September 27, 2015<\/p>\n
PDF Attached<\/a><\/p>\n As we learn more about the new E-rate EPC Portal, we realize there are “unique” log-in and account set-up requirements that affect different types of entities.\u00a0 Consortia applicants, in particular, are discovering that the structure of their applications necessitate multiple EPC accounts.\u00a0 The following informal reference document is designed to assist Pennsylvania\u2019s IUs and other consortia with the nuances associated with establishing E-rate EPC Portals for their organizations.\u00a0 I hope you find it helpful as you build your EPC accounts in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n 1)\u00a0 NEW, SEPARATE \u201cCONSORTIA\u201d BENS REQUIRED IF YOU FILE AS A CONSORTIUM<\/strong><\/p>\n If you apply for E-rate discounts as a district (services just used by your organization), AND you apply as a consortium (services that also are delivered to other entities), you must obtain a separate Billed Entity Number for your consortium applications.\u00a0 In previous years, you could use the same BEN for both your own services and your consortium application.\u00a0 In the new portal, you cannot use the same BEN to file as a district and consortium.\u00a0 When the original EPC accounts were created, most IU BENs were set up as districts.\u00a0 As of 9\/23\/2015, only these PA consortiums have EPC accounts:<\/p>\n BEN\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Consortia Name<\/strong><\/p>\n 232427 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 EINetwork<\/p>\n 16044217\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 PAIUnet<\/p>\n 16061287\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Eastern Consortium<\/p>\n 146681\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Montgomery County Library and Information Network Consortium<\/p>\n 17000227\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit #21 Consortium<\/p>\n 17000234\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Intermediate Unit 29<\/p>\n 17000344\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lincoln Intermediate Unit 12 – LLN<\/p>\n 17000469\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Berks County Intermediate Unit<\/p>\n 17000531\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bucks County IU RWAN Consortium<\/p>\n 17000529\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Intermediate Unit 18 & 19 RWAN Consortium<\/p>\n 17000532\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Allegheny IU RWAN Consortium<\/p>\n 17000142\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aspira Philadelphia<\/p>\n 17000533 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Delaware County IU RWAN Consortium<\/p>\n To obtain a consortium BEN, call CSB at 888-203-8100.\u00a0 I would call it [Name of IU][IU #] – RWAN Consortium so districts will know what to look for.\u00a0 For example, “Beaver Valley IU 27 RWAN Consortium”.\u00a0 USAC will send you a message saying they have created your EPC account on the backend and you must establish your password by going to:\u00a0 https:\/\/portal.usac.org\/suite<\/a>.\u00a0 After you’ve done this, you must then call USAC back and tell them to identify you as the Account Administrator for the EPC Consortium.\u00a0 Yes, it is a redundant (required) process.\u00a0\u00a0 When you call them to set up your new entity number, ask them to include your FCC registration number in the set up.\u00a0 This will save you time later.\u00a0 You can obtain this number from your FY 2015 Form 471 application in the basic information section.\u00a0 Also, when you ask them to set up the consortium, be explicit and tell them you are an ESA consortium — NOT a statewide consortium.\u00a0 Again this will save you time later.<\/p>\n In addition, many BENs were established as NIFs, which isn\u2019t permitted in EPC.\u00a0 NIFs are for \u201cadministrative buildings\u201d not administrative entities (billed entities).\u00a0 You\u2019ll want to check with CSB to make sure that your BEN is not considered a NIF.<\/p>\n 2)\u00a0 UNIQUE E-MAILS REQUIRED FOR EACH BEN<\/strong><\/p>\n An individual user is identified in an EPC account by a specific email address.\u00a0 If an individual is associated with two or more applicant accounts, such as an IU and an IU Consortium, that individual must have different email addresses for each.\u00a0 Therefore, if an IU employee works on both the IU’s own application and the IU RWAN application, they will be listed in both portals and must have two separate e-mail addresses.\u00a0 You will need to have the new email address set up before you call CSB to ask them to establish the new entity number for the consortium.<\/p>\n The system will allow you to use a generic e-mail address (such as e-rate@iu30.org<\/a>), but that e-mail must be for a single person \u2013 not for several people within your organization \u2013 and USAC will periodically ask you to confirm that the person associated with that generic e-mail address has not changed.<\/p>\n 3)\u00a0 ADDING CONSORTIA MEMBERS TO YOUR EPC PORTAL<\/strong><\/p>\n Once your consortium entity number is set up, then you must add each district\/school to the consortium.\u00a0 To do this, follow these steps from your landing page (click on the USAC logo to return to your landing page).\u00a0 Select your entity name>select Related Actions>Manage Organization Relationships>Add Consortium Member.<\/p>\n Once you are in the Add Consortium page, I recommend you search by district and state and you will receive approx. 629 results that are arranged alphabetically.\u00a0 Select each of your consortium district members and then select submit.\u00a0 Then go back and add any individual school or library members (such as CTCs or nonpublic schools) using a similar process.<\/p>\n Note that if you search by entity number or name, and select each district member individually to be linked to your consortium, after you click on the submit button you will then have to \u201cstart over\u201d with Related Entities>Manage Organizations>Add Consortium Member.<\/p>\n If you cannot find a particular school, such as a CTC or nonpublic school, it is likely because USAC has inaccurately associated them as part of a school district.\u00a0 You will have to contact USAC to have these schools recognized as \u201cstand alone entities\u201d so they will then show up on the list of entities that you can add to your consortia.<\/p>\n 4)\u00a0 E-RATE CONSULTING EPC PORTAL REQUIRED<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are consulting for your districts – whether you charge a fee or provide this service with a separate charge, you must establish an EPC Consultant Portal.\u00a0 This is the only way you will be able to easily access each district\u2019s separate EPC portal.\u00a0 I know this is a change from prior years — which only required a CRN if you charged a fee for consulting.\u00a0 If you already had an E-rate Consultant Registration Number (CRN), an EPC Consultant Portal may already have been created for you.\u00a0 However, you must use another separate e-mail address for the consultant portion.\u00a0 After your EPC Consultant Portal has been created, each of the districts that you’re consulting for must designate you as their consultant in their own EPC portal.\u00a0 There is no way for consultants to identify districts in their Consultant Portal — districts must opt-in.\u00a0 Therefore it’s important for you to make sure your districts have their EPC accounts set up, and identify your IU as their consultant.\u00a0 Instructions to add a consultant can be found at:\u00a0 https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/?p=8451<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even if you’re not an official E-rate consultant for your districts, if you ever help your applicants by going into see their applications before they’re submitted, you should get an E-rate Consultant Registration Number (CRN), set up your consultant EPC account, and have your districts list you as their consultant (or one of them) so that way you will be able to have access to view\/modify their application (depending on the permissions given to you).<\/p>\n * OTHER RELATED ISSUES*<\/strong><\/p>\n 5)\u00a0 ACCOUNT ADMINISTRATORS CAN ONLY SET UP PORTALS<\/strong><\/p>\n Much of the information required to set up an applicant portal \u2014 including the list of people authorized to access the portal “users”, entity and NSLP information, joining consortia, etc. \u2014 can only be provided and maintained by the Account\u2019s Administrator, who cannot be a consultant.\u00a0 USAC has agreed to change the settings to allow Full Rights Users to perform these tasks (including consultants if they have Full Rights given to them by the AA), but that functionality won’t be available until at least late October.<\/p>\n 6)\u00a0 ENCOURAGE MEMBER DISTRICTS TO SET UP EPC PORTALS NOW<\/strong><\/p>\n Every applicant will be required to have an EPC Portal established, but as of today, we have no way of seeing which PA applicants have one.\u00a0 Please encourage your districts to set up their EPC passwords and accounts as soon as they can so they can file a Form 470 in the next few months.\u00a0 We can’t have districts doing this starting in January!<\/p>\n 7)\u00a0 CONSORTIA MEMBERS THAT DON\u2019T FILE 471S MUST HAVE AN EPC ACCOUNT<\/strong><\/p>\n Even if an entity is ONLY listed on a consortium application and doesn’t apply for E-rate on their own 471, they must have an EPC Portal in order to be included in your consortium application.<\/p>\n 8)\u00a0 ENROLLMENT\/NSLP DATA PORTED FROM FY2015 FORM 471<\/strong><\/p>\n All of the district buildings, enrollment and NSLP data have been ported over from their FY 2015 Form 471 (this would have been October 2014 data).\u00a0 The new FY 2016 Form 471 is supposed to ONLY pull this data from district EPC Portals, with no way for consortia applicants to populate their own 471s with this data.\u00a0 The only Block 4-related functions the consortium will perform will be to identify members of their consortium — nothing else.\u00a0 Districts will have the option of using the data included on their FY 2015 Block 4’s or they can update this data with the enrollment\/NSLP data that is submitted to PDE in October 2015.<\/p>\n 9)\u00a0 VERIFY THAT ALL IU BUILDINGS ARE INCLUDED IN YOUR \u2018DISTRICT\u2019 PORTAL<\/strong><\/p>\n Each IU that has its own buildings that are listed on its own services \u201cdistrict\u201d application should verify that all of these buildings are listed in your portal as being part of your organization.\u00a0 If there are buildings missing, you will need to request them to be added to your portal.<\/p>\n If you have any questions about this message, please e-mail me at jtschell@comcast.net<\/a>.\u00a0 For all EPC log-in questions\/problems, please contact CSB at 888-203-8100.<\/p>\n — Julie<\/p>\n Julie Tritt Schell 717-730-7133 – o penn*link<\/p>\n\n
\nPA E-rate Coordinator<\/p>\n
\n717-730-9060 – f
\njtschell@comcast.net<\/a>
\nwww.e-ratepa.org<\/a><\/p>\n