Human Trafficking Grantees Performance Measure Reporting Orientation

TINA DIMACHKIEH: Thank you for joining us for the human trafficking grantees performance measure reporting orientation for new grantees. I'm Tina Dimachkieh, I’m a training and technical assistance specialist. I provide contractor support as part of the performance management team, supporting all OVC grantees across OVC programs. For today's session, we will be talking about providing an overview of the performance measure reporting for OVC. We then will dive into talking about reports and due dates for human trafficking grantees, and then we will shift over to speaking about the performance measurement tool, the main tool that you will be using for performance requirements for your OVC awards. After we will focus on the JustGrants portion and the semiannual reports, and provide some resources along with responding to the Q&A, and providing contact information.

There's a lot of information to be covered in our session today, but if you need any assistance or have any questions after the session, after you've viewed this session, you can always contact us and we can provide assistance in that way.

To begin, we're going to speak about the performance -- performance measure reporting and why performance measure reporting is important to OVC. The accuracy and timeliness of reporting data to OVC is extremely important. And it is a very huge responsibility for our OVC grantees to ensure that they are reporting on time, following reporting requirements, and that the data is as accurate as possible. The data collected from our grantees will help OVC demonstrate the value and the specific benefits of the programs to, whether it's Congress, federal or state government agencies, the victim services field, the general public, and other stakeholders as well. Based on the data that's being provided by our grantees, we are able to generate annual reports and other types of reports on the program -- on the human trafficking program to demonstrate outputs of grant funds used for human trafficking victims’ services. 

We're also able to emphasize progress made towards achievement of OVC’s strategic mission and any program goals for specific offices and programs. We're also able to reach target audiences and grantees in the general public through the data that's being collected from our grantees.

What this means for our grantees in the day-to-day around performance management is that grantees are responsible for collecting data. Being responsible for collecting data means that the grantees are expected to gather OVC performance measures for their awards. They're also expected to make sure that their organization has the capabilities in place to capture and securely save performance measure data. They're also required to track data internally and have internal processes in place to be able to track data accurately, with ensuring that the performance measure definitions are understood across their organization with anybody that's working--working on the award and focusing on award objectives and goals for OVC.

After collecting and tracking data, grantees are required to report that data into the reporting system that's provided by OVC. This -- for this step, grantees should establish a point of contact for reporting, someone that is either a grant manager at the organization level working on that OVC award or anyone in that role. They're also supposed to have a backup to that point of contact in case anything were to happen. Both of those individuals should have accounts created for them for reporting. They should also know the reporting due dates and deadlines and understand the platforms for OVC reporting.

Grantees are also expected to analyze the data and make sure that data is accurate and review the data and understand it. This will help grantees understand the progress made towards goals and objectives of the award, but it will also help grantees with future funding applications.

The two different platforms that grantees will be using for reporting on human trafficking awards are the performance measurement tool, the PMT, and the JustGrants platform. The PMT is a web-based reporting system, in which grantees can electronically submit qualitative and quantitative performance data. This is mostly where the numbers go into the system. 

The JustGrants platform, many of our grantees should be familiar with JustGrants as it is a grant management system that provides applicants and grantees with an end-to-end experience throughout key parts of the grant management life cycle. For purposes of performance reporting and performance reporting requirements, JustGrants will be the secondary platform that is used to complete the reporting requirements on the OVC human trafficking awards. Both of these reporting systems will be used to complete performance requirements for human trafficking awards. And in future slides, I will be speaking to what each platform is responsible for.

Human trafficking grantees have a specific set of performance measures – we call them topic areas – where they provide data back to OVC on specific questions and measures that are asked. These topic areas are what you see on the screen here. We have trafficking populations, victim services, partnerships, training, strategic planning, task force, personnel, policies/procedures/protocols, investigation/prosecution, community outreach, data collection and evaluation, and TTA providers. These different topic areas are not all requirements for all of our human trafficking grantees. Human trafficking grantees are required to complete those topic areas that are assigned to the solicitation that their award falls under. We group the performance reports based on solicitation. And we also have a solicitation map available to our grantees, that outlines which topic areas that award is responsible for. Our solicitation map is updated and available on the OVC webpage under the Human Trafficking Performance Measures webpage, and it is updated every January that -- to include new solicitations and new awards. 

Grantees also have -- will have access to the performance measures PDF that's specific for their human trafficking program. The PDF -- the performance measure PDF will include the topic areas that are available to OVC grantees. However, that does not mean that grantees are responsible for all those topic areas in the performance measures PDF. They're only responsible for those aligned to their solicitation, the solicitation that their award falls under. 

Our grantees also have access to a data Excel spreadsheet. That is a job aid for grantees to help them collect data throughout the quarter. This job aid is very important for any grantee that does not have a data collection mechanism or tool in place, that they are using throughout the quarter. They can take the job aid and tailor it, make sure that it only includes the topic area that applies to their award and add the data quarterly to the job aid before they transfer it into the right system. All of this information can be found on the OVC performance measurement web page and we will be providing links to that webpage later on in our slides.

Okay, so for reports and due dates, the two different platforms, the PMT and JustGrants, are responsible for different types of reports. The first report you see on the screen here is the quarterly performance measure report. This type of report is completed every 3 months and it includes data on award activities, and it's entered directly into the PMT. Human trafficking grantees have the ability to combine any subgrantee or partner data as applicable if their award includes funding being provided to a subgrantee. The quarterly report is to be thought of as the numbers report. This is where mostly numerical data will be shared with OVC in the PMT. 

The semiannual report is the second report that grantees are responsible for, and this report, in addition to quarterly data reporting, it includes narrative questions related to grantee and subgrantee activity. The narrative questions cover progress towards goals and objectives. They are a separate set of questions that is directly found in the JustGrants platform, and it covers -- these questions cover the previous 6 months of grant activity and the upcoming 6 months of grant activity. It's -- it's the semiannual report, and that is why it covers 6 months of grant activity whereas the quarterly report only covers 3 months of grant activity.

And if you look on the screen here, you'll also see the close out and final report. For all our new grantees with brand new OVC awards, this  closeout or final report is far--far into the future for you all. We do include it here just so it is on your radar and that you understand that at the end of an award whether when you reach your end date, or if you've expended all your OVC funds, you will be responsible for a final report. The final report includes an aggregate of qualitative and quantitative data over the life of the award. And there is a set of narrative questions that grantees will be answering those narrative questions. It will speak to the entirety of the award, and not only to a semiannual period as the other reports would have.

Here is our reporting schedule. The OVC performance management team follows the federal fiscal year, which starts on October 1st, and ends on September 30th and has four different quarters for reporting. As you see on the screen here, every 3 months a quarter closes. So, October 1st to December 1st is one quarter, and grantees are required to complete their performance measure reporting by January 30. At the end of the close of a quarter, grantees will have 30 days to complete reporting.

Because we have two different types of reports, there are quarterly reports that grantees complete every quarter and semiannual reports that are completed every 6 months. You will see on the screen here which quarters require that semiannual portion of the narrative questions and which quarters don't. Quarter 1 and quarter 3 require the narrative questions, which means those are semiannual reporting periods and, as you see in the right-hand column, there's a requirement to complete and upload those reports into JustGrants by the end of that reporting period. That is for the January reporting period and the July reporting period. Grantees are responsible for, in addition to the quarterly reports in PMT, they are responsible for uploading data into the JustGrants platform and responding to those narrative questions in the JustGrants platform for the semiannual portion. 

You'll also see the last reporting period on the screen here. Again, this is for final reporting. This is for after an end date has been reached for an award and a grantee is in the closeout process of their award. An end or last recording period is due within 120 days after an award ends, and grantees will be responsible for completing narrative questions that speak to the entirety of their award. 

There's an important note on this screen that I think would be very important for our new grantees to keep in mind. Reporting is required each quarter even if there was no grant activity. We will speak to grant activity in a few slides, but once you have a start date that has been reached and you’ve started on your OVC award, you are required to report every reporting period. Whether you’ve had an approved budget, whether there has been grant activity performed or not, you are still required to enter the system and report. You would just need to explain to OVC that there hasn't been any grant activity, that you have not spent any funding or begun work towards any goals and objectives. But within the different systems, the platforms, you are required to complete reporting in order to satisfy those requirements for the quarter and the semiannual periods.

So the performance measurement tool, the first platform that our grantees are -- will be utilizing to complete reporting, we are going to talk about how to access it, where to access it, provide some tips on how to navigate the platform and then dive right into completing reporting and the different functionalities of the system. The performance measurement tool, the PMT, can be found by going to the ojpsso.ojp.gov webpage. Each grantee, any new grantee with a new OVC award will be provided access to the PMT. Initial access will be created by our PMT team, our  PMT help desk. And initial access will only be granted to the organization point of contact [POC], the POC that is listed, individual that's listed in JustGrants as the grant award administrator, and no other individuals at the organization will receive the initial access aside from that grant award administrator. If any grantee staff members need access, they will be able to gain access later on, but that initial access is only granted to one individual in the organization. The point of contact ones, we've created an account for them. They will receive an auto generated email from the OVC PMT help desk with first time login instructions. Some of these emails, sometimes do tend to go to junk folder. So, if you know that a grant award administrator is supposed to receive first time login instructions, do make sure that they check their junk folder for that email. 

If an organization has had other OVC awards under other programs in the past, or is currently working on awards that are active under different OVC programs, they will already have a profile and now that profile will include a separate tab for each program. The human trafficking award will be listed specifically under the human trafficking tab, and that is how they will be able to locate their information for their human trafficking award.

A few tips about how to use the system. Our PMT system operates best in the latest -- latest Internet browser. So, if you are using Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, just make sure that that browser is updated and it's in the latest version in order for the system, and the functionalities in the system to operate as they should.

Grantees are required to respond to all the questions on each page of the report before they can complete their report and should respond to all the questions and then hit Save and Continue in order to move forward. Any field marked with the number -- with the word “number” grantees are required to enter a numerical value into that response whether it's a 0 or any type of number. That's the only value that will be accepted by the system. Grantees will not be able to enter Not Applicable or No or Yes; they have to enter a numerical value in order to proceed. We also cannot enter any special characters.

Be sure to avoid the Back button as the system could experience some issues or delete certain data that's been entered into the system if you have not saved -- clicked the Save and Continue buttons. 

If you hover over any underlying text, the system will prompt an explanation to appear for that specific performance measure. I will be showing you an example of that later on in our slides.

Be sure to frequently save your data in the system, because the system does time out after 30 minutes of inactivity.

Here is what the web page will look like once you've logged into the system again. In order to access the system grantees needs to visit ojpsso.ojp.gov. And we encourage you to bookmark this link as you will be using it every quarter. So every 90 days you'll need to access the system. After you log in using an email and a password you will be directed to the OVC PMT initial page. This is where you will select OVC PMT as you see in this screenshot here in order to enter your profile. 

Once you select OVC PMT you will be directed to this page. The default tab is the Profile tab but we will go through the tabs in order. The first tab that’s available to the user is the OVC PMT Home tab. This tab includes general information about OVC awards and reports and reporting requirements. This tab also includes a reporting schedule that showcases the fiscal year and the different quarters across the fiscal year. 

The next tab is the Administration tab. This tab is extremely important in helping our users create additional users at their organization. This tab includes two subtabs. The first subtab is for federal awards, and it includes details about the different federal awards under that specific program. So if you have multiple human trafficking awards reporting in the PMT, they will all be showcased there, and some information about them, such as the funding amount, the start and end date, and a description of what the work that's being completed under that award is. And also the second subtab under the Administration tab is for user management information, where you can add new users, and I will show you how to do so. 

The third tab is the Profile tab. And again, as I said, this is the default tabs that the system will direct you to once you enter the OVC PMT. This tab includes contact information for the organization. It also includes the information of the POC, which is the grant award administrator pulled from JustGrants, and a list of the awards that are available under that human trafficking program for that organization. This is where you can find information about who the grant manager for your award is, and information about the funding start and end date and the description of the specific award.

The next tab is the Enter Data tab. This is where you will complete data entry for the performance measures, and this is the most important tab in the PMT that you will be visiting every quarter.

Next, we have the Reports tab where grantees can review reporting statuses for different reports. It shows current and past reports, whose completed them, and when they were completed. It's also the tab where grantees will be generating a semiannual PDF report that they will be attaching when they perform the semiannual reporting portion of their requirements for reporting in the JustGrants platform. I will speak more to that later on in our session. 

And then, lastly, we have the Need Help? tab. This tab will link grantees to our webpage where our resources can be found on how to navigate the PMT system, how to contact the helpdesk, and additional report-- recorded webinars such as this one.

The Administration tab. If you hover over the Administration tab you will be presented with the User Management tab and it will look as the screenshot here. You will have a list of current users for your organization that have access to that profile. And you will have a button that says, Add a New User. If you select the Add a New User button, all you need to do is make sure that you have a first and last name for that staff member, an email address, and a phone number and you will add that individual. Once that individual is added, they will receive that auto generated email from the OVC PMT help desk with first time login instructions, and be able to access the system on their own.

There is no limit on how many users from an organization can be added into the system. However, we encourage our grantees to make sure that they are managing this list in case someone no longer needs access to the PMT at the organization, whether it's because they have been promoted, or they're working on a different award or program, or they've left the organization. Make sure to visit this list often and manage it and delete any users that no longer need access. We also encourage grantees to not share accounts across users for security purposes.

So the Enter Data tab and quarterly reporting. This is where our grantees need to go every time they are completing a quarterly report. They will select the Enter Data tab and then they will need to complete a few steps in order to access their report. They'll need to select the federal award from the federal awards list. If there's only one human trafficking award for that organization, it will be the one that shows up. If there are multiple, please be sure to select the right one. Do not enter data for a different program incorrectly.

Once the federal award is selected the grantee will then need to select the reporting period that they are completing. As you see here all the reporting periods that are available, or that have been completed in the past, will show up when you use the drop-down button or the drop-down menu. If you are looking for a specific reporting period and you -- for a current reporting period, and you cannot find it, that means that prior reporting periods have not been completed. The system will not make a reporting period available until the prior reporting period has been submitted and completed. So you'll need to check on those, make sure that they all have all been submitted before you can access that new reporting period.

Once you have selected the reporting period, and you selected Continue, the system will then unlock or open up the report for -- for the grantee for completion. The first question bank or topic area that is available to grantees is the grant activity topic area. All grantees, regardless of what solicitation their award falls under, or what performance measures have been aligned to their award, they all have to answer the grant activity question bank. 

There are two questions in the current activity question bank. The first one asks, is this the last recording period during which this award will have data to report. The answer should always be No, as you see on the screen here, especially for a new grantee. The only time that a grantee will answer Yes, but this is the last reporting period, is if they have reached the end date of their award, if they are in closeout process, or if they have expended all their funding, and they no longer will be using funding in an upcoming reporting period.

The second question is asking if there was grant activity during the reporting period. This question is extremely important. This will determine whether a grantee needs to provide data to OVC or not. Grant activity is described as funding spent. Were there any OVC funds used during the reporting period that the grantee needs to collect and report data on. If the answer is Yes, the grantee will then be moved on or be prompted to complete the additional performance measures for their award. If the answer is No, they will need to provide an explanation as to why they did not use any grant funding during that reporting period and the system will then remove all of the upcoming performance measures, because the system is only designed to -- to collect data on OVC funding spent. Grantees should not be reporting activity or data in the PMT on any activity that happened at the organization that was not due to grant funding or done with grant funding. We are only looking for OVC grants funds and the data we're collecting is around grant funding that's provided by OVC for that specific award. 

It is okay to say, no, there was no grant activity used. You just need to provide an explanation. For new grantees in their first reporting period this is very common, that maybe budgets have not been completed, staffing has not been completed, or they're still working on finalizing goals and objectives. And for that reason, you have not spent any OVC funding and you are unable to complete grant activity for the award just yet. You would just need to select No, provide an explanation, and then move on to the rest of the report, which would be completing the report and then providing semiannual narrative responses in JustGrants and your report will be completed.

In the Enter Data tab, the question banks will show up at the top as you see here, dependent on what the response is under the Grant Activity tab. If you select Yes, there was grant activity, the additional question banks will show up at the top as you see here. If you select No, all these responses -- all these question banks will be deleted from the system and you'll only have the Review tab available to you.

Also, within the Enter Data tab, within the different question banks, we have different types of questions. There are two different types of questions. There are baseline questions and current reporting questions. The current reporting questions are what you're completing every quarter on current reporting and current grant activity. However, the baseline questions are for new grantees, and those that are reporting into the system for the first time. The baseline questions gather information about grant -- or about activity that occurred prior to the grant becoming operational. This means that we are collecting information and data on activity that took place prior to the OVC funding being used. This is a specific question that helps us gauge what grant activity will look like, and gauge progress towards goals and objectives and how things were looking like before grant funding became available and now after grant funding has become available.

The baseline questions are only answered one time for that first reporting period that the grantee has. You will have access to them and you will see them in the system, but you will not be able to change those responses or enter data differently in future reporting periods.

Be sure to scroll down once you've completed baseline questions and use the plus sign to expand the accordion for the current reporting questions. Again, if grantees don't complete all the questions in the report, the system will not allow them to complete data entry and submit their report. And we do you have a lot of accordions embedded into the system that grantees need to click on in order to expand additional information. As you see the arrow showing the “+” sign here.

I do have an example to share with you on once you do click on that “+” sign, this is what will happen. The baseline questions will then be collapsed and the current quarter reporting questions will be expanded where you can see what information you are reporting on.

The system across the data and tree tabs within the question banks has additional definitions for our grantees to help better understand the performance measures, and the questions that are being asked. As you see on the screen here, the yellow box includes additional definitions for our grantees. Be sure to review these boxes before you complete data entry to understand the questions better.

We also have specific instructions embedded into the system throughout that speaks to specific questions and specific measures as you see here. You will need to hover over any underlined question sets or questions and additional instructions will pop up for that specific question that can help you answer the question.

In the system, we also have a lot of different skip patterns, accordions, and show and hide functions that have been embedded into the system. The automatic skip logics that are embedded into the question banks will -- are important to keep in mind and to pay attention to, in order to make sure that all the questions have been answered accordingly based on the responses to prior questions. And I'll show you what that means; based on a yes or no question, it determines whether a grantee should answer the questions that come after that specific question. And a grantee should also pay attention to the “+” and “-“ signs, indicating that there's additional data that's required for completion within the show and hide functions of the PMT.

Also be careful to scan the Review tab very carefully for alerts indicating that specific questions have not been answered and that some data is missing. And again, any reports with missing data will not -- will not be submitted. The system will not allow submission of reports if there are questions that have not been responded to.

Here is an example of the skip patterns. The system has instructions for those skip questions. if you look at question 17 it’s asking if the grantee provided services to new victims of trafficking during the reporting period. Based on the response that the grantee provides, there are additional questions that they may be responsible for. If they were to say Yes, they would just move on to question 18, if they were to say No, the system instructs them to skip to question 23. So the system will hide questions 18 through 22 if that grantee responds No to that question. 

Here is us selecting yes. If you select yes, there will be the additional questions that will pop up. If you select no, those questions 18 through 22 will be hidden. Within this -- these skip patterns there's also the accordions, as you see on the screen here. There are the “-” sign and the “+” sign indicating that there's additional information that is needed from the grantee. If you look at question 19, under that there's a “+” sign showing 19A through D. That's information that is provided and once you select that “+” sign additional questions or tables, as you see here, will pop up with these additional subtabs or sub questions as you see, like 19A, 19B, and so on.

Okay, additionally there are show and hide functions based on responses that the grantees provide within the victim services portion where grantees are instructed to check off the services that are being provided and based on the response that the grantee provides, the system will unlock the additional questions under that specific category. So you'll see question 31 has the options for A, B, C, D, E,  and F. If the grantee were to select one of those then additional questions for that subcategory will pop up, as you see 13A over here is now available to the grantee. 

We also have system validations that are embedded into the system, into the question banks, to help the grantee make sure that data entries are as accurate as possible and that the responses that they provided are as logical as possible. System validations are to ensure that their responses are accurate and to ensure that there are no errors throughout the data based on the responses that the grantee provided. You'll see on the screen here an example where an error message popped up because the grantee response was an illogical response. The numbers did not add up and the system is notifying them that that specific question -- the response to that specific question must equal a specific response that they had provided previously. 

These validations are for responses being less than, greater than, or equal to a specific response that the grantee has provided. The best way to explain the system validations would be a series of rules that are similar to 1+1 equals 2. And they are throughout the system. 

We do have a list of all of the validations that are available to our human trafficking grantees at the end of, or in the Need Help tab in the PMT. So you do have access to all of the validations in case you wanted to review them and see why certain error messages are popping up. 

Additional system validations are embedded within certain tables in the PMT. This specific table is around partner activities. If the grantee were to respond to -- or when the grantee is responding to the specific performance measure, they are required to enter the number of partners for each of these different options. If they enter the number 0, they can move on to the next partner. But if they enter anything larger than 0, whether it's 1 or 10, they are required to complete the second portion of that table and the other columns. They are required to click on the applicable radio buttons throughout the performance measure for that specific partner. The system will not allow you to move forward to the next set of questions if these radio buttons are not checked off, if the response to number of partners is anything larger than a 0.

Once a grantee has completed all reporting, they will be directed to the Review tab. In the Review tab, as I mentioned earlier, be sure to pay attention to any alerts that the system is notifying you of. As you see there are two columns, one for responses that are checked off, meaning that the grantee did provide a response for that specific measure. And the other column is for alerts, showing that certain questions are still required in that -- the requirement has not been satisfied and the answers have not been provided. 

If you do have alerts that are showing in the review tab, you can select on the required link and the system will direct you to that specific question that you missed. Certain questions could be missed based on the accordions and the show and hide functions. So the system tries to help our grantees see where they've missed certain questions and how to navigate to that specific question.

Once all the alerts have been addressed and all the questions have been answered, the grantee will be directed to the Confirmation tab under the Review tab. This is what the Confirmation tab looks like. You’ll need to review the data, and then you can mark the data entry as complete by clicking the checkmark, and then select the Save button and then verify that data entry is correct. 

You do have the option to add additional comments for our analysts and the grant manager if you'd like, but that is an option, it's not a requirement, and you can just select Save and Complete Reporting and your report will be submitted. The system will notify you that the report has been submitted.

The next step after you've completed data entry is to go to the Reports tab. You’ll go to the Reports tab and you will navigate to the specific award -- federal award. If you have multiple awards, make sure that you're selecting the right award and that’s on the top so you can see the reports for that specific award and not a different one. You can see the reporting period, the data entry status, whether it was completed or not or still in progress or not yet started, and you'll be able to see who completed reporting and when reporting was completed. 

If you need to complete any -- or if you identify any errors in your data, and you need to go in and update the data you can always contact the OVC PMT helpdesk and we can support you in unlocking your report for you. There is an unlock option. If the grantee completes reporting within a current reporting period, they have the ability to unlock a report themselves and make edits to that report before submission -- before the submission period is over. However, if it was out of a reporting period, you do have to contact the helpdesk and we can unlock a report on your behalf. 

The Reports tab is also very important for that second portion of requirements that grantees have to complete for their reporting, and that is for the semiannual portion. The semiannual reports are completed in the JustGrants platform, not in the PMT. However, you need to generate a PDF from the PMT that is attached in JustGrants. That PDF includes data over two quarters of reporting. So, the two quarters of data that were completed in the PMT will be available in that semiannual PDF document that grantees are generating in the PMT and uploading into JustGrants. This is how the OVC grant managers will have access to your data and be able to link it to your semiannual narrative responses. 

The steps to do so is going to the Reports tab, finding your award, and then going to the reporting period that you are working on and then finding the semiannual link as you see on the screen here, selecting the semiannual link and having that PDF generate and show two quarters of reporting. You will then save that to your computer as a PDF document somewhere that you can locate it. And then that is the PDF document that will be uploaded to JustGrants once you're completing reporting in JustGrants, and once you've completed the narrative questions in JustGrants.

You need to make sure that the semiannual report is a PDF document as you see here, that includes two quarters of reporting. It shows first quarter, second quarter, and then a total for reporting for those two quarters, and not the Excel spreadsheet. If you were to download the Excel spreadsheet from PMT that only shows one quarter of reporting, and that is not -- that will not satisfy the semiannual reporting requirements of including those two quarters. It has to be the PDF document.

So, to speak a little bit about semiannual reporting in the JustGrants platform, there is a set of 8 narrative questions that are to be completed by human trafficking grantees, around goals and objectives and grant activity over a 6 month period, the prior 6 months that are being reported on and upcoming activity over 6 months into the future. Grantees are expected to describe the status of program goals and objectives, to be as transparent and honest with OVC as possible around the status of their grant activity, and to make sure that they indicate if their agency is on track fiscally and programmatically to complete the goals and objectives within the time and budget limits.

For reporting on objectives for the next 6 months, grantees are expected to project as much as possible as what they know today. However, we understand that certain things can change and shift as we work day-to-day on our awards.

There's a question in the semiannual narrative that asks whether the grantee needs technical assistance from OVC to address any problems or delays and adverse conditions. Again, being honest is extremely important as your grant managers will be able to see that and provide additional support as needed based on the feedback that we are receiving from you all. 

The semiannual narratives are also the best opportunity for grantees to showcase the incredible work that they're doing and to highlight any specific or significant developments or success stories across their community, or within their organization, or the specific type of work that they are completing during the reporting period. This is a space to be able to do. 

There's also a specific question about sustainability of federal funding -- or after federal funding has ended and, you know, thinking about that from, from the beginning of an award period until the end of an award period will be very important in making sure that you are communicating to OVC whether the work will be sustained after grant funding is no longer is available.

In order to access the semiannual report in JustGrants, grantees should go, or will need to locate the Performance Measurement tab in JustGrants, and then they will need to locate that specific performance report for that specific period. All the performance reports can be found under the tasks area, and it shows a specific number of days until those reports are due, and when they become past due as well. Once the grantee locates the performance report for that specific semiannual reporting period, they will click on it and they will enter the report. Once they enter the report, they'll have access to those question sets as a link. As you see in the number one on the screen here, you will need to select those questions sets, and then the question sets will open up, and you'll be able to respond to the 8 different questions with narrative open-ended responses. You select the question sets -- and I'm sorry, you have to hit Begin and then you can access your question set. And once you've completed the question set you will save them and then you'll need to attach under the attachment section the semiannual PDF from PMT, in order to complete semiannual reporting requirements in JustGrants and submit the report. Your grant manager will be the next person that views that report, and they have the ability to request -- to change request it back to you as the grantee to make any edits or provide additional information.

If you have any difficulty accessing the JustGrants performance reports, be sure to contact the JustGrants helpdesk or reach out to JustGrants and see their training performance -- performance reporting training. They have a lot of incredible resources that are available that can help you through a step-by-step guide on how to report and complete performance measure reporting in JustGrants. And again, grantees are only accessing the JustGrants platform for performance reporting, twice a year, in January and July. And all new grantees will need to follow these requirements as well. So, even if an award was awarded by mid-December, they still have a responsibility to complete reporting in January, both in the PMT and in JustGrants.

For any additional resources around performance measure reporting, visit our human trafficking webpage -- on the performance measures webpage on the OVC website. We have user guides on how to use the PMT platform, recorded webinars and trainings around completion of reports, and performance management topics in general. And we also have an updated terminology -- dictionary and terminology resource that can help any new grantees in understanding the terminology that uses when, you know, reporting performance measures to the office. So, you can review that and really help understand -- help staff understand what exactly OVC is asking for within those specific measures.

Also, as I mentioned, JustGrants has a lot of resources as well, whether it's around the functionality of JustGrants, the different roles that are available in the system, or performance reporting in general. They have a specific guide to troubleshoot and find the question sets themselves that are required for reporting semiannual narrative responses. They have a guide on how to upload additional documents. This is where grantees are going to be uploading that PMT semiannual attachment. And they also have an infographic on how to submit a report, so step-by-step infographic for submitting a performance report.

How can we help you? The PMT team, the performance management team, is here to help. Please contact us, reach out to us, whether it's to ask a specific question about the measures or you know reporting requirements for your award in general, or if you have multiple awards, and you need help navigating how to collect data and respond to the different performance measures for those awards. We love scheduling sessions with our grantees. Our most common session is “Welcome to Performance Management” for any new staff members or if there's staff turnover or refresh for staff members that may need additional support in reporting. Our sessions are usually around 30 minutes, they are short sessions, but they can be longer or shorter than that. We're very flexible. And we usually do a screen share where we work together on identifying any errors or issues or challenges that the grantee is having and completing reports together if needed.

You can send us any questions, comments, or suggestions for technical assistance to our helpdesk. You can call or email us and create a ticket and the ticket will be routed to the right representatives to be able to assist you.

There are two different helpdesks. Our helpdesk is the PMT Tier Four helpdesk. There's also the JustGrants helpdesk, and they are two separate platforms and two separate teams. Our PMT helpdesk is here to help with any PMT-related issues, whether it's for new users, creating new accounts, assisting with PMT password recovery or account activation or any errors within the system, but also we're responsible for performance measure reporting in general and can assist with the performance measures themselves and the question banks in the topic areas. 

The JustGrants team is responsible for the functionality of JustGrants and that's who you would reach out to if you have any errors or issues that you're experiencing in JustGrants, whether it's around account creation, password resets, rules and onboarding, navigating any error messages or attaching and uploading documents in JustGrants. Here is the contact information for the two different helpdesks, and again, we will be sharing this information with you. All these slides will be sent to you after the session. But here's how to contact both of us.

With that I want to thank everyone for joining. Congratulations on your OVC awards, and good luck with the reporting on your OVC awards. We are here to help you if do you need any assistance from us.