Final Days to Update EPC Profiles
February 22, 2017
Attached: Entering Enrollment-NSLP Data in EPC Profiles
Attached: Part Time Students EPC Profile Guide
Attached: NSLP Valid File – District Copy 2-22-2017
~ Deadline is February 26 – which is a SUNDAY ~
~ Helpful Guide Attached ~
Schools only have a few days to update their enrollment/NSLP data in each school’s EPC profile before the special FY 2017 E-rate Admin Window closes at midnight on Sunday, February 26. I strongly encourage you to consider Friday, February 24 as the deadline because we’re being told that USAC’s Client Service Bureau (CSB) will not be open this weekend in case you run into snags – and we have heard of some (see below). After that, the data will be “locked down” and the Form 471 window will open at noon on February 27. After the Admin Window closes, it will not be possible to update this data in the EPC profiles because that data will be linked to active library and consortia applications.
Entering Enrollment/NSLP (or CEP) Data in EPC
– Update the Enrollment and NSLP data for each school by clicking on the school’s name from your Landing Page.
– If you need to add or remove any entities, create a Customer Service Case in EPC by Friday, February 24.
– You may also use alternative data (such as surveys, more recent data, etc.), or last year’s data, but regardless of which data you use, you cannot mix funding years. I recommend using the data attached to this message in order to have a painless PIA review.
– If a school is participating in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, “CEP” will be noted in the Free/Reduced Lunch Column (Column I) in which case that school’s EPC Profile should mark YES the Community Eligibility Provision and then enter the CEP% number from Column J in the required field.
– Attached is an updated Guide to Updating EPC Profiles which contains screenshots of the EPC profile pages for both CEP schools and non CEP schools. Use this Guide and you will succeed!
Updates:
- Permission Not Granted Error: If you click Manage Organization for a school and it gives a “Permission Not Granted” error, open a Customer Service Case with USAC and tell them to re-link this school with your district. I’ve heard of several instances where this has happened. USAC will then relink the entity, send you an e-mail that your case has been updated, and THEN you can go into that entity and update their enrollment/NSLP data. If this happens to you, please also send me an e-mail so I can notify USAC’s corporate IT office.
- State LEA Code 6-Digits Error: EPC is giving red error messages for State LEA Codes that are more than 6 digits which is a known issue in EPC that unfortunately won’t be fixed until after the Admin Window closes. However — all of these codes are optional fields so just delete the data and submit.
- CEP < 40% Error: If you have a school with a CEP% of less than 40%, the system will not accept it. In this case, average all of the CEP percentages, and then enter that average CEP% for all the CEP schools in the District.
- If your school has part-time students, please refer to the attached listserve message explaining what data to enter into which field, depending on what type of school you are.
Helpful Hints:
- When you go back to review the Discount Calculations for your District, you’ll notice the voice discount hasn’t yet been changed to deduct 60% from your C1 discount rate (the system is only deducting 40%).
- To see a complete list of what entities/data is currently in your EPC Portal, download the Entity List at: https://data.usac.org/publicreports/EntityDownload/Entity/Download. It will give you a report for the entire state, and then you can filter by your Parent Entity (Column D). The enrollment/NSLP data currently in a school’s EPC profile can be found in Columns BR-BX. Note: The data is updated nightly, so any changes you make today won’t be seen in this database until tomorrow morning.
- Review your schools’ enrollment/NSLP data carefully to ensure that it is accurate and if it is not, contact PDE’s Bureau of Food and Nutrition immediately at 717-783-6558 and let me know as well (each year a handful of schools notice glaring clerical errors that were made when their food service official updated their information in the PDE database).
- This spreadsheet only contains buildings that have students participating in the NSLP program. If your school does not participate in the NSLP, they still must be included in your EPC Portal and have enrollment and NSLP eligibility data entered. If you do not have the NSLP data and cannot obtain it from other sources, you can list 0 and receive the minimum 20% E-rate discount for that school.
- Although there is a template available for uploading your Enrollment/NSLP data, I haven’t been able to get it to work, so I recommend that you enter the data school by school.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at jtschell@comcast.net!
– Julie
Julie Tritt Schell
PA E-rate Coordinator
717-730-7133 – o
717-730-9060 – f
jtschell@comcast.net
www.e-ratepa.org
penn*link