Performance Measurement Tool: Data Entry Training

[Instructor] Hello. Welcome to the Bureau of Justice Assistance's Performance Measurement Tool Data Entry Training. This short training will cover the what, where, when, and how of reporting performance measure data in the PMT. We will also provide data reporting tips and best practices as well as contact information and resources to assist you. However, please note that this training will not cover PMT data entry and reporting for the CEBR and Postconviction programs in their entirety, as those programs have nuanced reporting requirements in the PMT. If you have questions about reporting for those two programs, please contact the PMT Helpdesk. So, to begin, there are three types of data that grantees are required to report during the life of their grant, performance measures, narrative questions, and closeout questions. Performance measures capture outcomes of grant activities, demonstrating if programs accomplish goals and objectives. BJA grantees report on performance measures for a three-, quarterly, or six-month biannually reporting period. Narrative questions relate to the grantee's specific goals, objectives, barriers, and successes, and are reported only in January and July. And finally, closeout questions are a series of questions grantees only respond to when activities have been completed and the grant is ending. Program performance measures can be accessed via the BJA Performance Measures website and on the information in the Resources page in the PMT. BJA currently collects performance measure data via the PMT and JustGrants systems. The PMT is the legacy online data collection tool for BJA grant performance data. As you may be aware, JustGrants was developed to modernize and improve the grants management process and will eventually replace all legacy reporting systems, including the PMT, entirely. However, we are still within the window of transition, which means there is not one consistent way that all grants use to report performance data. The easiest way to confirm where your BJA awards report is to reference a grantee reporting graphic on the BJA Performance Measures page. If you report data in the PMT, you are also responsible for submitting required semiannual or annual roll-up PMT reports, that were previously submitted in GMS, into JustGrants. If you report data directly in JustGrants, you have no reporting responsibility in the PMT for that specific award. This training will cover data entry in the PMT system, only. To access the Performance Measurement Tool, visit the PMT's sign-on page at https://ojpsso.ojp.gov. The sign on page allows OJP grant recipients to access all their award reporting in PMT using a username and password. Additional training, as well as guidance for submitting semiannual or annual reports into the JustGrants system from the PMT, can be accessed via the links listed on this slide. The first profile page of the PMT displays the various awards your organization receives from a particular OJP component. If your organization receives funds from various sources within BJA, you will have access to multiple profiles. The picture on the slide depicts an organization that receives funding directly from BJA making them a grantee, and also receives funding from a state agency, making them a subgrantee. To continue to enter or edit data, select the grantee or subgrantee profile you want to report on by clicking on the plus sign and then your organization's name. As a note, you will not see this page if you only have one PMT profile or award. If that is the case, you will be routed directly to the Performance Measurement Tool Information and Resources page. For returning users, you will be directed to the Information and Resources page upon logging in. This page gives you access to important documents regarding the grant program such as the user guide, the FAQs, performance measures, and any updates. Keep in mind, you can access your profile in the Information and Resources page at any time while logged into the PMT. Now is a good time to remind you that the PMT will time users out of the system after 30 minutes of inactivity. So, be sure to press the save button whenever it is available, so your data is not erased. Additionally, users should be sure not to use the back or forward button on their web browser as that will produce system errors, but instead use the buttons in the PMT to navigate within the system. Reporting in the PMT is based on grant activity funded or supported by a federal award number. If you have multiple BJA grants or awards for the same program, that are active at the same time, it is recommended and preferred that you close out one grant before the other one becomes operational. If there is any overlap between awards, where they are both active in supporting the same services and activities, your data should be prorated based on the percentage of grant funding. Please do not duplicate data reporting. To begin the data entry process go to the Federal Awards page, which provides an overview of data entry for all awards. If you have any questions about the PMT, the PMT Helpdesk toll free number and email address are at the bottom of every page in the system. Click the red Begin Reporting Process button next to the reporting period you want to enter data for. Once you click Begin Reporting Process on the Federal Awards page you will be brought to the Award Administration page. This page will display if this is your first time entering data for a federal award. The purpose of this first page is to tell the system how grant funds have been administered. Since reporting is tied to funding, you will need to indicate on this page whether your program includes subgrantees. If all funds are used by a subgrantee, you will select the first option or if funds are split between a subgrantee and a prime grantee, then you will select the third option. If all funds are used by the prime grantee, select option two. Subgrantees that use grant funds are required to report in the PMT. For additional training on the subgrantee reporting process, please refer to the link on this slide. If you are not a new grantee or if your program does not allow for subrecipients, then this page will display upon clicking Begin Reporting Process. On this page, grantees are only provided one option for reporting the allocation of their grant funds. In addition, the PMT will also ask whether this is the last reporting period of data for your award. Select No to create a quarterly report and select Yes to create a final PMT report. The final report is the last report you will generate in the PMT. So, grantees should only create a final report if all funds have been expended prior to the last day of the reporting period. Otherwise, select No to proceed with your quarterly report. We will now review how to enter performance measure data in the PMT. There are three main question types that you will report each reporting period in the PMT. The first type of question is multiple choice. Multiple choice questions provide multiple response options and grantees should select the response that best reflects their project's activities during the reporting period. The second type of question is multiple response. Multiple response questions allow grantees to select all responses that reflect their project's activities during the reporting period. And finally, the third is open-text questions. Open-text questions may request numeric and/or text responses. If you do not know a data point, it is acceptable to report 9999 for unknown or NA for not available. The PMT also has built-in skip pattern logic based on your responses to other questions. Therefore, answer every question that appears. Next, we will discuss the grant activity page. The first question asked of grantees each quarter is whether there was grant activity during the reporting period. If you answer Yes, you will be prompted to answer the performance measures. If you answer No, and indicated there was no grant activity, you will not be prompted to answer the program performance measures, but instead you will need to explain why no activity occurred. If there was no grant activity, your data entry status will show as not operational. As mentioned, not operational is considered complete but it means that no funds were spent and/or no activity occurred according to your grant solicitation parameters. Now is a good time to mention that not all grantee reports will appear as shown on the slide, as this is just an example, but the data entry process is largely the same across the PMT. To continue press Save and Continue. By indicating that there was program activity during the reporting period, the PMT will generate the program questionnaire. This screenshot is an example of what the tabs may look like once your program is operational. The tabs you see will vary depending on your specific grant program. Here, you will input responses to each of the measures or questions. You must enter data in all fields for all required questions in order to move forward. If a question does not apply to your program activities, and you are not able to skip it or if you are unable to provide a value, you may enter zero to show that the question is not applicable to you during the reporting period. However, you must explain all zero values. The option to add comments is provided at the end of your report and is available for every quarterly report. You can also use a comment section to explain any part of your report that may require further explanation. Some sections of the PMT questionnaire include skip questions, which determine if you will need to answer additional questions or skip a section of questions entirely. If you need to answer the additional questions, they will expand in an accordion style fashion. If not, no questions will appear and you can proceed with data entry. The Review page shows a user how many questions are left, if applicable. Select Required next to the questions to be taken to the sections requiring entry. Otherwise, the system may not allow you to mark the report as complete. Once you have verified that all of your data is correct on the Review page, you will be able to mark your report as complete. On the Review page, scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will arrive at a checkbox in bold lettering, indicating Mark Data as Complete. Once you select the mark, click save. Grantees are not required to upload a PDF copy of the reports to JustGrants during this reporting period unless your grant is ending. For grantees with awards ending or in close-out, you have 120 days from the award end date to report your final performance metrics in PMT and JustGrants. If you have no metrics to report and your award is ending you must still submit a final report. To close an award in the PMT and JustGrants, grantees must indicate that the last reporting period is final and attach a copy of their last reporting period PDF report from the PMT to the appropriate performance report in JustGrants. The last or final report may or may not be an aggregate of all data reported since award start date. If a grantee completed and submitted data for all grant funded activities quarterly and semiannually throughout the grant life cycle, this is acceptable in lieu of an aggregate data report. If your organization has subrecipients or programs, their data entry must be complete prior to creating your JustGrants report. Grantees need to verify that all subgrantee information is correct prior to generating a final report. If the grantee tries to generate a final report with incomplete data, an error message will occur. Return to the Federal Awards page to complete all reports. Also, verify with your subrecipients and/or programs that all data is complete prior to generating your final report. If you receive an error message, follow the prompt to correct any errors or discrepancies. Then click the Federal Awards page and review the data entry status and report status columns to ensure you have completed data entry. If your report is locked, please contact the PMT Helpdesk to request that the report be unlocked. Remember that the PMT will time out after 30 minutes of inactivity. To avoid having to reenter data, click the Save button before leaving the system or as soon as you are finished entering data. It's crucial for PMT users to make sure the profile page has correct, complete contact information. Please update information in the JustGrants system first, then contact the BJA PMT Helpdesk to request that changes be made in the PMT. Click on the View All Reporting Periods button on the Federal Awards page to see all the reports available for your grant. If your organization recently received an award from BJA and is not appearing in the PMT, check JustGrants first to ensure your organization accepted the award. After confirming, contact the BJA PMT Helpdesk to request that the award be added to the PMT. Red buttons are used as indicators to the action required on that specific page. Select the red buttons throughout the page and it will complete the task at hand or take you to the next step. On the Data Entry page, each underlying measure in question has a link to additional information. Click on the links throughout the page for definitions and instructions. Make sure previous reports have a data entry status of complete and report status of completed. If the error persists, contact the BJA PMT Helpdesk. If your organization did not perform grant activity during the reporting period, you must still submit a PMT report. When prompted, respond No to the question, "Was there any grant activity during the reporting period?" Grantees can click on the headings to collapse sections but should be sure to answer all required information or the report will not be complete. In version 2.0 of the PMT, the cursor will not change in appearance when hovering over collapsible sections, but clicking on the blue or yellow headings will collapse or expand different sections. Users with existing access to the PMT can create accounts for others on the profile page by selecting Manage Users. Next, we will review all of the resources and assistance available to help you with reporting. As I've mentioned throughout the presentation, the BJA Performance Measures webpage contains some foundational information about performance reporting at BJA. The page includes contact information for the PMT Helpdesk and JustGrants Support team and links to the JustGrants reporting system, the BJA YouTube channel, and the BJA multimedia page. Archived training on specific program performance measures and performance report submissions are saved to BJA's YouTube channel and linked on the BJA Performance Measures webpage. Additionally, you can find the contact information for BJA, including contact information for your State Policy Advisor or Grant Manager. For questions about any of the information presented today or for questions about your program's performance measures, please reach out to the BJA PMT Helpdesk at the information listed on the screen. Our office hours are Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, except for federal holidays. We strive to return every email within 24 hours, so please do not hesitate to send us an email, even after business hours. This concludes the presentation. Thank you for your time.