Interagency Agreements (IAA) Performance Reporting in PMT Training

TINA DIMACHKIEH: Hello, and thank you so much for joining us for the OVC Interagency Agreement Performance Measurement Tool Training. My name is Tina Dimachkieh and I will be your presenter for the day. I am a training and technical assistance specialist and I provide contractor support to OVC funding recipients around performance management and performance measures of their OVC funding. Before we go over the overview for the day, I do want to turn it over to our OVC colleagues, Anne and Jeff, so they can say a few remarks.

ANNE HAMILTON: Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Can you all hear me? Yes, okay. So, as Tina mentioned, my name is Anne Hamilton, and I think most of you know me on the call. I am the IAA coordinator for OVC. I just wanted to thank you so much for attending this webinar. We hope that it's really helpful for you. I know sometimes it's difficult to be introduced to another system, but we really think this is going to make things easier for you and for OVC.

Traditionally, I think there was a lot of guesswork involved with how to submit progress reports or what we're now calling performance measures. You weren't sure what you should report on, and who to send it to, and when. So, this system is going to clearly lay that out for you. So, we're really excited to have Tina and her team walk you through it. Now I'm just going to toss it over to Jeff to talk a little bit about the importance of gathering these measures.

JEFF NELSON: Yeah, hi, everybody. I just want to thank everyone for being willing to report all of the measures that you do for all your federal Victim Assistance programs. One area where I think it's incredibly important, especially with the crime victims fund balance being where it is right now, is when we do go to the hill. And when Kris Rose, Director Rose, does speak to appropriators, it's important to have these tangible measures in hand to say this is the type of funding, this is where the funding goes, this is who the victims are that we're serving. So, it's really, really important on the backend, as we collect this data over the years, to help us with future funding. That's just how it works. We're in constant communication with the appropriation staff, and this is the type of material and information that they're looking for, so, much appreciated on your end.

TINA DIMACHKIEH: Wonderful, thank you both so much. And so, for today's session, we are going to go over the performance measure reporting. I will go over the requirements for reporting, the due dates and the types of questions that are in the report for the performance measures. And then we will focus our session on the Performance Measurement Tool itself.

I will be sharing information about the Performance Measurement Tool, the PMT. I will be sharing screenshots, and how to navigate the system, and providing highlights on the best way to use the functionality of the system as you complete your OVC performance measure reporting. And then, at the end, we'll discuss a few next steps, provide resources, and contact information.

Okay, so, to go ahead and get started, we're going to talk about reporting, reports, and deadlines. What you all as partners need to know today is that federal partners with OVC Interagency Agreements are going to begin reporting in the OVC PMT system for performance measure data in October 2023.

All federal partners will be collecting data on agreement activity on federal funding provided by OVC each semiannual reporting period over the life of the agreement. And I will explain what that means and what the different semiannual periods are in a moment.

Upon receiving access to the PMT in the first week of October, so, you will be receiving access to the system next week, all federal partners should enter data for agreement activities that occurred in two separate reporting periods into the PMT. The two separate reporting periods will go back to activities as far as October 2022.

Because you are reporting semiannually, that means there are two reporting periods. The first reporting period that will be available to you in the PMT is the reporting period for grant activity from October 2022 to March 2023. And then the second reporting period that will be available is April 2023 to September 2023. That latter one is the current reporting period, and I'll explain what I mean when we go over the reporting schedule.

But for the October to November reporting period, that is about to open up in the PMT next week, you would typically be reporting on grant or on funding activity from April 2023 to September 2023, that 6-month period. However, because the PMT is new and you have not reported any data to OVC for any prior activity where funding was used, this is why we are going back to October 2022 and adding that additional reporting period from October to March, those additional 6 months.

Okay, so, here are the report dates. I don't want to say due dates because there's a lot of information on this screen. So, there are two. Our federal partners report semiannually. This means twice a year, every 6 months.

The reporting periods are from October 1st to March 31st, that's the first reporting period, and the second reporting period is from April 1st to September 30. When I say from that specific date, it means when activity for funding spent took place.

So, October 1st to March 31st, any activity that took place within those 6 months, the system will open up submission for them between April 1st and May 30 of that year. The deadline to submit, meaning the last day to submit data on that activity for that reporting period, is May 30. The data that will be submitted is quantitative data reporting, which are the performance measures. I like to think of those as the numerical values that you are collecting and entering into the system, in addition to Semiannual Narrative Questions. Those are the open-ended, essay-format questions that you would also be providing to OVC in the PMT.

The second reporting period is for funding activity that took place between April 1st and September 30. The submission period, meaning when the reporting will be open in the PMT, is from October 1st to November 30. And the last date to submit your data into the PMT, for that semiannual reporting period, is November 30. So, as you see, here, you have 60 days to enter data into the system. And the data, again, for the second semiannual period is the same as the first one, is quantitative data, performance measures, and Semiannual Narrative Questions.

The performance measures in the questions will not be changing every 6 months. It is the same information that you will be providing to OVC based on the funding activity that took place or activity that took place with OVC funds. I do see a question in the chat. The reporting periods will not be combined for the initial reporting period. That is why we are asking that you complete two separate reporting periods because we are not combining the data. It is based on 6 months' activity. Thank you for that question.

Okay, so, the question set: the performance measures that our federal partners will be reporting data on as listed here. I will go through them, but I do want to let you know that you will only be responsible for question sets that are assigned to your specific agreement and your specific obligation.

We have a map that shows what question sets are assigned to what agreements. So, you will not be responsible for all of these question sets, which is based on the type of work that you're completing under your agreement. You should also only be including data on OVC-funded activities into the PMT. You'll only respond to the questions that are specific to your agreement and the work that is specifically funded by OVC.

Any activity completed with any other funding stream or funding sources should not be collected or entered into the system. We're only looking for OVC activity. The question sets, here, there's program activity. Everybody is responsible for completing program activity. That asks about reporting schedules and about whether there was grant or funding activity or not, and I will show you what that question looks like.

Then there's IAA-funded staff and services, emergency funding for victims, training, technical assistance, technology development, data gathering, collaborative partnerships, victim services, and Semiannual Narrative Questions. That last one, the Semiannual Narrative Questions, all our federal partners will be completing that set of questions as well.

So, the top one, program activity, and the bottom one, Semiannual Narrative Questions, everybody on this call here today with us in this session will be completing those questions, and I will go over them. The types of questions, I mentioned this briefly about the data, but there are quantitative reporting questions. Those are the standard performance measure data about the OVC-funded program activities that were completed during that reporting period that you're reporting data on. Again, those are the numerical values as I think of them, where you're collecting the numbers and entering the numbers into the system.

The second type of questions is the narrative questions. Those are the qualitative information about program goals, objectives, any other factors that have impacted the program delivery. And they are open-ended, essay-form questions that you'll be completing. They may include numbers, if you are sharing information about the data that you collected, and they may not include numbers. That's really up to the responses that you are providing.

This is the chance where partners can explain to OVC any information that they really would like to share about the agreement, any delays, any challenges, any opportunities, any success stories. Really anything that you want the OVC team to be aware of and to be able to learn about the agreement or share with others, you would be able to include that in those narrative questions.

Okay, so, with that overview, we are going to go straight into the PMT, the Performance Measurement Tool. We'll refer to it as the PMT, and so, you'll get familiar with that. The PMT itself is a web-based reporting system in which grantees and OVC-funded partners can electronically submit qualitative and quantitative program performance data.

The system has been used across OVC programs, whether it's for grantees or any other funding recipients, or, now, federal partners, like yourself. The performance management team, on our end, we love the PMT. We've gathered so much information and so much data. Our data analysts have been able to use that data, and OVC grant managers and different programs have been able to do so many great things with the data that's being provided by funding recipients. So, we really do like this platform and we really hope that, after this training, you'll like it as well.

Okay, so, access and the login page. So, every federal partner will be receiving access to an account created by the PMT team, by our team, by next week. So, you will have access to the system next week so you can start your data entering and complete your reports for the two reporting periods that will be open in the system next week. Initial access will only be granted to the organization point of contact that has been provided to OVC by the federal partner.

So, there's only one individual that will be receiving access next week, initial access to the system. So, if you are not the point of contact, you are somebody that is attending this training because you will be completing data in the system. Please be sure to connect with that point of contact or find out who the point of contact that was shared with OVC is, because they are the first individual that will receive initial access to the system.

The point of contact will receive an auto-generated email from the OVC PMT Helpdesk with log-in instructions. That email sometimes does go to junk mail, so please be on the lookout, or have that point of contact person be on the lookout, for that email. It will have a link in it. You'll click on the link and you'll be able to be directed to create a first-time password and challenge questions or security questions so you can access the system.

The PMT link itself is https://ojpsso.ojp.gov as you see on the screen here. We do encourage our funding recipients and our partners to bookmark that link because you will be using it frequently over the life of the agreement. You'll be using it at least twice a year and sometimes it gets lost if we don't have it bookmarked or saved somewhere.

After you have gained access to the system and you've entered the first screen, it will look just like that screenshot, here, and you will need to select "OVC PMT," that link. Once you select that link, you will then be directed to your profile for your Interagency Agreement to enter your data. I do want to let you know that there is no limit on how many users within a partner organization can have access to the system.

So, even though the point of contact is the person that receives initial access, you will be able to create additional accounts and additional users in the system once that first individual has activated their account. So, anybody on this call, here, if you will be needing access to the system and you're not the point of contact, do not worry. You will be receiving access. You will be able to have an account, and I will be showing you in just a few slides how to get an account created for yourself. We also can do that for you at the PMT Helpdesk.

Okay, so once you've logged into the system, you will have the Navigation Menu at the top. The first tab in the Navigation Menu, these orange tabs that you see in the screenshot, here, the first one is the "OVC PMT Home." That has general information about the system itself, about your agreement, and about reports in general. And it also has the reporting schedule on there for you. That schedule that I just shared with you a few slides ago will be on that homepage as well.

So, if you wanted to screenshot it from there or check in, make sure that you know the different dates for reporting, you can always access it in the "Home" tab. The "Administration" tab, that second tab in the orange line, that has details about the federal agreements, the description of the obligations, and where to add new user information. And I will show you the two sub-tabs, and we will go through adding a new user together in a moment. The third tab is the "Profile" tab, and that tab is the default tab.

When you first access the OVC PMT link, the system will direct you to the "Profile" tab, that profile page, that's the default tab when you first log in. That tab has contact information about your organization, the organization point of contact, and all the agreements that have been listed under OVC, all the obligations.

Then we have the "Enter Data" tab, which is where you enter the data, it's in the name, and that is the one that you'll be visiting the most. It's the data entry pages for the performance measures themselves: you will need to enter the Obligation Number that you're reporting on, you'll need to enter the dates that you're reporting on, in order to have access to the performance measures, and we will be going through all of that in a little bit.

The "Reports" tab is where you can find the reporting status for all your reports that you've completed, any outstanding reports, current and past reports, and you can also generate PDFs of those reports and the data that was entered for each semiannual period as well. So, you could have that for your own records.

Then we have the "Need Help" tab. That has resources or it connects you to our "Resource" page on how to use the PMT. It connects you to the Interagency Agreement performance measures page on the OVC website, but it also has information about certain system functions and rules that I will be going over later on in our session. And then at the end, there's that "Logout" tab, and that is to exit the system.

Okay, so going to the "Administration" tab. Once you hover over the "Administration" tab, you will have the option to either go to the "Obligations," the "Agreements," or to the "User Management" tab. You will click on the "User Management" tab, and that is where you can add a new user. As you see on the list, here, we've clicked on the "User Management" tab, and it lists the current users that are in your organization.

This is a test account. So, all this information is template information. It's not any specific partner account. But once you click on the "User Management" button or tab, you will be directed to the list of current users that are available. This is where you'll see the "Add a New User" button.

To add a new user, all you need is a first and last name, an email address and a phone number, and then you will select "Add User," and then we will pop up on that list as well as you see for our template, here. We do highly encourage you to visit this list frequently. In case someone is no longer working on your team or with your organization, you can delete that individual and they would no longer have access to the system for security reasons. So, do visit it frequently.

And then, also, once you add a new user, they will receive that initial email, that auto generated email, from the OVC PMT Helpdesk with a link so they can register their account and gain first time access and create a password and add security questions and challenge questions. And if you are having any difficulties with this portion and you want to add a few users, you can, of course, always message or email the PMT Helpdesk or give us a call and we can help you add users.

Okay, the next tab that we are going to focus on is the "Enter Data" tab. As I said, the "Enter Data" tab, it's in the name, this is where you will be going every semiannual reporting period to enter the data that you've collected for your agreement. Some of our federal partners have multiple obligations, multiple agreements, so, please be sure to select the right obligation number. I know the obligations are usually very similar, the numbers look very, very similar, so, please do pay attention to which one you are entering data for.

So, once you select the "Enter Data" tab, you will be directed to select the obligation number and select the reporting period that you are going to be working on. So, for this first reporting, or for October, you will have two reporting periods. This initial reporting period will include grant or funding activity that took place from October 2022 to March 2023. That will be an open reporting period, and then, the second one will be April 2023 to September 2023. That will be the second open reporting period. Please do not combine the data. It should be separate data over 6-month chunks, basically, entered into the separate reports that are available in your account. Moving forward, for the next reporting period in the future, you'll only be reporting on one reporting period at a time because you'll be all caught up in the system.

I do also want to let you know that if you don't complete a prior reporting period, the system will not open an upcoming or current reporting period for you moving forward. It needs to know that the prior reports have been completed and submitted in order for a new reporting period to open up once we are in a current reporting.

So, if you ever are unable to find a reporting period, be sure to check on the status of those prior reports in order to see if reports have not been completed.

Now, once you've selected your obligation number and the reporting period, you are going to select the "Continue" button, and you will be directed to the first set of questions. The question sets that are listed on the screen here and the screenshot are all the question sets that our federal funding partners might be responsible for. Again, this is a test account, so, your account might look a little bit different, and you may not have all of these question sets based on what's been assigned to your agreement.

These question sets will only appear based on your response to the first questions, Question 1 and Question 2, which are under the program activity. If you list that you do not have any program activity, and I will show you on the next slide what I mean, if you list that you have no program activity, all of these question sets will be eliminated from your report because the system recognizes that if you don't have program activity, if you have not spent OVC funding on any of the activities for that reporting period, we do not need to collect data from your organization because we're only currently looking at OVC funding spent.

So, here's the program activity, that first question set that everybody is responsible for completing. Question 1 asks if this is the last reporting period during which this award will have data to report. Your response will most likely be "No" for this question, because unless your agreement is coming to a close, or you're terminating an agreement, or there's no longer work that will be completed on an agreement moving forward, your answer will be "No." You only will answer "Yes" to that first question if you've reached the end date of your agreement.

The second question is this really important question, asking if there was program activity during the reporting period. This means if there was any OVC funding spent during the reporting period. And as I mentioned, dependent on your response to this question, the system will either open up the question sets or remove them all together if there is no data to be reported on. If you select "No," you also will have to provide an explanation in the system as to why not. There a popup box will pop up for you to enter information in, and then you will also be responsible for completing the Semiannual Narrative Questions because those are not based on data. Those are just explaining to OVC any information that you'd like to share with OVC, and I will show you what those look like.

Okay. One thing I do want to let you know, as you go through the "Enter Data" tab and you complete the performance measures, we have instructions embedded into the system for the different questions that you will be completing. Any question that has underlined text on it, you can hover over that question and additional instructions will come up.

So, as you see on our screenshot here, for Question 2, again, the question is, "Was there any program activity during the reporting period?" And then you hover over that question, the instructions will explain what we mean by the question and by, specifically, "program activities." And as you see, instructions say, "Program activity occurs when the agreement has obligated, extended, or drawn down program funds to implement objectives proposed in the OVC-approved program application.

An answer of yes indicates the program is operational and should remain the same until the program closes out." So, as you go through the different measures, any underlined text will prompt additional instructions, so, please do review those if you have any questions about what exactly the measure is asking for. They are pretty helpful.

Also, what we've done is we've included definitions for the different question sets at the top of each question set. So, as you go through these question sets that are assigned to your agreement, you will see at the top the yellow boxes. And those yellow boxes have additional explanations about what the question set is asking for, or what is going on, or what to really expect of this specific question set. And if there are any definitions that should be highlighted, you will find them here as well.

So, you have the definitions box and you also have the instructions that pop up when you highlight or when you hover over underlined text. This is really all for us to try and make this as user friendly as possible for our funding recipients. The system also has a few different functionalities. The main one our federal partners will see and will get to utilize is that show and hide function.

We have automatic skip logics that are embedded into the different question sets. So, basically, what that means is, dependent on your response to a question, the system will know to either expand additional questions or additional information or collapse a set of questions based on how you've responded, whether it knows that there's additional data to be collected or to cancel a set of questions based on your initial response for that question set.

So, please pay attention to the instructions to ensure that all questions are addressed accordingly. You should also pay attention to the plus and minus buttons or signs that are available across the PMT system. That's in the "Enter Data" tab, but also outside of the "Enter Data" tab. Those plus and minus buttons indicate that there are accordions that could be expanded or collapsed. I do always make the joke that we love our accordions.

And once you enter the system and you start looking around, you'll understand that joke because we have a lot of accordions, a lot of information that can be expanded to share more information or collapsed to hide that on the screen so you can have a clean page that you're looking at. Be sure to pay attention to those so you don't miss any of the questions at any point. The data or the reports cannot be submitted if you have any questions that have not been responded to or if you've missed a set of questions. Every question that is assigned to your agreement has to have a response to it in order for you to be able to move forward.

There's also a "Review" tab, and I will be going over that. But in the "Review" tab, you also can look for any alerts that have indicated that a required question has not been answered, and that some data is missing. That could be because you could not locate a plus or minus sign or the show and hide function was either not functioning properly or you did not respond accordingly to the additional questions that may have popped up, and I'll show you what that means.

So, here's an example. One of the questions sets includes the question that asks if there were feedback surveys distributed, collected from participants at the end of training delivered. I do believe that this question set is the Training question set. But so, here, if you answer "No," you just move on to the next question. However, if you were to answer "Yes," the system will then open up this box here, showing that it needs additional information on the feedback that was received through the survey.

So, I will go back to this first screenshot here. You see, no, there's nothing under it. This is the only box that is available, yes or no. But if you were to select "Yes," that additional information will need to be provided. The system will open up that "If Yes, provide narrative summarizing any relevant feedback." That entire answer box will be available to you. This will happen across the system for different questions, the show and hide function.

Another area or question set that includes the show and hide function that you'll need to pay attention to is in the Victim Services question set. For the Victim Services question set, we have all the services that are available in Question 6. You will need to select the type of service that was provided through the program during the reporting period.

Once you click on the check mark or you check one of the services, the system will then open up the subcategories for that additional service. It'll open up additional subcategories within that specific service where you'll need to enter data on the number of individuals that received that service and the occurrence of that specific sub-service, basically. So, as you see on the screen here, this is a test account.

We selected "B," so, that personal advocacy and accompaniment was provided. The system then unlocked the additional questions, so it popped up the "B" subcategories. And within the B subcategories, there are these different B1, B2, B3 questions that are available to be completed. Any answer box that includes the word number in it, you will need to provide a numerical value. No other value will be accepted by the system.

You will not be able to enter a letter. You will not be able to enter a special character. You will need to enter an actual value. If a question, a specific question, is not applicable, you cannot enter "N/A." You will have to enter "0," and that will be equivalent to that this was either not provided during this reporting period, your agency does not provide this, or this is completely not applicable to the work that you're doing.

Okay, so let's move on to the system validations. I mentioned earlier on in our presentation that one of the tabs, which is the "Need Help" tab, includes a list of the rules that are in the PMT. We have a set of validations, or a set of rules, that we have embedded into the performance measures in the system to make sure that the numbers across questions and subcategories are logical, and that the data is logical when it is entered. It's, basically, to help our users catch any errors before they submit their reports.

The best way to describe the validations or the rules is that: If the system recognizes that your response to one plus one is not equals two, and you put in a three or a four, the system will flag it, and it'll provide an error message for you, notifying you that this is not in line with how the response to the measure should look like. And I will show you what that means, but we have a set of rules which are for two of the question sets only. So, if your agreement is not assigned these two question sets, you will not have these rules to follow in the performance measures.

The question set Emergency Funding for Victims has one rule, and then the Victim Services question set has a bunch of rules as you see on the screen here. These are all available to you under the "Need Help" tab. So, you can always, you know, go there and review them as you're completing your data if you have any questions or want to understand a validation a little better.

Let's look at the Emergency Funding validation. This is one of the questions asking if agencies providing emergency or short-term funding for victims, or asking an agency to complete the section. The number of victims should include family members and companions is what the instructions explain. As you see on the screen, here, we listed that the number of cases for domestic instances was 10, and then the number of victims was one victim.

So, you can already see where this is going. If we listed out that there were 10 cases where OVC funding was provided over the semiannual reporting period, but then we're listing that these 10 cases only involved one victim, that kind of raises a red flag, right? So, once we go to submit this data, the system will prompt us a validation or an error because the validation was not met, and the system will let us know that the number of cases cannot exceed the number of victims. And then you will select, "OK," and you will go back and update your answers.

If, for any reason, the validation does not apply to the data or the data is correct and the system validation is incorrect or flagging it incorrectly, you can let us know, provide information, share with us at the helpdesk how to move forward, and we can help you with that, or you can provide additional information to OVC, letting them know why your data is not falling in line with the validations.

And as I mentioned, the Emergency Funding validations are one set of validations, but we also have the Victim Services one, and that one also speaks to how many victims services were provided to and how many services were provided and the occurrences of a service.

So, if you were to say that you provided services with OVC funding to two individuals, and then you listed that only one type of service was provided and only one occurrence, the system will flag that for you, saying you said that you provided services to two individuals, so there has to be two services provided. All right, so, moving on to the "Enter Data" tab or the "Semiannual Narrative Questions" tab in the "Enter Data" tab.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, the Semiannual Narrative Questions are questions that all our federal partners are required or will need to complete in the system in order to submit their reports. That is one of the question sets that everybody completes across the board. It's not one that is assigned to an agreement. All agreements will need to complete it, and this is, basically, your chance to really explain to OVC what was going on with the work.

Share any information that you'd like, such as, you know, I always love to hear about success stories, or summarizing accomplishments of the program, or a specific case that you can share information on.

Of course, everything will be redacted, you all know that. But you also can share any problems, or delays, or any conditions that affected your ability to reach the goals and objectives of the agreement, and any significant developments, whether they were challenges and issues or success stories can be shared. In the system, this is what the Semiannual Narrative Questions look like. They are the ones right before the "Review" tab. So, they are at the end of your reporting, and there's a set of three questions. So, you don't see them on the screenshot, here, because the third question was below, but this is what it looks like. There's an answer box for each of the questions, and there's a character limit for each of the answer boxes.

You can only type up to 5,000 characters, and those 5,000 characters do include spaces, unfortunately. That's unfortunate for those of us who like to write, like myself, but you do not have to complete it with all 5,000 characters. Just please provide enough information and explain anything that you would like the OVC grant managers to know about, or OVC partners to know about, OVC leadership as well in these three questions in the answer boxes.

The best way to do this, what I've learned as a tip, is to complete these responses in a Word document, and then copy and paste them into each box. That way you, you can edit them. You can look at them all on one page and you can go back to them.

The system times out after 30 minutes of inactivity, so, you could potentially lose some of your information if you're not hitting the "Save" button enough times or if you get distracted, or completing emails, or someone walks into your office.

So, best thing to do is to complete them in a Word document. And then once you're ready to submit, copy and paste them directly into the system. And again, the system does not accept any special characters, so be sure to avoid any bullets or any other characters that you might include because that will not pop up properly in the system.

Okay, so once you've completed your Semiannual Narrative Questions, you will then hit "Save and Continue," and you will be directed to the "Review" tab. The "Review" tab is where you'll be able to see if there were any questions that were missed. You'll also be able to check your responses and look at the data that you've entered to, you know, look at it on one page, in one sitting and scroll through. If you've missed any responses, the system will total out the alert.

Missing a response or not completing a response would be considered an alert in the system. As you see on the screenshot, here, on the top left-hand corner, this report that I generated, which was a test report, has 181 alerts because I did not actually complete any of the questions. I just wanted you to see what it looks like. And then, what you'll be able to see in the two columns on the right-hand corner is if a response is provided, there's a check mark or the actual number, numerical value that you entered; or if the response is missing, under the Alert column, it'll show as required.

Once that "Required" alert is there, you can click on the word "Required," and it links it directly to that question. So, you could be directed to that question directly to answer it right then and there if you have missed something. It's very important to note the show and hide function; because if you miss the show and hide function, and you were unable to locate additional questions, based on your responses, the "Review" tab will show that. You can find them by following the required link for each question.

Once you have confirmed that the data is accurate in the "Review" tab, you will then be able to submit your report, and I'll show you what that looks like. But in order to submit your report, you will need to mark the data entry as complete. You'll check that box.

You also have the ability or the option to add additional information or additional comments in the comment box to document any changes or other information that you want to share with OVC. And then, you'll hit the "Save" button, and your report will be submitted.

Please make sure to complete data entry. We do have a lot of users that complete all the data, and then they go to the "Review" tab. They make sure everything has been reviewed, but they never actually submit their report. That shows that your report is incomplete or still in progress. So, it won't actually show a report was submitted until you actually go through these steps, right here, and this is what it looks like.

Once the system recognizes that you've completed all your alerts and all your information has been accounted for, all the questions have responses, you then will be directed to that "Confirmation" tab. And this is where you will mark the data entry as complete with that check mark. And then you can add to "Additional Comments," and then you'll need to hit the "Save" button to make sure that your data was saved and your confirmation was received by the system. And this is how you would complete data entry. I do have a few tips I wanted to share with you about the system itself.

The system works best if you're using the latest reporting or the latest internet browser. So, if you're using Google Chrome, make sure it's the latest version, or Microsoft Edge. Both can work, but just make sure that you've upgraded your browser for all the functionalities of the system to work accordingly.

You do need to answer all the questions on each page and make sure you're hitting "Save and Continue." Again, as I said, you cannot submit a report if any questions are missing a response. The system will not let you get to that "Confirmation" tab on the "Review" tab in the "Enter Data" portion.

You have to answer a numerical value in all the fields marked with "Number" as I mentioned previously. No other value will be accepted unless the answer field is specifying that you can enter "N/A," or "Not Applicable," or "Not Reported," or any specific response.

Please be sure to avoid the "Back" button. It does, you know, cause some glitches. Sometimes it'll erase your data, if you haven't saved it right away, and could just create some issues in the system. So, if you are needing to go through different tabs, just click on the actual tab itself to go back and forth.

Again, be sure to pay attention to those plus and minus buttons, which indicate additional information is available within an accordion. As I mentioned, we love using accordions. They are all over the PMT, and you'll get to see them. Hopefully, you'll think of me every time you open up an accordion.

All right, so, again, frequently save your responses. The PMT times out after 30 minutes of inactivity, and that might seem long, when you're thinking about it; but if you're in the middle of completing a report, and you're trying to multitask, it's not long at all, and that system times out way too frequently for me. So, be sure to save your responses as much as possible.

Okay, so, the next tab we are going to look at is the "Reports" tab, and this is where you can review your report status. You can go to the "Review" tab. You will need to select the obligation number that you're looking at or that you're looking for reports for, if you have multiple obligation numbers. If not, then it will only be one that you will select.

And then, you can find the reporting period and I'll show you what that looks like. But also, during a reporting period, which is coming up next week, between October and November or between April and May, if you submit a report during the reporting period, you have the ability to unlock that report yourself at the organization level.

If you realize some of the data was entered incorrectly, or you wanted to change any of the numbers or responses within the reporting period, so, either between October and November or April and May for that current reporting period, you can unlock that report and change the numbers or the data. If any corrections need to be made outside of a reporting period, if a reporting period has closed, you'll need to contact the OVT PMT Helpdesk to request an unlock of a report. We are always more than happy to unlock reports.

Our goal at OVC, the Performance Management Team, is to make sure that the data is as accurate as possible. So, we always appreciate when we receive tickets or calls asking us to unlock reports for data to be updated. So, we are more than happy to do that. This is not something, you know, that will raise any flags, anybody will be upset about in any way.

You have the ability to do it yourself during a reporting period, or you would be calling us and we can unlock a report for you to make any changes to it. Here's what the "Reports" tab looks like. Again, you'll need to enter or select your obligation number. There's a few information about the system itself on here, but you'll need to select the obligation number. And then once the system loads that obligation number, it also loads the reporting periods for that obligation.

As you see on the screen, here, that table at the bottom, that includes the reporting periods, it tells you the data entry status. Because this is a test account, everything was still in progress. But usually, once you've completed a report, it will show as "Complete," and under it is where you will find the "Unlock" button right under the status of each report, if you are within a current reporting period for that report. And then it'll show when it was last modified or the completion date.

And under that, it'll also include the name of the individual that completed that specific report; and then, in that last column, you will have the ability to download a PDF of the data that you entered. You can download the report if you wanted to have a copy for yourself. And you can ask this at any time. You can get a copy of the report at any time over the life of the agreement.

Okay, so, let's go over some next steps, again, there's reminders, and then resources, and contact information. So, as you know, this is the initial reporting period where you are starting to use the PMT. You will be reporting on two separate reporting periods. Those two reporting periods date all the way back to October 2022. So, we have 12 months of reporting. They are broken down by 6 months, so, you do have two periods to report on. That's for any activity that utilize OVC funding from October 2022 to March 2023, and then, again, April 2023 to September 2023. You will have all of October and all of November to complete these two reports in the PMT. The deadline for completing both reports is November 30.

You will have access to the PMT on the first week of October, so next week. You will be receiving access. Only the initial point of contact will receive access, but you can add any additional users that you'd like as I showed you in the "Administration" tab under the "User Management" sub-tab, or you can just reach out to the OVC PMT Helpdesk and we can add users on your behalf. And you also need to make sure that you continue to collect data on any agreement activity, each semiannual reporting period over the life of the agreement.

I know that every 6 months logging into the system, it's a really long time before you log back into the system. But the more frequently you collect data every month, every other month, the better. And then you can just use all of that collected data, enter it directly into the system once the reporting periods open up.

Okay, if you have any questions about the PMT or about performance reporting or the performance measures, and the requirements in general, please be sure to contact us. We can schedule a "Welcome to PMT" session for you all, for any of your staff members. We do one-on-one TA sessions. They can be as short as 30 minutes or as long as an hour or even follow-up sessions after that hour as well.

We are happy to help answer any questions or, you know, provide any training to you and your staff members in order to make sure that you are able to report correctly in the system. We also have lots of resources that will be available to you on the Interagency Agreements Performance Measures page on the OVC website. As I mentioned previously, the link is here. You will all be receiving these slides so you'll have access to this, but this link is also available on the PMT itself, under the "Need Help" tab. You can access it that way as well.