The NED Team recently published the following guidance as a short-term solution for processing Fellow-to-FTE conversions at NIH without causing issues with the Fellow's award and/or payment in the Fellowship Payment System (FPS):
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Reclassifying a Fellow to FTE
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When changing a Fellow’s classification from Fellow to NIH FTE, the Fellowship
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Payment System (FPS) will prevent the Fellow’s IC from creating, renewing,
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transferring, or activating any type of award, as the person is no longer identified as a
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Fellow. However, the person will continue to receive all their stipend payments for any
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awards activated prior to the change in classification.
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ICs are encouraged to create and approve award renewals to extend a Fellow’s
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duration prior to changing the individual’s classification in NED. If the renewal is not
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needed, it can then be cancelled. Awards of any type will not activate automatically;
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nor can they be activated manually after the classification has changed.
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If the classification has been changed to NIH FTE in NED, the IC needs to enter an
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NBS FPS help desk ticket to create, extend, or activate an award in FPS. The IC must
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include the Fellow’s name and HHS ID, award number, and details regarding the
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required actions. The NBS FPS team will coordinate with the IC and OFM to manually
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process the action. Please enter “Assistance with Fellow to FTE” in the short
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description of the ticket and include instructions to triage to the NBS FPS team
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directly.
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Please contact:
- FPS Team for questions about FPS, by opening a help desk ticket for NBS FPS team
As for a long-term solution, DPSAC, the NED and FPS Teams are working on a change to the NED system that will allow DPSAC to conduct the necessary pre-screening prior to the effective date of the classification change.
The proposed change will require the AO to submit a “scheduled classification change,” which would trigger a new DPSAC case to start pre-screening. The classification would remain ‘Fellow’ in NED until the date the scheduled change goes into effect. This change would allow DPSAC to conduct the necessary pre-screening without causing issues with the FPS system and the Fellow’s record.
As of today, there is no target implementation date for the proposed change. Stay tuned as DPSAC continues to work with the NED team to remedy the issue.