FAIS: Public Home Page

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Food Aid Programs

ANNOUNCEMENTS

USDA/FAS would like to notify all grant recipients of upcoming deadlines for reporting on Food for Progress and McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program agreements as well as provide guidance for submitting these reports to USDA/FAS.

For agreements signed prior to March 15, 2012, Financial Reports, Logistics and Monetization Reports and Project Status Reports (if applicable) are due to USDA at their regular reporting deadline of May 16, 2013. Grantees should complete the applicable reporting forms on FAS’ website, http://www.fas.usda.gov/excredits/FoodAid/FormsTemps.asp. Once completed, grantees should upload the completed form as an attachment in the Food Aid Information System (FAIS) under the corresponding sections of the Compliance/Agreement-Level Reports module of FAIS.

For agreements signed on or after March 15, 2012, Financial Reports and Performance Reports are due to USDA on June 15, 2013. Grantees should directly enter information into FAIS under the corresponding sections of the Compliance/Agreement-Level Reports module of FAIS. USDA is working to improve the reporting section of FAIS and these improvements should be completed by June 1, 2013. Grantees are encouraged to begin entering their data into the FAIS system on June 1, 2013. Please note that grantees should adhere to reporting requirements in their Agreements for all future reporting periods unless otherwise instructed by USDA/FAS.

If you have any questions about these reporting deadlines, please contact the Program Analyst in the Food Assistance Division at USDA/FAS that is assigned to your agreement. If you do not know the Program Analyst assigned to your agreement, please contact 202-720-4221.

Welcome to the Food Aid Information System (FAIS) Home Page. Choose the appropriate function you want to perform pertaining to your FAIS Role using the Menu options.

FAIS is an integrated information system through which The Food Assistance Division (FAD) of the United States Department of Agriculture will manage and administer its food aid programs and interact with its strategic food aid partners, both within and outside the U.S. government. With this system in place, FAS will improve operational efficiency, planning and coordination, analysis of effectiveness, and performance measurement. FAIS is intended to enable more efficient and effective use of USDA program funds, enhance information sharing and collaboration in strategic planning and improve agency-wide collaboration and demonstration of program effectiveness. When fully implemented, FAIS will provide the following functionality:

Proposal Management process is the process of soliciting food aid proposals; proposal submission by the Program Participants (PP); and proposal evaluation, scoring, and approval.
Agreement Generation and Negotiation is the process for collaboration between FAD and the PPs to turn approved proposals into signed agreements.
Amendment is the process of amending signed agreements.
Budget and Planning process is the process of creating the President’s budgets for future years and obligating funds.
Compliance and Evaluation is the process of evaluating agreement execution progress through various means such as regular progress reports.
Procurement is the process of issuing tenders and awarding contracts for procuring and transporting agreement commodities.
Payments and Receivables is the process of handling invoices from PPs, carriers, and freight forwarders to cover agreement expenses.
Claims is the process of USDA raising claims against PPs and other entities in case of not meeting contractual obligations hence necessitating refunds to the US government.
Closeout is the process of administrative closure of agreements.

How to Use FAIS

Organizations may submit applications directly to FAS through specially designed data entry screens at the FAIS application Internet website. The web-based application URL address is https://www.fas.usda.gov/fais/webapp/. In order to access the FAIS website all applicants are required to register for an e-Authentication ID and password. FAS highly recommends applying via that Internet site. Follow these steps to prepare and submit your applications over the Internet:

Using your Internet browser, go to URL address http://www.eAuth.egov.usda.gov to create an e-Authentication ID and password.
Applicants can register an e-Authentication account with a level 1 or level 2 access. FAS encourages applicants to register with a level 1 access.
Contact the Programs Operations Division at (202) 720-4327 for additional website access information.

After obtaining an e-Authentication account, a user must perform a one-time registration with FAIS. While registering, you must associate yourself with a registered organization. If your organization is not yet registered, please fill out your complete organization information by downloading the file Organization Registration Form. Once completed, please attach the file in an email by clicking Here.

If you are a registered FAIS user, use the links at the top menu toolbar to perform the desired function.

FAIS Support

If you experience technical difficulty, please fill out the required information by downloading the file Technical Assistance Form. Once completed, please attach the file in an email by clicking Here, or call the FAS Helpdesk at +1.202.690.1000.

FOR PROGRAM PARTICIPANT USERS

Food Aid Proposal Entry Guidance and Instructions

For guidance and instructions for creating a FY 2012 Food Aid Proposal in FAIS, please click on the below link

FY 2012 Food Aid Proposal Guidance and Entry Instructions

Training Material and User Manual

For a quick overview of the various business processes implemented by FAIS, please download the following Microsoft Powerpoint presentations. Each presentation focuses on one specific business process, and contains an overview of the business process as well as screenshots from the FAIS application. Please download the presentation to your computer before viewing it. It is advised to start with the presentation General Navigation and Screen Layout as it applies to all the other presentations.

General Navigation and Screen Layout presents an overview of the general screen layout and application navigation.
Program Participant Profile Management Business Process describes the process for managing the profile of Program Participant organizations.
User Profile Management Business Process describes the process for managing user profiles.
Proposal Creation Business Process describes the process for creating and submitting a proposal for a given solicitation.
Agreement Negotiation Business Process describes the process of generating and negotiating an agreement between the Food Aid Division and the Program Participant.
Amendment Business Process describes the process of amending a signed agreement.
Monitoring and Evaluation Business Process describes the process of handling Monitoring and Evaluation report development and submission, and interacting with the Food Assistance Division if corrective actions are taken.
Claims Business Process describes the process of handling agreement claims.
Payments Business Process describes the process of creating and submitting a cash payment request.

In addition, we also provide another presentation for every business process that contains audio narration with each slide. To play the audio, either double-click on the “Speaker” icon on the bottom right corner of each slide or run the presentation in a Slideshow mode. Please notice that the presentations with audio are considerably larger than the versions without audio and will therefore take longer to download.

General Navigation and Screen Layout with audio narration.
Program Participant Profile Management Business Process with audio narration.
User Profile Management Business Process with audio narration.
Proposal Creation Business Process with audio narration.
Agreement Negotiation Business Process with audio narration.
Amendment Business Process with audio narration.
Monitoring and Evaluation Business Process with audio narration describes the process of handling Monitoring and Evaluation report development and submission, and interacting with the Food Assistance Division if corrective actions are taken.
Claims Business Process with audio narration.
Payments Business Process with audio narration.

For a more detailed description of the FAIS application, please download any of the following User Manuals:

In addition, click on this link to access the webinar delivered in August 2011 that covers the User Registration and Proposal Creation processes.

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