How to Complete Lab Call Initial Planning

This article describes what Lab Call data to enter in EPIC for planning purposes and to support DAS approval of basic Lab Call structure and concepts.

Roles

• The Announcement Manager is responsible for entering this data into EPIC, but may delegate to another team member if desired.

Step 1: Before EE-1 Spend Plan Briefing

• Prior to the EE-1 Spend Plan Briefing, all planned Lab Calls are required to be entered into EPIC with the following minimum required information by page:
  • Create New Announcement Pop-up
  • Announcement Type
  • Announcement Title
  • Anticipated Fiscal Year of Publication
  • Funding Source: (Base/BIL/IRA)
    • If BIL/IRA…Associated Provisions
  • Servicing Office
  • Technology Office
  • Announcement Manager
  • Basic Information Page
  • Brief Announcement Description (Include a list of any planned Topic Areas/Subtopics for the Announcement)
  • Announcement Schedule Page
  • Anticipated Date of Publication
  • Anticipated Date of Selection
  • Points of Contact
  • Coordinating Office (if another EERE Office, DOE Office, or Federal Agency will contribute funds)
  • Funding & Award Details Page
  • Will another EERE Office, DOE Office, or Federal Agency contribute funds:
    • If yes…Select the DOE Office or Federal Agency name and provide the anticipated amount to be contributed. Contributions from other EERE offices must be captured in the Subprogram table below.
    • If yes…amount
  • Subprogram / Appropriation Year:
  • Estimated Federal Funding - Minimum
  • Estimated Federal Funding - Maximum
  • Will a Mortgage be required for this Announcement?
    • If yes…Describe why
    • If yes…Subprogram
  • Expected Number of Awards (Minimum and Maximum)
  • Crosscuts & Congressional Interest Items Page
  • Crosscuts: DOE Crosscut Title and Percent Allocation
  • Crosscuts: Office Crosscuts and Community Benefit Area (CBA) Title and Percent Allocation
  • Congressional Interest Items (CIIs): CII Title and Percent Allocation

Step 2: After EE-1 Spend Plan Briefing

• After EE-1 has concurred on the planned Lab Call in the Spend Plan Briefing, the following steps should be followed to complete the NOFO planning data in EPIC.
  • Multi-Topic NOFO: If the NOFO has two or more topics areas (or subtopic areas) to which applicants can apply, the process for a Multi-Topic NOFO should be followed.
  • Single-Topic NOFO: If the NOFO has only one topic area, the process for a Single-Topic NOFO should be followed.

Step 3: Multi-Topic Lab Call (2+ Topic Areas)

Create a Lab Call in EPIC

• See the Create New Announcement and Add Announcement Number Article for details.

Basic Information Page

• After creating a Lab Call, EPIC will place you on the Announcement Planning Tab. You will start on the Basic Information page.
  • General Details Section:
  1. Enter the AOP year. For a standard lab call, this will be the fiscal year after you publish the lab call. For off-cycle lab calls, this will be the same fiscal year as your publish year. Later, this information is transferred to Exchange and used for AOP integration, so ensure it is correct.
  2. Set the Will the Announcement have Topic Areas? slider to Yes.
  3. Enter information for Brief Announcement Description. This can be as short as a few sentences for now. It will populate weekly reporting to leadership, and eventually, the Announcement Overview document.
  4. Skip the Announcement Document Description
  • Topic Areas Section:
  1. Click the plus sign to add a topic area.
  2. EPIC automatically assigns the Topic Area Number, but you can change it if necessary.
     • Note: If you have subtopics, do NOT add a parent topic (e.g., Topic 1). Instead, only add the subtopics (e.g., Topic 1a, Topic 1b, etc.).
  3. Enter the Topic Area Title. A working title is fine for now; you can change this later.
  4. Topic Area Lead: EPIC will automatically assign you as the Topic Area Lead. To change this, use the trash can icon to delete yourself and the plus sign to add someone else.
  5. Skip the other fields in this section for now. Later, you’ll use the Brief Topic Area Description for the Announcement Overview and the Announcement Document Topic Area Description for the Lab Call document.
  • Status Notes Section:
  1. Skip the Status Notes section. EERE is not currently using this functionality for Lab Calls (only for NOFOs).
  • Related Announcements Section:
  1. If this Lab Call has an associated RFI, confirm it appears here. If the RFI has not yet been created in EPIC, refer to the EPIC Quick Guide: Create RFI for assistance. Otherwise, skip this section.
  2. Click the Next button to save and continue.

Announcement Schedule Page

• Enter dates. During the planning phase, you can choose a date range or a single date.
  • Anticipated Date of Publication
  • Anticipated Date of Selection
• If your lab call is part of your spend plan, KMSO is responsible for entering EE-1 Spend Plan Briefing Date once that briefing takes place. If the date is blank and you know the briefing has been scheduled, reach out to KMSOAnnouncementTeam@ee.doe.gov. You can ignore the other two dates (EE-1 Full Briefing and S4 Approval) because we’re no longer using them.
• Click the Next button to save and continue.

Points of Contact Page

• The person who created the Lab Call in EPIC will automatically be assigned as Announcement Manager. To change this, delete the Announcement Manager from the table and use the plus sign to add a new user.
• To give team members edit rights to the Lab Call in EPIC, add people to the following roles:
  • Announcement Manager Back-up POC: Same permissions as the Announcement Manager
  • Contractor Support: All contractors supporting the Lab Call need this role.
  • Announcement Editor: Additional federal staff supporting the Lab Call need this role. Exception: If you already added someone as a topic area lead on the Basic Information page, you do not need to assign them again here.
  • Legal Counsel (if necessary): The attorney supporting the Lab Call needs this role. If you are unsure who to assign, reach out to the attorney who typically supports your technology office.
  • Coordinating Office Point of Contact: If someone from a different Technology Office, DOE Office, or Federal Agency will help with the Lab Call, add them here. The Role options are:
    • Announcement Manager Backup POC: Same edit rights as the Announcement Manager.
    • Contact: Does not have access to EPIC.

Funding & Award Details Page

Funding & Award Details Section:

1. To indicate that your DAS and EE-1 agreed to the Lab Call concept and structure, select Yes for Is This Announcement Included In Your Execution Spend Plan? If you are unsure of the answer, reach out to your Operations Supervisor.
2. Select the applicable budget Scenario(s) under which you’ll pursue this Lab Call.
3. Select your Anticipated Funding Source.
4. If BIL or IRA funding course was selected you will be required to Select the associated Anticipated Funding source Provisions from a prepopulated list.
5. Click the plus sign next to each Subprogram / Appropriation Year to review funding breakouts.
   • Note: If you are working on a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Lab Call, it is highly recommended that BIL funding and non-BIL funding are not co-mingled in a single topic. Strongly consider separating the BIL and non-BIL funding by topic (e.g., Topic 1 can be BIL funding and Topic 2 can be non-BIL funding).

Mortgage Details Section:

1. If you are planning to fund your Lab Call with future appropriations (i.e., you do not expect to fully obligate funds to the awards during initial negotiations), select Yes for Will a Mortgage be required for this Lab Call?
2. Click the plus sign to add a Subprogram and dollar amount for each Fiscal Year. Only choose subprograms that are also listed in the Funding Details table you just reviewed.
3. To add additional future years, click the three dots. If you made a mistake, click the three dots again to delete future years.

Award Details Section:

1. Sync vs. Manual Edit
   • Sync: By default EPIC will auto-calculate the Estimated Federal Funding Maximum as the sum of the topic area funding maximums.
   • Choose Manually edit Announcement Funding if the auto-calculated amount is more than the funding you have available for that subprogram.
2. You can ignore the Approved Federal Funding field. EERE is not currently utilizing this feature.
3. If you expect any costs associated with the lab call merit review (e.g., paying a stipend or cost per application review to independent reviewers), enter the Anticipated Funding for Evaluation and Selection Process.
4. Enter Expected Number of Awards (Min & Max). Note: You may use the Use Topic Area Totals button to sync the amounts for each Topic Area (see below).
   • Option 1: Click the Use Topic Area Totals button if you want EPIC to auto-calculate the awards from the information entered for each topic area.
   • Option 2: Enter the topic manually if you do not have enough funding for all the awards in each topic area.

For example:

• Imagine you have $2M total for the parent topic. Depending on the quality of applications you receive later, you may allocate that $2M 100% to Subtopic 1a or 100% to Subtopic 1b.
• Click Manually edit and change the Estimated Federal Funding Maximum from $4M to $2M.
  • Note: The amount you enter in the top-level Estimated Federal Funding Maximum field cannot be less than any individual Topic Area Maximum. For example, if you enter $2M for Estimated Federal Funding Maximum, Subtopic 1a could not have a maximum of $3M.

1. Click the Next button to continue. EPIC will save your work.

Eligibility Summary Page

Eligibility Summary Section:

1. Specify visibility for Lab Call announcement. Note, this does not populate Exchange, but may be used for reporting purposes.
   • Select Visible to the Public if you want anyone to be able to view the lab call once it is published to Exchange (e.g., if you are one of the rare lab calls that will have a public announcement and want to include a link to the Exchange lab call in the press release/progress alert).
   • Select Restricted to eligible labs if you only want lab employees who are logged into Exchange to be able to see the lab call.
2. Click the Next button to continue. EPIC will save your work.

For example:

• Topic Area 1 will be “up to 4 awards”
• Topic Area 2 will also be “up to 4 awards”
• If you have enough money to fund all 8 awards, click the Use Topic Area Totals button
• If you only have enough money to fund 4 awards, enter the number manually.

Crosscuts & Congressional Interest Items Page

1. Under Crosscuts, click the edit icon to select the DOE, Office, and/or Community Benefit Area (CBA) Crosscut Title.
   • Note: If you are working on a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) NOFO, select ‘BIL’ as a crosscut.
2. Add a Percent Allocation.
3. Repeat.
4. Under Congressional Interest Items, click the edit icon to select the Congressional Interest Item Title.
5. Add a Percent Allocation.
6. Repeat.
7. Click Next to continue. EPIC will save your work.

Announcement Overview Details Page

1. Skip the Announcement Context for now. Later in the process, this field will populate the Announcement Overview document.
2. Answer Has this announcement been coordinated? If yes, add a description in the text box provided.
3. Provide Program-level performance metrics.
4. Add the Applicable strategic goals that this announcement is aligned to.
5. Click Save. You have completed the fields required for initial lab call planning in EPIC. You are ready to move on to Lab Call development. See the following resources for assistance:
   • Lab Call Checklist for Legal Review
   • Lab Call Required Elements
   • Lab Call Template (optional)