uses the same toll-free number. To reach a specific reviewer you need the reviewer’s five-digit extension (usually provided in the initial email). For assistance in telephoning reviewers see the Maximus PIA Telephone Directory we have been compiling since the FY 2019 application reviews began.