Graduate Research Fellowship Program FastLane Enhancements, 08/01/2008

NSF has been updating its business procedures for administering Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) awards to institutions and to provide increased functionality in the GRFP FastLane module. The purpose of these updates is to improve NSF's management of GRFP funds and to enhance GRFP reporting and accountability at the Coordinating Official/program level and grantee institution level. The updates described below will become effective on August 1, 2008 and follow up on the enhancements made on May 20, 2008.

1) Coordinating Officials will be able to adjust a fellow's fellowship status and months on tenure in the annual GRF Expense Report (formerly the Expenditure Report) before submitting to NSF. Additionally, .pdf and .xls export capabilities will be provided for Expense Reports and Grants Rosters. Dollar value entries for the fellowship year stipend and cost of education allowance amounts will be limited to the maximum approved for that fellowship year. Stipend figures will be based on months of active tenure. Cost of education allowances will be limited to half of the maximum approved annual COE for one to six months of tenure and the full maximum annual COE for seven to twelve months of active tenure. Due to the technical nature of these changes, we are asking you to delay your submission of any outstanding expense reports until August 3, 2008 or later.

2) Coordinating Officials will be able to view a financial summary of the total amounts of fellowship award and amendments as well as award expenditures at both the institutional and program levels on a single web page. NSF is providing this new view capability as a tool to the grantee institutions to allow monitoring of award amounts received (derived from the NSF Financial Accounting System), institutional-level quarterly expenditure reporting in the FastLane Financial Functions (consistent with FFR/FCTR reporting), and the annual GRFP Expense Report submission via the FastLane GRFP module. Please note that the values displayed are only as accurate and up to date as your GRFP expense reports.

As a reminder, below is a brief summary of the changes made on May 20, 2008:

a) NSF is merging the role of GRFP Financial Official (FO) into that of the GRFP Alternate Coordinating Official (CO). Users with either Primary or Alternate CO permission (including former FO's) will be able to submit GRFP Expense Reports as well as administratively review and approve GRFP fellow tenure requests. Note that the submission and e-Certification/e-Sign process for the Expense Reports as well as the administrative review and approval process for the fellow tenure requests remain the same.

b) NSF is improving the host organization's control of the upcoming fellowship funding estimates by offering more Coordinating Official control over the Grants Roster. Specifically, COs will be able to adjust fellow tenure status and duration as well as actual funding amounts (with justification) on the Grants Roster. This modification enables the grantee organization to improve budget projection of the expected fellowship expenses, and to reach a clearer understanding with NSF of these funding needs. An opportunity will exist for submission of amended Grants Rosters later in the year if funding needs (based on Fellow affiliation and/or status) change.

c) To help alleviate the confusion that sometimes arises when a Fellow requests a change of institution, a modified procedure has been implemented with a set of email notifications and FastLane controls for the outgoing as well as incoming institution.

A Quick Reference guide to the enhanced screens with more detailed instructions will be available on the What's New? link starting August 1, 2008.