This article describes what NOFO data to enter in EPIC for planning purposes and to support EE-1 concurrence with basic NOFO structure and concepts.

Roles

• The Announcement Manager (aka NOFO 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 NOFOs 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 NOFO 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.
  • See the NOFO Policy for additional context on the process below.

Step 3: Multi-Topic NOFO (2+ Topic Areas)

Create a NOFO in EPIC

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

Basic Information Page

• After creating a NOFO, EPIC will place you on the Announcement Planning Tab. You will start on the Basic Information page.
  • General Details Section:
  1. Set the Will the Announcement have Topic Areas? slider to Yes.
  2. 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.
  3. Skip the following fields, which are not needed during the planning phase:
     • Announcement Document Description
     • Technology Space and Strategic Goals
  • 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 NOFO document.
  • Status Notes Section:
  1. If there are any notes you would like to add for weekly reporting, do so here. This field populates the weekly Work Plan report to leadership.
  • Related Announcements Section:
  1. If this NOFO is related to an RFI or NOI, confirm it appears here. If the RFI or NOI has not yet been created in EPIC, refer to the following quick guides for assistance:
     • EPIC Quick Guide: NOI Process
     • EPIC Quick Guide: Create RFI
  • Otherwise, skip this section.
  1. 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
• The DAS Chief of Staff is responsible for entering EE-1 Spend Plan Briefing Date once that briefing takes place. You can ignore the other two dates (EE-1 Full NOFO 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 NOFO 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 NOFO 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 NOFO need this role.
  • Announcement Editor: Additional federal staff supporting the NOFO 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.
  • GMS/CS: The GMS/CS supporting the NOFO needs this role. If you are unsure who to assign as the GMS/CS, reach out to the CO who typically supports your technology office.
  • Contracting Officer (CO): The CO supporting the NOFO needs this role. If you are unsure who to assign, reach out to the CO who typically supports your technology office.
  • Legal Counsel: The attorney supporting the NOFO 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 options are:
    • Announcement Manager Backup POC: Same edit rights as the Announcement Manager.
    • Contact: Does not have access to EPIC. Use this if you want to show their participation, but do not want to allow them view or edit rights.
    • Coordinating Office POC: Can edit the announcement, but will not be able to perform certain tasks (i.e., initiating workflow or requesting the green light).
      *Note: When adding Federal Agency, start typing in the name and the Agency will be available to select. For Federal Agencies, the only available role is Contact

Topic Area Details Page

1. Click on Collapse All to make this page easier to navigate, then expand the Topic Area X section.
2. Add a Brief Topic Area Description and Rationale.
3. Scroll down and select the Presidential Request or Congressional Direction options applicable to your NOFO.
4. Quote from the Presidential Request or Congressional Language in the text box provided. Reach out to your Legal Counsel if you need help.
5. Select whether the topic has been issued previously by setting the slider to yes or no.
6. If yes:
   • a. Select the applicable year(s)
   • b. Enter a description in the Provide a comparison of historical and current topics that describes what changes have been made to spur innovation and align with Administration priorities box.

Funding Details Section:

1. If another EERE Office, DOE Office, or Federal Agency will contribute funds, set the slider to Yes.
   • a. If a non-EERE office is contributing funds, click the checkbox next to the name and enter the dollar amount.
   • b. Note: You will only see options for offices you added as Coordinating Office POCs on the Points of Contact page.
2. Use the plus sign to add subprogram/appropriation year(s). If another EERE Office is contributing funds, their subprograms will also appear in this drop-down list.
   • Note: If you are working on a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Lab Call, select the applicable technology office specific subprogram(s) associated with BIL. It is highly recommended that BIL funding and non-BIL funding are not co-mingled in a single topic. If using BIL and non-BIL funding in a Lab Call, strongly consider separating the funding by topic (e.g., Topic 1 can be BIL funding and Topic 2 can be non-BIL funding).
3. Enter minimum and maximum federal funding amounts for each subprogram/appropriation year.

Award Details Section:

1. Enter the Expected Number of Awards (Min & Max).
2. Enter the Federal Funding Per Award (Min & Max).
3. Enter the Estimated Duration of Award (Min & Max), in either months or years.
4. Enter the TRL (Start & End of Project). Click the View TRL Definitions link if you need a reminder of what each number means.
5. Select Project Type. Note: if you select Other, enter a description to explain.

Cost Share Section:

1. If you’ll use a Cost Share Waiver, set the applicable slider to Yes (seldomly used).
2. Select Anticipated Cost Share.
3. If you’ll use State Energy Program Cost Match, set the applicable slider to Yes.

Eligibility Section:

1. Skip this section for now if you’ll use the standard list of eligible applicants.
2. If you plan to restrict eligibility:

• a. Reach out to your Legal Counsel to discuss.
• b. Set the Will eligibility be restricted? slider to Yes and select the eligible applicants from the checkboxes provided.

1. Select how DOE/NNSA FFRDCs/National Labs can participate.
2. Scroll back to the top of the page and select the drop down to switch between topics.
3. Repeat steps 1-20 for each topic area, then click Next to continue. EPIC will save your work.

Funding & Award Details Page

Funding Details Section:

1. Skip the first two questions. You’ll come back to these after your EE-1 Spend Plan Briefing.
2. You are required to Select your Anticipated Funding Source.
3. If BIL or IRA are selected, you will be required to select the Anticipated Funding Source Provisions from a prepopulated list.
4. 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) NOFO, it is highly recommended that BIL funding and non-BIL funding are not co-mingled in a single topic. Strongly consider separating the BIL funding and non-BIL funding by topic (e.g., Topic 1 can be BIL funding and Topic 2 can be non-BIL funding).
5. 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.

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.

Mortgage Details Section:

1. If you are planning to fund your NOFO 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 NOFO?
2. Click the plus sign to add a Subprogram and dollar amount for each Fiscal Year.
   • a. Only choose subprograms that are also listed in the Funding Details table you just reviewed.
   • b. Only enter future year funding. The box for the fiscal year of publication must be $0.
   • c. Note: Not all technology offices have provided +/- 6 fiscal years for each subprogram. Subprograms and related fiscal year information is provided by technology offices, so though EPIC can support up to 6 years before and after the anticipated publication fiscal year, it will only be available upon request.
3. To add additional future years click the three dots. If you made a mistake, click the three dots again to delete.

Award Details Section:

1. Select Award Vehicle. For most NOFOs, you will select Cooperative Agreements. If you choose Other, provide an explanation.
2. Expected Number of Awards:
   • a. 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.
   • b. Option 2: Enter the topic manually if you do not have enough funding for all the awards in each topic area.

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.

1. Review the table in this section for accuracy. This table populates reporting to leadership, and therefore must be updated on a weekly basis.

Summary Pages

Summary pages are informational only, and provide you a quick snapshot of all your topic areas:

• Cost Share Summary Page: Provides a summary of the Cost Share requirements for each topic area including Anticipated Cost Share and Cost Share Reduction/Waiver Documents (if applicable).
• Eligibility Summary Page: Provides a summary of Eligibility requirements for each topic area. If you will restrict eligibility for some topic areas, you can also use this page for managing the Determination of Restricted Eligibility (DRE) document.

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.

Step 4: Single Topic NOFO

Create a NOFO in EPIC

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

Basic Information Page

• After creating a NOFO, EPIC will place you on the Announcement Planning Tab. You will start on the Basic Information page.
  • General Details Section:
    1. Set the Will the Announcement have Topic Areas? slider to No.
    2. 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.
    3. Skip the following fields, which are not needed during the planning phase:
    • Announcement Document Description
    • Technology Space and Strategic Goals
  • Status Notes Section: 4. If there are any notes you would like to add for weekly reporting, do so here. This field populates the weekly Work Plan report to leadership.
  • Related Announcements Section: 5. If this NOFO is related to an RFI or NOI, confirm it appears here. If the RFI or NOI has not yet been created in EPIC, refer to the following quick guides for assistance:
    • EPIC Quick Guide: NOI Process
    • EPIC Quick Guide: Create RFI
    • Otherwise, skip this section.
    1. 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
• The DAS Chief of Staff is responsible for entering EE-1 Spend Plan Briefing Date once that briefing takes place. You can ignore the other two dates (EE-1 Full NOFO 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 NOFO in EPIC will automatically be assigned as Announcement Manager. To change this, delete the Announcement Manager from the table and add a new user by using the plus sign next to the Announcement Manager title.
• To give team members edit rights to the NOFO 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 NOFO need this role.
  • Announcement Editor: Additional federal staff supporting the NOFO 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.
  • GMS/CS: The GMS/CS supporting the NOFO needs this role. If you are unsure who to assign as the GMS/CS, reach out to the CO who typically supports your technology office.
  • Contracting Officer (CO): The CO supporting the NOFO needs this role. If you are unsure who to assign, reach out to the CO who typically supports your technology office.
  • Legal Counsel: The attorney supporting the NOFO 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 NOFO, add them here. Only Federal Staff can be selected as Coordinating Office POCs if the Coordinating Office is an EERE office. When adding Federal Agency you will need to start typing in the name and the Agency will be available to select.
• Click the Next button to continue. EPIC will save your work.

Funding & Award Details Page

Funding Details Section:

1. Skip the first two questions. You’ll come back to these after your EE-1 Spend Plan Briefing.
2. You are required to Select your anticipated Funding Source. If BIL or IRA are selected, you will be required to select the Anticipated Funding Source Provisions from a prepopulated list.
3. 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) NOFO, it is highly recommended that BIL funding and non-BIL funding are not co-mingled in a single topic. Strongly consider separating the BIL funding and non-BIL funding by topic (e.g., Topic 1 can be BIL funding and Topic 2 can be non-BIL funding).
4. 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.

Mortgage Details Section:

1. If you are planning to fund your NOFO 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 NOFO?
2. Click the plus sign to add a Subprogram and dollar amount for each Fiscal Year.
   • a. Only choose subprograms that are also listed in the Funding Details table you just reviewed.
   • b. Only enter future year funding. The box for the fiscal year of publication must be $0.
   • c. Note: Not all technology offices have provided +/- 6 fiscal years for each subprogram. Subprograms and related fiscal year information is provided by technology offices, so though EPIC can support up to 6 years before and after the anticipated publication fiscal year, it will only be available upon request.
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. Enter the Expected Number of Awards (Min & Max).
2. Enter the Federal Funding Per Award (Min & Max).
3. Enter the Estimated Duration of Award (Min & Max), in either months or years.
4. Enter the TRL (Start & End of Project). Click the View TRL Definitions link if you need a reminder of what each number means.
5. Select Project Type. Note: if you select Other, enter a description to explain.
6. Click Next to continue. EPIC will save your work.

Cost Share Page

1. If you’ll use a Cost Share Waiver, set the applicable slider to Yes (seldomly used).
2. Select Anticipated Cost Share.
3. If you’ll use State Energy Program Cost Match, set the applicable slider to Yes.
4. Click Next to continue. EPIC will save your work.

Eligibility Page

1. Skip this section for now if you’ll use the standard list of eligible applicants.
2. If you plan to restrict eligibility:
   • a. Reach out to your Legal Counsel to discuss.
   • b. Set the Will eligibility be restricted? slider to Yes and select the eligible applicants from the checkboxes provided.
3. Select how DOE/NNSA FFRDCs/National Labs can participate.
4. Click Next to continue. EPIC will save your work.

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. Select the Presidential Request or Congressional Direction options applicable to your NOFO.
3. Quote from the Presidential Request or Congressional Language in the text box provided.
4. Answer Has this announcement been coordinated? If yes, add a description in the text box provided.
5. Answer Has this announcement been issued previously? If yes:
   • a. Select the applicable year(s)
   • b. Enter a description in the Provide a comparison of historical and current topics that describes what changes have been made to spur innovation and align with Administration priorities box.
6. Click Save.