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Starting with FY2016, applicants will receive and answer Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) questions entirely within EPC. USAC will send all PIA questions to the EPC News feed for the Form 471's main contact person, and applicant responses will be sent back to USAC in EPC.
PIA will send an email to the contact person informing him or her that questions are available through the EPC News feed.
The easiest way to access the News feed just for your organization is to click on the name of the school district or independent school on the landing page, and then choose the "News" link. The notification in the EPC News feed reads: "From the FCC Form 471 Review Team."
The notification includes:
- Today's date
- The due date for your response
- Contact name
- Applicant name
- FCC Form 471 application number
- A brief description of the inquiry(ies)
- Your PIA reviewer's name and telephone number
- A hyperlink to your questions (the blue bar at the bottom of the notification)
The News item hyperlink will take you to the complete list of PIA questions. If you submitted more than one FCC Form 471 that requires PIA review, you will receive a separate set of questions for each form.
Questions are also available in the My Tasks section of the contact person's landing page. The hyperlinked name for each task is "Respond to Notifications for Form 471 [form number]."
The My Tasks hyperlinks each take you to an individual review question.
When you click on the hyperlink (from either News or Tasks in EPC) you will access the Review Inquiries page. The Review Inquiries page is the applicant's dashboard for all PIA inquiries for each application. You can also access the Review Inquiries page by selecting Records, then "Review Inquiries" from the left-hand navigation.
You can perform the following actions from the Review Inquiries page by clicking the appropriate button at the top of the page:
- Respond to inquiries
- Request an extension
- Submit a modification to your form ("RAL correction")
Click on the "Respond to Inquiries" button to view and respond to your PIA questions.
When you click on this button, you will see Pending Inquiries and Submitted Inquiries dashboards. These dashboards list the status of the PIA outreach, for example: the type of outreach, the date the notification was sent, the response due date, the reviewer's name and telephone number, and the read status. Pending inquiries are questions submitted by PIA to the contact person; submitted inquiries are responses you submitted to PIA.
When the applicant selects a pending inquiry, a template is displayed listing the PIA question(s) associated with that inquiry. You can enter your answers within the template, upload supporting documentation (a single document or multiple documents), and/or provide additional narrative information.
The system allows you to begin to work on your answers and then save your work for later by clicking the "Save & Close" button.
As always, provide complete answers and respond to all of the questions. Contact your PIA reviewer if you are unsure of what to do or you need clarification. If you do not respond within seven days - or your response is incomplete - you will receive a reminder notification.
After you have finished your response, submit it to PIA by clicking the "Submit" button. Your submitted response will then appear in the Submitted Inquiries dashboard. To expand this dashboard, click on the plus sign ("+") to the right of the Submitted Inquiries header.
You can request more time to respond to your PIA review questions if you need it. You will automatically be granted a seven-day extension upon your first request. Your original response due date (generally 15 days from the date your questions were issued) is automatically adjusted and a new due date is calculated and displayed.
Subsequent extension requests are not automatic. These requests are reviewed and the decision to grant or deny the request will appear in the Review Inquiries dashboard.
If you need to provide or correct information on your FCC Form 471 in advance or during the process of responding to PIA questions, you can submit allowable corrections to your FCC Form 471 by clicking the "Submit Modifications" button on the Review Inquiries page.
