Office of the Secretary

Office of State and Local 

Government Coordination &

Preparedness 

Washington, DC 20531 

ODP Information Bulletin 

No. 171 May 23, 2005 

TO: All State Administrative Agency Heads 

 All State Administrative Agency Points of Contact 

All State Homeland Security Directors 

All State Emergency Management Directors 

FROM: Matt A. Mayer 

 Acting Executive Director 

SUBJECT: Grants Reporting Update 

The purpose of this Information Bulletin is to inform all interested parties about the FY05 Grant 

Reporting process, the 2.0 release and other recent updates to the GRT. 

I. FY05 Initial Strategy Implementation Plan (ISIP) Submission Dates 

II. ISIP Submission Reminder and Content Overview

III. GRT 2.0 Release Highlights 

IV. Recent GRT System Change Highlights 

V. General Grant Reporting Helpdesk Information 

VI. Appendixes 

A. Details on the 2.0 GRT Release 

B. Details on the Recent GRT System Changes 

ODP is on track for the 2005 grant reporting process schedule listed below.

I. FY05 ISIP Submission Dates

Award Date FY05

 

March 14th Mid April Early June July 31st Early December 

GRT open for 

FY04 and FY05

BSIR submissions

FY04 and 

FY05 BSIR 

submissions 

deadline 

GRT open for 

FY05 ISIP 

ISIP Due for 

states with 

earliest award 

date

GRT open for 

FY04 and 

FY05 BSIR 

submissions 

Begin Period

of

Performance 

 
Important FY05 Grant Reporting Dates

• As of Today

• Grants Reporting Tool (GRT) Open for FY05 ISIP Data Entry 

• April, 2005

• Anticipated FY05 ISIP Deadline for States with Earliest FY05 Grant Award Dates 

• June 1, 2005 

• GRT 2.0 Release - Open for FY04 and FY05 BSIR Data Entry 

• July 31, 2005 

• 2005 FY04 and FY05 June BSIR Submissions Due to ODP 

* ODP will be revising and adding to this list periodically. 

II. ISIP Submission Reminder and Content Overview

SAAs must submit all ISIP templates to ODP within 60 days of the FY 2005 HSGP grant award date. Failure 

to submit this information may result in withholding of funds. 

FY05 ISIP Content Summary 

• Included in the FY05 ISIP Submission is a verification check-box for compliance 

with the congressionally mandated 80% pass-through requirement. ODP will not 

accept ISIP submissions unless the verification check-box is complete. 

• EMPG and CCP funds are not subject to the 80% pass-through compliance. 

Similarly, EMPG and CCP funds are not subject to validation on MOU compliance. 

• Please note that no solution area or sub-category information is required for the 

FY05 ISIP. Additionally, the project metrics and funding impact sections are not 

included in the FY05 ISIP submission. 

• The FY05 ISIP submission will undergo a validation effort similar to that of the 

FY04 BSIR validation process. More information can be found on FY05 ISIP 

validation in Information Bulletin # 170. 

III. GRT 2.0 Release Highlights

The Grants Reporting Tool (GRT) is slated to launch release 2.0 on June 1, 2005 to correspond with 

the 2005 June BSIR submission for fiscal years 2004 and 2005, due to ODP by July 31, 2005. At 

that time, an updated “User Guide” and “What’s New in 2.0” document will be available for 

reference. Details on the changes for version 2.0 can be found in Appendix A. In the interim, the 

following summarizes the new functionality included in the 2.0 release: 

• GRT has been updated to include the programmatic content for the additional grant 

programs MMRS, EMPG, and BZPP. 

• Decimal amounts are no longer truncated. States may enter grand funding amounts 

to the penny. 

• Overnight linkage between State Homeland Security Strategy and Urban Area 

Strategy goals and objectives will be available in GRT. 
• Please note that only those strategies in “approved by ODP” status will be 

available for linkage to project data. 

• GRT 2.0 includes an Administrative Module (available at the federal level only) to 

allow ODP provide more timely submission windows for grant reporting. 

• Additional email correspondences are included in GRT 2.0. 

• Additional data validation and enhancements are included in GRT 2.0. 

• Enhancements to user interface are included in GRT 2.0. 

IV. Recent GRT System Change Highlights

GRT was recently upgraded with two new patch releases. The current version of GRT is 1.1.7 

(referenced at the very left-hand bottom corner of the GRT login 

page: https://www.reporting.odp.dhs.gov/). Details on the changes for version 2.0 can be found in 

Appendix B. The following list is a summary of major changes to the system since the last major 

release, 1.0. 

• Subgrantees are no longer tied to Review & Approval based upon changes in grant 

award year.

• Subgrantees are no longer tied to submission status based upon changes in grant 

award year.

• The funding summary page no longer requires a page “refresh” for the Grant 

Summary (2005) or Grant Program (2004) filters. 

V. General Grant Reporting Helpdesk Information

The Grant Reporting and Assessment Tool Help Line is available to answer grant reporting 

questions Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 

p.m., Central Standard Time at 1-877-612-HELP (4357). 
VI. Appendixes

Appendix A 

Details on the 2.0 GRT Release

The Goals and Objectives from the DCT application will be available in GRT: 

The Goals and Objectives will be populated on an overnight basis from the DCT application. The 

DCT will be modified so that an end-user can only modify existing Goals and Objectives; thereby 

effectively removing the delete functionality. 

The GRT will now include an Administrative Module (available at the federal level only): 

The addition of an Administrative Module will provide the federal administrative user the 

capability to create, delete, modify, assign and associate any of the following: 

• Grant Award Year/ Reporting Period 

• Solution Areas 

• Programs 

• Subcategories 

• Disciplines 

• Allowable Costs by Solution Area 

• Upgrading and Porting Data to Reporting Period 

• Project Types 

• Funding Impact 

• Grant Award Amount 

Additional email correspondence will be included in the GRT: 

The GRT user will now receive an email notification message when they have registered for an 

account and when their account has been approved. 

Additional data validation and enhancements will be included in the GRT: 

The GRT has been enhanced to include the following: 

• Funding Precision - The funding screens (Solution Area, Project Funding & Grant Award) 

will allow for data precision to two decimal places. This value will be set in the 

organization structure screen, so that a grantee/subgrantee will have the option of setting it 

as a preference. 
• Subgrantees for each Reporting Period - Subgrantees can be added or removed for each 

reporting period, provided the subgrantee status is in "Data Entry in Progress." Subgrantees 

that have been validated and tied-out for a given reporting period can no longer be 

removed. 

• Addition of Subcategories/Disciplines - The solution area screen will be made available 

with FY 2005 programmatic information of allowable costs by solution area. 

• Grantee/Subgrantee Information – Enhanced data validation will be applied for DUNS, 

email, and phone number. 

• User Information - The following modifications will be made to user information: 

o Display the username within the application when logged in. 

o Modifications will be added to registration and user detail screens by adding 

common business logic for email, phone, and zip code validation. 

o In the user detail screen, a date/time field will be displayed with when the original 

account was created. 

o A filter will be added to the user management list screen so that a federal 

administrative user can see all pending accounts. 

• Award Information - The following modifications will be made to Award Information: 

o Only SAA users will have the ability to change the award information field for a 

grantee/ subgrantee. 

o Fields will be lengthened for to hold twelve digits for larger award amounts. (i.e., 

$99billion).

o Award date field will have an auto-format capability so that an end-user can enter 

the date in any valid format using “mm/dd/yyyy” as the masking. 

• Award Amount Validation - A state cannot submit data to SLGCP for approval if the 

state amount exceeds the award amount. The amounts will be auto-populated from an 

SLGCP source, and a column will be added to the screen. A third column will show the 

difference, and it will display in red if the value is +/- $1.00. 

• Project Metrics - The Project Metrics screen will be dynamically displayed so that it maps 

directly to solution areas with associated funding to cover associated costs. Essentially, 

project metrics should only be applied against the specific POETEM that had funding 

allocated to it. Project Metrics will be mapped to its corresponding archive project metric 

across fiscal years. Additionally, the Project Metrics screen will be modified so that

funding can be allocated to the identified POETEM.

• Long Description Fields - For a more efficient use of the Project List screen layout, the 

funding type field and project status field will be abbreviated. 
There will be performance enhancements demonstrated within sections of the GRT: 

The “User Detail” screen (found within User Management) is currently impacted by the number of 

users associated with the respective state. This screen will be modified to return results as quickly 

as possible without regard to the amount of users on the system. 

Enhancements to GRT’s user interface have been included in this release: 

The following additional enhancements will be made to the GRT: 

• A Federal Guest role will be created so those users with an appropriate need (i.e., GAO, 

OMB, Senate Appropriations Committee etc.) can review grant funding and reporting in a 

read-only capacity.

• For SAA User Approval – the ability to approve users without going into each user detail.

• Modify Oracle “Exception” error messages to a standard user-friendly error message page. 

Additionally, GRT will also “catch” these exceptions as they are made and they will be 

entered/ stored within the application error logging table. Furthermore, these will be 

friendly error messages that will be logged and displayed with a tracking number whereby, 

end-users will reference the tracking number when calling the help desk.

• Pagination display of long display lists - To prevent long result sets from returning, a 

limitation of 100 records per page will be added to User Management, Grant Funding, 

Review and Approval, and Org Structure. A “Next Page” feature will be added so that an 

end-user can retrieve the additional records.

GRT has been updated to include FY2005 Grant Funding Programmatics: 

Subcategories/ Disciplines will be included in FY05 with respective allowable costs. Project 

metric has been updated with FY05, and all project types will be captured for FY05. Additionally, 

allowable cost matrix has been defined as of 11/25/2004. 
Appendix B 

Details on the Recent GRT System Changes

Subgrantees are no longer tied to Review & Approval based upon changes in 

grant award year: 

Problem: 

• Step1: An administrative user logs into GRT and goes to the Organization Structure tab 

(found on the left-hand side). Upon selecting a subgrantee, they un-check the grant award 

year indicator. Subsequently, that subgrantee no longer appears in Review and Approval. 

• Step 2: An administrative user logs into GRT and goes to the Organization Structure tab. 

Upon selecting a subgrantee, they re-check the grant award year indicator. The subgrantee 

now re-appears in Review and Approval. 

Solution: 

Regardless of the grant award year indicator being checked or un-checked for a subgrantee, they 

will appear within Review and Approval as applicable. 
Subgrantees are no longer tied to submission status based upon changes in 

grant award year: 

Problem: 

• Step1: An administrative user logs into GRT and goes to the Organization Structure tab 

(found on the left-hand side). Upon selecting a subgrantee, they un-check the grant award 

year indicator. Subsequently, the submission for which that subgrantee was a part of now 

has a submission status of “data entry in progress”. 

• Step 2: An administrative user logs into GRT and goes to the Organization Structure tab. 

Upon selecting a subgrantee, they re-check the grant award year indicator. The 

subgrantee’s submission status now has been re-set to its original submission status. All 

workflow steps, comments and interim steps are re-established.

Solution: 

Regardless of the grant award year indicator being checked or un-checked for a subgrantee, their 

inherent submission status remains intact. 
• The funding summary page no longer requires a page “refresh” for the 

Grant Summary (2005) or Grant Program (2004) filters: 

Problem: 

• Step1: An administrative user logs into GRT and goes to the Review and Approval tab 

(found on the left-hand side). Upon selecting a subgrantee, they click on the Funding 

Summary Tab, and select either the Grant Summary or Grant Program views from the filter 

(found at the top right-hand side of the page) 

• Step 2: An administrative user clicks the F5 or refresh button on the web browser for 

either the Grant Summary (2005) or the Grant Program views (2004) in order for the 

Award Information to update. 

Solution: 

The administrative user no longer is required to click F5 or the refresh button in order to see 

updated values; the Award Information row no longer toggles values when refreshed and the 

columns stay aligned.