Patchwork
Patchwork
JustGrants: New system brings change to DOJ grants management
On October 15th, 2020, the Department of Justice will be transitioning to a new grants management system called JustGrants as well as a grants payment system known as the Automated Standard Application for Payments, or ASAP.
In this episode, Lauren Nassikas, the Associate Director for the Legal Assistance for Victims and the Justice for Families programs at OVW, describes the transition experience for grantees as they prepare to adopt the new system. She is joined by Maria Swineford, the Business Manager for JustGrants at the Office of Justice Programs. Maria sheds light on the technical aspects of the transition, such as how to register for the systems and the available trainings. Together, they share their hopes for a unified and easy-to-use system for OVW, OJP, and COPS grantees.
Patchwork is a podcast from the office on violence against women at the us department of justice in Washington, patchwork brings you the voices of people on the front lines, combating domestic and sexual violence, our efforts to serve victims and hold offenders accountable, create stories that knit us together and propel us forward. Welcome to patchwork today. We're joined by Lauren SIECUS of OBW and Maria Swineford of the office of justice programs. Both of these women have been deeply involved with the planning, design and implementation of a new it system called just grants. Just grants is replacing our grants management system here at DOJ. They're going to share tips and information about the upcoming transition, which is just around the corner on October 15th. I want to start today with the basics, um, really what, what is happening, Maria? Let's start with you. What is just grants and why, why do we need to make this transition?
Speaker 2:Well first, thank you, Bob, for having me here, I'm excited to share information on just grants. So Jeff grants is the new grants management system developed by the department of justice. Jeff grants is going to replace the grants management system. We call GMs, which is currently used by both the office of justice programs, OJP as well as OVW. And it also replaced what is used by the community oriented policing services office, the cops office, their next gen system. So we're excited, um, to create this joint platform so that all of our stakeholders are able to use one system to manage all of their DOD award. And, and why we're doing this is because just as technology advances over time and business evolves and processes evolve, uh, we have to evolve too. So just France is enhancing our grant making by using state of the art technology building on best practices that we have learned across the federal government, as well as private industry and adjusting areas that have been identified through various stakeholder innovation sessions or feedback that we've gotten over the years to help design a solution that best meets our stakeholders needs. So that was coming transition to just grants. It represents a lot. It's a significant it modernization effort that is helping us design the single grants management system for all three DOJ grant making components. But what it also allows us to do is look holistically at our grant programs that are being funded across the department of justice and across the United States. So we have long been wanting to use data in a better way. We want to, um, we want to be able to take that data and tell our story, tell our public and our stakeholders where federal funding is going and what great work we're doing in our communities. So what we're hoping to get out of this, um, this effort in this transition to a single system is to be able to look at the work that's being done across the OJ, across all of our awards from cops ODP and OVW, and really tell the story and the success stories and best practices of the difference, uh, criminal justice and victim services that we have out in the, in the communities. So it's an exciting time, um, but change can in transition can be a little scary. So we hope that Lauren and I are here to help with some of the common questions that you're getting or that you may have. And we want to make sure that you have all the support you need for the, for the transition. So, um, again, thank you for having me here.
Speaker 3:Thank you. And you know, one of the first questions I think people will have is how do they get their money and that's, um, we use something called ASAP, right? Can you talk a little bit about what ASAP is?
Speaker 2:Yes. That's probably one of the number one questions that we get. So ASAP is the automated standard application for payments solution. That is a shared service provided by the department of treasury. So some of our grantees may already be familiar with this because the ASAP solution is used across federal government and, uh, with several of the federal grant making agencies. So if your organization perhaps has awards with States or department of agriculture, or some of those other federal agencies, you may already be using the ASAP system, and this is going to be replacing what a DOJ currently uses, the grants payments request system. So GPRS, for those of you who use it. Um, so GPRS will be going away as well. And there's a lot of great benefits to using ASAP, not only the biggest one that I mentioned, that if you're already using ASAP, then it also helps integrate and streamline your, uh, activities within your organization for, for grantmaking. Uh, but they have tasks process payment times, including same day next day. It's very much like your personal banking service that you might use on your phone or your home computer. So we're really excited about that. And a lot of, a lot more electronic funds transfers, um, rather than some of the time consuming paper processes we've been doing in the past.
Speaker 3:I guess another question people have is when is this happening
Speaker 2:Soon? So the current systems, uh, G as I mentioned, GMs, the cops next gen system GPRS, we're going to dis we are discontinuing the use of those systems beginning on September 22nd, 2020, which is right around the corner for us. So, uh, we'll be going just grants starting October 15th, 2020. So when that time, between September 23rd and October 14, DOJ is going to be migrating over all of the existing awards from our legacy systems. So if you have concerns about your current awards in GMs, or you have concerns about your current awards in, in, um, the next gen solution, if your award is currently active, or if perhaps your end date has passed. And, um, you're still in the closeout process, all of those will be migrated over, along with any attachments. And all of the related information to that award will be migrated over to just grant. If your award has already closed, or you perhaps submitted an application that never got funded, but you want to maintain those records, then now's the time to go in there and start downloading that material and keeping it before, uh, September 22nd. So we'll do all of our data migration between that time. So we're ready to go live on October 15th.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of work going on here at DOJ. Lauren, let me turn to you if I'm a grantee and I've already received my grant funds, do I need to worry about this?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. And, um, I want to thank you to Bob for having this podcast and giving us an opportunity to, to reach out to, um, all the organizations that we work with to get them ready for the transition. Um, so yes, everyone does need to all orders at the end. You need to register your organizations in just grants. Um, in fact, many of you may have already received emails about this. We started sending, um, communication to our grantees, um, in August 31st. And, um, the emails include, uh, information about how to register links on where to go to register. Um, so everybody does need to register. You will also need to register for the ASAP program that Maria was mentioning. Um, current award recipients were also invited to register, um, an ASAP. And I think those emails started going out in July. If you didn't receive an email or if your email went to a spam folder or something, um, towards the end of this podcast, we're going to let you know where to go, to find the information about registering. So if you missed the email or didn't get one, don't worry, we will be able to get you to the place where you need to find the information. Um, lastly, award recipients also need to make sure that their sam.gov profiles are up to date, um, including the organization's EBITDA point of contact. So those are really kind of the first key steps to transitioning to, um, just grants is you need to register and just grants. You need to register an ASAP and make sure that your sam.gov profile is up to date.
Speaker 1:So I hear you saying this is mandatory. Um, if I'm a grantee I have to, I have to do this, and that is gonna make me, I suppose,
Speaker 3:What happens to the data that already have in the existing system, if I'm a grantee.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And Maria touched on this a little bit, so yes, we'll keep reiterating. The transition is mandatory to the new system. The, um, the old systems will be shut down. We don't want people to try to log on to their GMs account and, um, be panicked that they can't get there. So, yes, the transition is mandatory. Um, so all, uh, open and active awards along with their, um, associated attachments to the awards are going to be transferred to Jess grant. Um, so if you are a grantee, once you, um, once just grants goes live, you should be able to go in and you would in your profile be able to see all of the active awards that you have from DOJ. Um, this includes awards that have not reached their end date, or if their end date has passed, but the close out process has not been complete. Um, so, um, one other thing we would have mentioned if a grantee wants to, um, keep material from your closed awards in GMs or next gen, you should, um, take the time and over the next week, I guess, to download any material and save it someplace else. Um, again, Maria had mentioned the cutoff date is September 22nd for those systems to shut down. However, if a grantee finds in maybe November that they somehow need to, for some reason, need to access information from a closed award, they can just get in touch with their program manager or, um, the OVW just grants support line. And we will be able to go into the system and get what you need and send it to you. Um, I guess I'll just take a second to mention, and I'm sure there'll be links to this, um, with the podcast, but the OBW just grants, user support is OBW dot, just grants support altogether@usodoj.gov. And phone number is(866) 655-4482.
Speaker 3:Perfect. Thanks. Uh, you know, while we're getting specific here, Maria, talk a little bit about where people go to create their account.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we will reach out to you. So what we have done is, again, the key, um, portions of the key premise and the foundation for just grants is really to streamline our data, but also making sure that we're using the source of truth for our data and our information. So we are leveraging sam.gov. We're integrating with sam.gov. That is where all entities are required to keep their profile information in order to apply for all federal awards. So we want to make sure that connecting with that source as yours, valid entity information, it helps to keep the data clean and accurate injustice brands moving forward. So what we've done we've reached out already to whoever is listed as the EBIT point of contact for your organization in sam.gov. So that person has received an email that says that their entity profile has been created for them. The men just grants and the email becoming from our secure entity management authenticator. So this system is called diamonds. So the email came from a D I a M the no reply email@usda.gov, not from just brands. And this is an authenticator. If you think about any personal services that you use, um, uh, banks or anything else where you put in some login information, and then it texts you a onetime code. So it's a multifactor authentication system that is in front of just grants to help keep just grants, data, your information, Kira within just grants. So that email from diamond included a link to create your account in just brands. And that serves as the gatekeeper to accessing and getting permission into just brands from there. Yeah. That even this point of contact has already been designated as the entity administrator for your organization. So something to remember here is that entity that EBAs point of contact from Sam might not be who you want the entity administrator to be for your DOJ awards, many large organizations, such as universities, or maybe state administering agencies. They might have a need point of contact. That's managing Sam information for their entire entity, which is rather large, but the people who will be managing DOJ award and just grants would be different. However, since we needed to start somewhere with that point of contact and Sam, once your Ethan's point of contact registered, they can then apply, signed the entity administrator roles to somebody else. So we've had questions in the past saying, I'm the financial manager for my organization, and I manage all the grants, but I haven't received the email. Um, so you'll want to go into sam.gov. You want to look and see who that EBIT point of contact is and reach out to them so that they can onboard, and then they can, they can invite you to join Justin grants so they can reassign the role to you as the entity administrator. And then it's a little bit different for ASAP, but similar you're your equal. This point of contact would have already received an invitation to enroll in ASAP as well around the end of August is when the invitations would have been received. So starting from July to August, as, as Lauren had mentioned, yes. So there's going to be an email from the Treasury's Bureau of fiscal service. So that's a reminder, this is a Trev treasury service. So it's not going to look like it's coming from just grants or, or DOJ. And it would have provided a temporary password in a link to create your new password. And then once you are in ASAP, you can make the necessary changes to your profile or your, your accounts at that point, much like any other, uh, internet service.
Speaker 1:So Lauren, um, if hopefully people have heard of this, as Maria said, emails have been going out, they've been, hopefully they've been notified. Um, if anyone is hearing about this for the first time, they might have a sinking feeling in their stomach because this funding is so important to their organization. Um, what, what is available for them now? How can, how are we helping them be prepared for the transition?
Speaker 2:Um, well, first I would say, I don't want anyone to have a sinking feeling in their stomach. Um, we will get through this, we will do this. As Maria had mentioned changes and transition can be difficult, but I will tell you the number of people who, um, are working at DOJ to ensure that everyone receives all of the resources they need and the training they need. Um, it's been unbelievable. So, so we are here to help you, so yes, be prepared. Um, and I, I think the best way you can do that right now is to make sure you're reading any communication that comes from DOJ. And, um, I think almost all of the emails that we send out include the, um, a link to the Jess grants website. Um, and again, I'm the one who's always like reading off the web web addresses, but it's, uh, justice grants dot U S doj.gov. Um, that is the place that has all of the resources and materials and training that you need every, anytime new training comes available. We, um, put it up on the website. I think Marina is going to talk a little bit later about specifically what kinds of training we have available. Um, OBW has also set up some checklists and action dates, um, for OVW you can find those, I think there's, they're going to be linked, um, with this podcast. So, um, again, I would utilize all of the material that's being developed, um, not to panic. And if you are a grantee, um, if you are feeling stressed or confused at all, contact your program specialist, um, or the helpline that I had mentioned before, and somebody is here to help you get through this
Speaker 1:Good point. And I will ask Maria to talk about training in just a sec, but, um, let's just acknowledge that this is happening at a fairly busy time of the year. There's a lot of funding going out right now. Talk a little bit about what's what's happening with you and your team, and just that the challenge of this happening is grant funds are going out,
Speaker 2:Right. Um, so this is, I know this is a busy time for our office cause we're in the process of making the warrants. I know this is a busy time for organizations because you are trying to accept the awards. Um, for our particular population, many of our grantees are getting ready to, um, start, um, uh, participating in domestic violence awareness activities. So we understand that a lot is going on. Um, again, just reach out to us if you have any questions, as much as possible, read those emails, um, go to the website. Um, we, again, don't want people to stress. We want, um, OVW grantees to be able to focus on what they're doing, which is working to assist, uh, victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking. We know that you need to understand these systems in order to do that. And so we're just hoping it will be, um, as painless as possible, and we will help make that happen. One way that we help is through training. Talk a little bit about what kind of training is available. Sure. Um, if there's been anything that's kind of thrown us for a loop here over at the adjustment team. Um, two years ago, when we started this effort, we could have never anticipated being in the quarantine code environment that we're in right now. So our brands, um, ideas of getting out into the communities and having more interaction with our stakeholders, um, all of that had to change at the, at the flip of a switch when, um, our current quarantined situations had come into play. So we have shifted our gears and we have done an incredible job. The team has done an incredible job with creating, um, many, many, many training videos, uh, in contents and reference materials, everything we could possibly think of infographics FAQ, anything that you can think of, uh, to help you with this transition. And so we also wanted to, we took some time to look out and see what's going on in the public and in industry. And we know that most adult learners, uh, capture their information and retain information in small snippets. So we've created these small short videos. They're also broken up in a way where if, for example, you are an organization, you, you only have to manage, um, face submitting the financial reports for your DOJ awards. You can go straight to those videos and watch just the trainings on that functionality of the system. If that's what's helpful for you, but also because they are short and sweet. And to the point, if you needed to sit through all of them, it wouldn't take too much time to just watch one right after another, if you needed to do that, uh, we have job AIDS that, um, take you through the solution step-by-step as well. Um, Lauren had mentioned some checklists. We also have checklists for getting your entity onboarded. So we have that out there right now because the onboarding effort is active and is going on, even though discontinue the use of the systems, um, starting night, September 22nd, we do have entities onboarding right now, reference materials FAQ. So again, that website is justice grant, doj.gov, and you can go straight to our training and resource page. So these are self guided e-learning videos. And, uh, we'll continue to take feedback. One of the really cool parts about being on this team is seeing how, uh, how software development and how systems development happens in today's world in this modern world. So as soon as you get feedback, we're able to get it back into the development process at a, a more rapid pace than when GMs was built. When GMs was built, it was a lot of, um, hard coding into the system, and it would take a lot of time to make certain changes. Well now solutions and software modern technology make this far easier for us to do so with some of the Q and a sessions we've already had right now, or some virtual conferences that I have presented at we've received questions and feedback. And we've been able to get that back into the development process and get those things either addressed or fixed, or we make sure that we're including them in our trainings. So we want to hear from you. So as you're going through and reading the materials, if you have questions, please make sure that you're reaching out to us and you're submitting questions. We'll provide that con uh, those, um, links in the email addresses and everything else again at the end, but it's critical that we hear from you because again, our intent was to get out in person into see you all. I have more, um, I know with our stakeholders so that we can make sure that we are providing the best training and services that we could possibly provide. And without the ability to do that, um, as as much we had hoped to do, we're really counting on your feedback after October 15th, as you start to start to use the system, we also are going to hold several virtual question and answer sessions. So we'll start communicating that out. I think our emails go out pretty much every Thursday, if not more frequently at this point, since we're nearing October 15th, but we'll be, you'll be able to sign up for these sessions on the training resource page so that you can come and ask us any questions you have around use of the system right now, since, um, all we have available is onboarding and getting your entity, uh, logged in to, to just grants. We've already had one Q and a session, uh, around that. And we had some really valuable questions and a lot of great information shared, and you can attend more than one. There's nothing limiting you. Attendance is limited, but, um, if you are using the system and you attend one Q and a, but then you use the system further and you need to attend another one. You're more than welcome to do that. We record each of those. So there's a lot of recordings, um, and demonstrations that we'll be posting as we go live. And as we capture that stuff in real time, so we're doing everything we can to be able to support you all in this transition. And as I mentioned earlier in both Lauren and Bob has mentioned, transition is indeed scary, but, um, nothing is happening to your funds. It will still be there. So if you don't need to know how to do everything on day one, so take it one day at a time, become familiar. Um, the most important thing is, is to get you logged on, and if you can get logged on then, um, the rest we hope is, um, as all there and at your fingertips and available for you to be able to hit the ground running on October 15th.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Lauren mentioned, I know we also, uh, Maria talked about getting feedback. I know we've heard some feedback. People are getting some emails and they're not sure if there they need to worry about and talk a little bit about the challenge of, um, the transition here. Um, people paying attention to the information that's coming up,
Speaker 2:Right? So that is one thing I don't, I don't think we had, um, we had anticipated, but we got, uh, we received several messages from our grantees, um, saying, you know, we're getting these emails. What are they? And then it made sense to us. If you're getting emails, it's talking about, um, your grant funding and you need to log onto this to register for this. We know that, um, people are very wary about doing things like that. If they don't know for sure that it is, um, an email from, um, a source that they can trust. So we have had several people say, we're not really sure what to do with this is a spam, we're just deleting them. So don't delete the emails. And I think we may have changed some of the language now that says, you know, this is an official email from the department of justice. Um, so make sure you read the emails. I think we, uh, we're able to see who's opened the emails. I think probably less than half of the people who have received the correspondence have actually opened the messages. Um, so we're just trying to get the word out as much as possible again, with our constituents, if you are listening to this and if you're part of a listserv or any kind of professional group, um, that includes other DOJ grantees, you know, help us spread the word. Um, if you can, we had a, I think a sexual assault coalition asked us about it and we said, no, please tell all of the other sexual assault coalitions, they need to pay attention to these emails and, and register and follow all the, um, the instructions that they receive.
Speaker 1:Maria. Anything to add to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So similarly, some of the feedback that a lot of the feedback that we've been getting is that perhaps your Sam information is not up to date or to has an outdated EBITDA point of contact. And if you recall, that's where we started. We want to start with that source of truth about your entity information. So if you still haven't seen emails and you're checking your spam and your mail, and you still just can't find anything about this, then we highly recommend that you go to sam.gov. You can easily search on your entity, find your EBITDA point of contact information. Uh, if that person is incorrect, then go through the steps in Sam so that you can update that person to the correct EBITDA point of contact. And then once that person is updated, you would just reach out to our support desk and we'll resend you a new invitation so that you can get onboarded as quickly as possible. But that's the other big issue that we've heard is that their Sam profiles aren't up to date. So we've been sending emails to someone who has perhaps left the organization, um, or the contact information is wrong.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Uh, before I close, I just want to ask each of you, um, to tell me and Lauren, I'll start with you. What, what's the one good thing about this? This is a lot of work. It's a lot of effort going into this. Um, let's end on a good note. What's, what's the one thing that you're looking forward to with this new system?
Speaker 2:Um, okay. Well, and I will say, um, there are a lot of good things, but I will mention one. I have been at the office of violence against women for a very long time, and I remember, um, helping to develop the grants management system back in 2000. So as we know, um, technology has advanced in the last 20 years. So we are very excited to have the updated system, but for one particular thing that I think grantees will really appreciate, um, is the ability for organizations or entities as we're calling them, um, to be able to manage their profiles and all of their DOJ awards, that would be OVW OJP and cops in one place. So, um, I think that is going to be a huge benefit to grantees. That would be my, my top thing them and mentioned,
Speaker 3:Maria, what about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in addition to that, Lauren touched on it that the modern technology is, has just been fascinating to see and to see it develop so rapidly. And I'm really excited about that. And so while that might not feel like a immediate benefit to our external stakeholders, it really is because, um, as Lauren mentioned, GMs is old. GMs was developed a long time ago. I too was around 20 years ago when it was being developed and we've come a long way. And so I'm just really excited to be able to see how we can flourish as an organization ourselves, as DOJ has ourselves to be able to better manage our grants with our stakeholders, um, and not be limited by the technology and with that is the access to data. So being able to have all of your DOJ awards in one location, and I mentioned it earlier is having that comprehensive access data. So we're excited about the opportunities we have to continue to build upon just grants and then hands just grants so that we can start really sharing with the public and sharing with our stakeholders, the good work that they're doing in their communities, and that they're doing with taxpayer dollars, by being able to show that show the data that we've been collecting over the years, but it has been a real, been really constrained by technology on how quick we can get that out or how quickly we can share that out or in what manners we can share that out. But with the easy access to data in, in, in knowing that we have the modern technology to enhance upon that we can get some of those things out to public websites and other mechanisms in a much quicker fashion. So I'm really excited to see how that starts to show up in the, in the future.
Speaker 1:Thank you. And thank you both for taking the time. And I know you're very busy and I really appreciate it. Um, we really just want to get the word out. So I would just, um, ask our listeners if you know of anyone who may benefit from hearing this conversation, please share it with them, uh, help us raise the awareness about this important transition. And we will put all kinds of links and phone numbers and places to get more information on our website with this. Uh, but we really, we really could use everyone's help, uh, making sure that people who need to know this information, get it, and, um, know that we're here to help, um, reach out and give us a call. Um, you can find more information@justice.gov backslash OVW backslash podcasts. That's where we will have all these links and phone numbers. And you can always give us a call at(866) 655-4482. Appreciate you tuning in to this edition of patchwork. If you think of something that you'd like for us to cover in the future, please let us know love to hear from you. Thanks again. Thank you both.
Speaker 4:[inaudible].