eMS Manual for Interreg Programs
eMS Manual for Interreg Programs
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Table of contents
eMS License 13
Security in eMS 14
Technical requirements for the productive environment 17
Installation of eMS 20
User Creation 23
User Self-Management 25
User roles 26
Message Portal 29
Programme setup 31
Call setup 35
Bookmarking projects 45
Project Idea 47
Checklists 49
Eligibility decision, recommendation and MC decision 57
Hand over application to the lead partner 63
Skipping Hand over 64
Contracting 65
Supplementary information 67
Partner Report 74
FLC Assignment 78
Management verification - FLC 80
Project Progress Report 86
Progress Report Monitoring 90
Assigning Officers 93
Assigning external experts for quality assessment 95
MA Report Monitoring 97
Certifying Authority 99
Financial Corrections 120
Modification Request 132
Reverting 142
Project History 147
Technical assistance (deprecated) 150
Translations 151
Form configuration 156
Help System 158
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Automatic messages 161
PDF templates 167
Cube 170
Audit log 173
Upload of documents 174
Import of data 175
Export of data 176
KEEP 183
Backup of eMS 184
Search functionalities 185
Adaptations and plugins 186
Upload Files For Login 187
Performance of eMS 189
Supported Characters 192
Abbreviations 193
Annex 1: User privileges 194
Annex 2: Call options 198
Annex 3: Properties 201
4
D R AFT V E R S I O N
This draft manual is based on version 3_0.10 of eMS. All features of eMS released in
later versions are not yet covered by this manual.
INTERACT does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the
accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, product or process disclosed
in or connected to this document.
Website: www.interact-eu.net
All questions and comments regarding the eMS should be sent to one of the following
email addresses:
5
A B O UT eMS
Background
In the past, most programmes invested time and money in developing similar but
slightly different electronic monitoring systems. There are hundreds of Structural
Funds monitoring systems in Europe and each one of these needs to be designed,
developed, maintained and improved over time.
Interreg programmes decided that it was time to kick-start a change. With the help of
INTERACT, they joined forces to co-develop a monitoring system that is based on the
expertise of many and covers everything a programme needs to run smoothly in
different regions in Europe.
For Interreg programmes and INTERACT, co-developing the eMS meant putting the best
approaches and ideas on the table and finding a common vision for a simplified,
harmonised and inclusive tool for all stakeholders. The eMS was designed together
with four ETC programmes and can be used free of charge by any ETC programme. The
system is delivered in milestones and first modules can be used by programmes before
the full system is built. eMS is currently used in productive environment by 5
programmes and is being tested and prepared for calls for proposals by another 15
programmes. Additionally more than 10 programmes declared their intention to use
the eMS.
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A B O UT eMS
The eMS
eMS is a web application built by the INTERACT Programme for the benefit of all
Interreg Programmes.
All that programmes need is some IT expertise and a server to host the system.
Programmes enter their programme intervention logic and financial data and configure
the system choosing from a range of options.
Just a year ago, the story of the eMS was one that few would have thought
possible.
Many people saw the Interreg world as much too complex to even consider developing
a common electronic monitoring system. After all, co-developing a monitoring system
meant risk: programmes putting resources in a very uncertain pot, trying to satisfy
even more stakeholders than usual, adapting programme rules and habits for the sake
of common procedures, and facing the possibility of severe delays in programme
implementation in case the system should fail.
Their vision was, and still is, that cooperation programmes need to live cooperation
themselves in order to be credible hosts for successful cooperation projects. After the
joint development of Interreg harmonised implementation tools (HIT) proved to be
possible and led to very good results, cooperation programmes wanted to continue on
this path. They were confident that there could be more examples of how cooperation
saves millions of euros, leads to superb results, and can even be fun!
The eMS provides features, functionalities and user interfaces that far exceed most
of the existing monitoring systems in user friendliness and scope.
7
A B O UT eMS
For Interreg programmes and INTERACT, co-developing the eMS meant putting the best
approaches and ideas on the table and making joint decisions. It required finding a
common vision for a simplified, harmonised and inclusive tool for all
stakeholders. Here are just a few of the many innovative features of the eMS:
All they need is some IT expertise and a server to host the system. Programmes enter
their programme intervention logic and financial data and configure the system
choosing from a range of options. As of March 2015, two programmes have already
opened calls for applications with the eMS, saying that these timely online calls would
have been difficult without the eMS. About 20 Interreg programmes plan to use the
eMS and there could even be more. The more programmes use it, the more other
programmes will trust in it and adopt it as well. The total savings of tax payers’ money
is estimated to amount to anything between 10 and 30 million Euros, depending on the
number of programmes using the system.
The development of the eMS would not have been possible without prior
harmonisation of implementation tools.
This harmonisation effort started in 2010, when INTERACT, together with Interreg
programmes, decided to develop HIT (harmonised implementation tools) for Interreg
programmes. In 2013, when it became clear that HIT laid the basis for a joint
monitoring system, interested programmes and INTERACT teamed up to take on this
project. By 2014 the IT support and expertise needed to begin development was
procured and the project took off.
A key element of the eMS is that the co-creation of the system does not stop after
deployment.
displaying cooperation projects and outputs on geographic maps. These features will
be added to the core eMS and made available to any programme that wants to use
them. It is easy to see that overtime the eMS will grow to become the best monitoring
system within the realm of Structural Funds as it continues to incorporate
functionalities. This is the central argument for cooperation: the co-creation of the
eMS will lead to a tool that no programme could ever have developed on its own.
The workflow
Data in eMS are structured in several layers of information and follows a strict
workflow. Some steps in the workflow are mandatory; others can be switched on and
off via configuration or options in the calls. Forms and user interfaces in the system
can only be accessed with corresponding user rights and privileges. INTERACT provides
a default configuration for the main stakeholders of the system (types of users). These
configurations can be changed by Interreg programmes and allow them to configure
user rights according to their organisation and division of tasks.
2. Management of calls
Interreg programmes finance projects based on application forms submitted within a
defined timeslot and conditions. These timeslots are calls for proposals. Each call has a
start and end date which determines the start and deadline for submitting applications.
In the eMS, each call can contain different configurations (‘call options’), which change
the application form visible to applicants. One Interreg programme can announce an
unlimited number of calls throughout the programme lifecycle.
The conditions applying to each call for proposals are usually approved by the
Monitoring Committee and configured in the system by the system administrator.
3. Application Form
Any person intending to submit an application within an open call for applications can
register a user and fill out the application form directly in the eMS. It is possible to
submit applications only within the timeslot and conditions defined in the call for
applications. A user who first created an application is treated by the system as a lead
user and can provide other users with read - or read/write access to the application
form. The lead applicant is the only user who can submit the application.
4. Assessment
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A B O UT eMS
All submitted applications need to go through a two-step assessment. The eMS contains
a sequence of two checklists: “Admin- & Eligibility check” and “Quality Assessment”.
Assessment of Applications is usually managed by the JS in cooperation with national
contact points and/or external experts. The eMs supports 4-eye principle for the
assessment and allows assigning specific applications and questions to specific users
such as external experts.
5. Recommendation
The outcome of the assessment is a recommendation by the assessors to the Monitoring
Committee. The project can be recommended for funding, not recommended or
recommended under conditions. Recommendations to the MC are usually managed by
the JS.
6. Funding decision (Monitoring Committee)
The Monitoring Committee decides which projects are approved by the programme or
approved under conditions. The decision of the MC and its date need to be inserted
into the system, which is usually a task of the JS.
All projects which are approved under conditions need to go through a condition
fulfilment procedure, which is, in practice, a modification of the application form
based on some clear recommendations of the MC. Modifications are then verified by
the JS, which subsequently changes the project status into approved or not approved.
All projects which are not approved are archived in the system.
7. Handover and supplementary information
After the project is approved and before it can be contracted, the lead applicant needs
to appoint an eMS user who will be the lead partner for the project. The JS checks the
proposed user and approves or rejects the proposed lead partner. In case of rejection,
the lead applicant needs to propose another user. This process is called handover in the
eMS and can be switched off if not needed by the programme.
Additionally, some important information on project management structure and e.g.
bank account are ready to be filled out at this stage in the section entitled
‘supplementary information’. This section is available from the moment of approval on
but is not necessary a step in the workflow, i.e. if not filled out one may still continue
the contracting process. There are many tabs in the ‘supplementary information’
section all of which can be accessed by users with the corresponding user rights
(read/write)
8. Subsidy contract
The system supports the generation of a Subsidy Contract. It is template-based and
uses data from the approved application form. The template for the subsidy contract is
programme-specific and can be adjusted by programmes. Please note that some IT
expertise is necessary to adjust templates in the eMS The Subsidy Contract –once
generated - can be edited (if necessary) and then printed (downloaded as pdf
document). Once the Subsidy Contract is marked as approved (eg by the JS), the
system changes the status of a project into ‘contracted’ and allows for partner and
project reporting. Basic data on the Subsidy Contract and all its amendments as well as
the documents themselves are stored in the eMS in the section ‘project history’.
9. Partner reporting
Once the project is contracted, it enters the reporting phase, which will last until the
project is finalised. Each project partner needs to report its activities and expenditure
in a partner report. In order to do so, the Lead Partner needs to allocate at least one
user per project partner. Thereafter, partners can fill out their reports and submit
them to their national controllers (FLC).
10. FLC
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A B O UT eMS
First level Controllers are national controllers who need to check every partner’s
report. They have access to the eMS and see the relevant information. They have their
working documents available in the system and can do the verification work online. As
a result of the FLC check, an FLC certificate is generated and approved by the
controller. The eMS also generates an FLC report which contains more detailed
information on the FLC work as well as the FLC checklists. After FLC verification, the
partner report is forwarded to the Lead Partner.
Project reporting
The Lead Partner collects all FLC certified partner reports (including its own) and
creates a project report. The Lead Partner decides on which FLC certificates to include
in the project report. The LP has the right to exclude partner reports from the project
report and to reject expenditure approved by the FLC. As soon as the project report is
ready, it is submitted to the JS.
11. JS verification
The JS receives a project report and verifies it accordingly; It has the possibility to
make positive or negative corrections to individual expenditure items. Once approved,
the report is submitted to the MA.
12. MA verification
MA receives a project report and verifies it accordingly; Also MA has the possibility to
make positive or negative corrections to individual expenditure items. Once approved,
the report is then submitted to the CA.
13. CA verification
CA verifies the report. Unlike JS and MA, CA can deduct some expenditure or
exclude temporarily for further verification) and includes the report in the CA
certificate. Once included in the certificate, the report may be paid.
14. Payment
CA performs the payment to the Lead Partner outside of the system and
records date and amount paid. The payment can be done in full or in
instalments.
15. CA reporting
CA is responsible for several reports to the European Commission. The eMS
allows for inclusion of the CA certificates into the application for payment to
the European Commission as well as annual accounts. eMS also allows for
generation of the accounts for the accounting periods.
It is also possible to generate programme annual reports and financial
statistics, which are required by the regulatory framework.
Modifications
It must be possible to manage project modifications throughout the project
lifecycle. The system allows the JS and the Lead Partner to initiate project
modifications. The JS is allowed to initiate modifications at all times and the
LP only after the project is in the status ‘contracted’. Once the modification is
initiated and allowed by the JS, the LP can modify the application form. All
modifications need to be verified and approved by the JS and/or the Monitoring
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A B O UT eMS
12
L I CE N SE
eMS License
One of the main goals of the eMS project is to give Interreg Programmes the possibility to
get a software solution free of license fees.
The license agreement was written by a lawyer specialised in IT and agreed with
the IT-company PL.O.T., within the scope of license terms in the contract between
INTERACT/City of Vienna and PL.O.T.
It provides Interreg MAs with the right to use and change the eMS – internally or by
outsourcing to third parties.
It prohibits publishing the source code or using the software for purposes other than
the intended use as a monitoring software tool, especially for commercial purposes
by programmes (MAs), as well as any third parties.
It prohibits any claims on the side of programmes (MAs) against INTERACT/ City of
Vienna.
It has to be signed in the legally binding version in German (the English translation
is only a courtesy), as Austrian law and jurisdiction apply.
Interreg MAs have to sign the license agreement prior to receiving the eMS and
starting to use the software.
Once they receive the eMS, Interreg MAs have to check if the software is suitable
for them (e.g. own adaptations of the eMS might be needed).
MAs are requested to inform INTERACT of errors/bugs they detect in the software.
INTERACT will run a reference system on its own server and will maintain this up-
to-date (corrected bugs, etc) in order to be able to provide the best updated
version of the eMS to MAs. That way Interreg programmes benefit from the joint
effort of all programmes using the eMS.
On the other hand INTERACT is not an IT-company, which can assure timely and 24-
hours bug fixing. Therefore MAs should acquire additional IT-support for
maintenance.
For the benefit of the eMS community, MAs are also requested to provide INTERACT
with any developments (new plug-ins, new features etc.), which can be distributed
for free to all other programmes, after certification/adaptation by INTERACT.
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S E CU R I T Y
Security in eMS
Security in web applications can only be provided by securing the application and the
environment where the application is running. One of the most important goals of the
eMS project is to provide a secure application. Securing a web application is not a one-
time effort, security is an ongoing task. Therefore maintenance of the software tool
and the environment (e.g. updating the operating system, keeping the applied
technologies up to date) is necessary to keep the system secure.
This document describes the different security mechanisms implemented in the eMS
with consideration of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 821/2014 Article 3.
User authentication in eMS is implemented using the widely used Spring Security
Framework (http://projects.spring.io/spring-security/).
Authorization is carried out using a detailed user roles and rights management system.
Due to this system, certain functionalities can only be executed by specific users,
certain views are only visible to privileged users.
Passwords have to follow minimum security standards. The password pattern can be
configured by the programme individually. Thus, programmes can control the
minimum security of their passwords.
The security implemented in eMS follows guidelines developed by the “Open Web
Application Security Project” (OWASP, www.owasp.org). OWASP is a worldwide non-
profit organization focused on improving the security of software.
eMS follows the guidelines provided by OWASP. In the following section, the top ten
security threats named by OWASP
(https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top10#OWASP_Top_10_for_2013) and the
implemented security in eMS will be discussed.
Injection
The eMS uses the Object-Relationship Mapper “Hibernate” (http://hibernate.org/). As
Hibernate uses prepared statements, the eMS is protected against SQL injection
attacks.
Security Misconfiguration
eMS is developed using state-of-the-art frameworks and components. Those
components, as well as e.g. operating systems, application servers and tools, have to
be maintained constantly in a productive scenario to keep the application secure.
Passwords are never stored in clear text but only as hash values.
15
S E CU R I T Y
16
T E C HN I C AL REQUIREMENT S
Hardware specifications
The following hardware specifications were used during the procurement of the eMS.
The development company guarantees the functionality and performance of the eMS
on these specifications.
Interreg programmes can decide to reduce the hardware. Any resulting performance
problems are not covered by the guarantee of the service provider.
The eMS can run on virtualised environments. Virtualised environments allow more
flexibility, for example it is technically easier to increase the hardware at a later point
in time.
To get the most stable but freely availbale system, INTERACT has decided to use
CentOS as the operating system for eMS. CentOS offers full updates for the operating
system until Q4 2020. Maintenance updates are available until June 2024
(http://wiki.centos.org/About/Product).
- CentOS 7
- Oracle JDK 1.7
- Apache HTTP Server 2.4
- Apache Tomcat 7
- Mariadb
Optional: Apache ActiveMQ 5 (only needed, if there are two parallel Tomcat instances
on one machine)
Remark:
Multiple parallel instances of the tomcat application server are recommended for all
programmes, especially for large ones. Please keep in mind – all technical users on the system
count as users, be it applicants or backend-users like JS/MA/CA authorities.
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T E C HN I C AL REQUIREMENT S
The company providing the hardware (or virtual environment) often provides
maintenance for hardware, operating system and software. To ensure the uptime of
their server, they often monitor the server itself. In this case, they are responsible for
security updates, detection of special hacking attacks (like DDos-Attacks) etc. They
usually offer only services for their standard software and do not provide services for
the application itself.
For using encrypted connections to the eMS, the use of HTTPS is strongly
recommended. For such an encryption, the use of a trusted SSL-Certificate is
advisable, which can usually be ordered and maintained by the same company.
A good back-up of the system is very important. Normally this is done by the company
providing the server and should be part of the “service level agreement” (SLA).
Some companies providing server-services, like the ones mentioned above, also
provide installation, setup and monitoring of the application and possible updates of
the application itself while others just run the server and the operating system.
Some Interreg programmes can order such services within their own organisation and
do not need to procure them separately.
INTERACT offers set-up support to individual Programmes. This setup support could be
in form of one training session or in for of a support during setup of the system. The
installation of the environment has to be done by your IT administrator.
In case of difficulties, our IT company PL.O.T. offers support in this matter especially
in the configuration and setup of the software. You can find more details about this in
the “eMS set-up support” thread in the INTERACT Observers group forum on basecamp.
Testing Environment
This environment can run on very limited hardware, since it is only used by the
administrator in order to test the configurations and the system.
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T E C HN I C AL REQUIREMENT S
The test-system could be included into the procurement for maintenance to ask the
maintenance providing company to run a very small environment to see and test bug
fixes and new features before installing them on a productive environment.
Productive Environment
The experience of Programmes already using the eMS shows that an installation with
two parallel tomcat instances can handle up to 200 users at the same time and in case
of more parallel sessions, it might experience performance issues. All users, including
programme bodies (not only applicants), are covered by this number.
Independently from running the software on a server, the software can be modified by
a software development company. Usually companies developing software do not run
the software and vice versa. Therefore, it is often necessary to order further
developments from a different company than the one running the system. Software
development could be carried out at an hourly rate or at a total price for a needed
functionality.
eMS is a web application and can therefore be used with any up-to-date web browser
like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari. For technical reasons, eMS only
supports the latest version of these browsers and one version before.
19
I NS T AL L AT I ON OF E M S
Installation of eMS
General remarks
eMS is a Java web application, which has been tested by INTERACT on the following
technologies:
CentOS 7
Oracle JDK v. 1.7
Mariadb
Apache Tomcat
Apache WS
Apache Activemq 5.10
Java is a platform-independent technology. INTERACT recommends to use the
approved and tested software configuration.
Setup support
Before installation
eMS is a highly configurable software. Parts of the flexibility are reflected in the User
interface of the application, other parts need to be adapted in a special part of the
setup script. The following points need to be specified by the ETC Programme before
installing eMS:
1. Which languages are used? Which ones are used as input languages, which ones
are used as user interface languages?
2. How many parallel installations of eMS are running on one server/machine/vm?
If there is more than one eMS instance necessary, the installation of Apache
Activemq is required.
3. Which funds are used? Since version 3_0.1 custom funds can be defined in the
database.
INTERACT can provide an up-to-date manual for installing eMS on your system. Please
get in touch with us or download the latest version in our forum on basecamp.
There are already translations of the user interface available for several languages.
Please get in touch with INTERACT to receive the latest updated versions.
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I NS T AL L AT I ON OF E M S
Installation of eMS
13. Adaptation and configuration of templates for pdf extraction of different forms
14. Implementation and configuration of validation plugins
15. Import of translations
FAQ on installation
1. When using only one instance, the server shows an error output at startup:
org.apache.velocity.exception.VelocityException: Error initializing log: Failed
to initialize an instance of org.apache.velocity.runtime.log.Log4JLogChute
with the current runtime configuration….
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: velocity.log (Keine Berechtigung)
The problem arises when using the system to start a tomcat instance. It is by
default using the root folder as current or working directory and velocity tries
to write the log to the current directory. Please put in value like
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I NS T AL L AT I ON OF E M S
22
U S E R C R E AT I O N
User Creation
User registration and activation can be done in two ways. In any case users in eMS are
applicants at first. It is possible to assign different user rights in a second step.
Users can register themselves in the system. After clicking on the “Register” button,
the eMS sends a validation e-mail, which contains a validation link to the provided e-
mail address. Clicking on this link validates the e-mail address in eMS. Afterwards, the
user is able to log into the system.
Users with the assigned privilege “MG_USER” have the right to create, modify,
activate and lock users.
Creating a user has to be carried out in two steps – like the registration of a user in the
registration form. Firstly, a user has to be created; secondly, the user has to be
activated by clicking on the “Activate User” button.
Users can be locked as well. Locked users cannot log into eMS any more.
After being created (either self-registered or registered by an authorised person), any user has
the role of applicant. In order to create privileged users, a privileged role needs to be assigned
to the user. User role represents a set of privileges and can be managed only by a user
having the almighty “ADMIN” privilege.
Privileges for the most common authorities as they are installed on the INTERACT reference and
testing environment can be found in the annex of this manual.
24
U S E R S E LF -M AN AG E M E N T
User Self-Management
User Account
After clicking on “User Account” in the left side menu, users are able to modify the
information themselves.
25
U S E R R O LE S
User roles
The eMS enables managing roles and rights based on privileges. It means that certain
functionalities are available only for certain users.
26
U S E R R O LE S
After a specific role is selected, the privileges can be added or removed. Privileges
can allow or deny the role to perform the selected action. A denial overrules a
permission of the privilege. So, if a user has more roles, and an action is permitted in
one role, and denied in another role, the user will not be able to perform the action.
User management
27
U S E R R O LE S
After a specific user is selected, the roles can be assigned. More roles can be assigned
to a user. However, if a user has more roles, and an action is permitted in one role,
and denied in another role, the user will not be able to perform the action, as the
denying the privilege overrules its permission.
28
M E S S AG E P OR T AL
Message Portal
eMS allows users to exchange messages within the system.
Message exchange
Messaging
eMS supports standard mailing functions such as sending, forwarding and replying the
mails. It enables sending messages to multiple recipients as well as sorting and filtering
messages based on different criteria.
29
M E S S AG E P OR T AL
30
P RO G R AM M E SETUP
Programme setup
After the eMS is set up and running and before any call is open, the Programme data
needs to be entered.
First year/Last year – the programme implementation period including n+3/2 rule
NUTS regions
A programme needs to indicate which NUTS regions are eligible for funding.
You can do it either by selecting the whole countries from the list of “Available NUTS”
(by default all available NUTS 0 are shown in this section) and adding them to the
“Selected NUTS”. All NUTS 3 from a selected country will be added to “Selected
NUTS” section. You may also remove single regions from the selected list.
31
P RO G R AM M E SETUP
Another way is to select single NUTS 3 regions. To do this, you should first select
relevant NUTS 0 and NUTS 2 region from a drop down menu (“Available NUTS” will
show only NUTS 3 relevant for the selected NUTS0/2) and adding single NUTS 3 regions
to the “Selected NUTS” section.
Repeat this until the “Selected NUTS” list reflects the programme area. Please
remember that the maximum co-financing rate per region is already set up (eMS setup
at the installation). Remember that applicants will be able to select any other region
from the full list of NUTS available in the system (for partners from outside of the
programme area).
Fund
Please select which funds are available for your programme. You may select one or
multiple funds.
32
P RO G R AM M E SETUP
Priority axes
After selecting funds, continue to select priority axes. Go into the section and click on
“Create a priority axis”. Give the axis a name, introduce a co-financing rate and select
applicable areas of intervention. Set up a financial allocation per area of intervention.
Calculation basis
In the next section please insert the calculation basis and the co-financing rate per
fund.
NOTE: Please do not forget to provide co-financing rates, as they will be used to
calculate overview tables.
33
P RO G R AM M E SETUP
Investment strategy
34
C AL L SETUP
Call setup
The call setup is a tool in eMS used to create and modify calls. This tool provides a
defined set of optical fields in the application form. It allows to focus on specific
priorities, subprogrammes,etc. and to select checklists for eligibility and evaluation.
A call can be created in the section “eMS Management” “Calls”. After opening the
section, the user has to scroll down and click the button “Create New Call”.
In “Call Basic Data” the user can set the name, start- and end date of the call.
Besides the start and end date of the call, Call Timeslots can be also added, enabling
the call to be published repeatedly.
If timeslots are used, the start and end date above are not taken into account.
Timeslots determine when it is possible to apply for a call and to submit an application
form. With this feature, a call could be opened in repetitive timeslots without
changing the configuration. In times, when there is no “call timeslot” defined, it is not
possible to create or submit an application form.
35
C AL L SETUP
Please find the configurations and their description in the Annex of this manual.
Thematic selection
The user is able to select the “Macroregional Strategy-”, “Priority Axis-”, “Specific
Objective-”, as well as the “Subprogramme-” sections.
The application form will only be editable in the defined time range. Submission of
projects after the deadline will not be possible. After a call has been created, it has to
be published once with the “Publish” button.
After the call is published, the call setup can only be modified if the “ADMIN” unlocks
the call by clicking on “Unlock Call”.
36
C AL L SETUP
Checklist Selection
In order to attach a checklist to the created call, the user has to select a created
checklist from the listed checklists.
Attachments
The programme can upload attachments to calls. These documents will be visible to
applicants eg. application manual, guidelines, Programme rules…
“Manage Multilanguage for Call” has the same functionality as the tool “Translation”.
The difference is that all modifications made in “Manage Multilanguage for Call” are
only applicable for this specific call.
37
C AL L SETUP
eMS allows to show/hide sections from the application form in the first step of a two-
step procedure. To do this, you need to change a configuration file “af.properties”.
Changes in this configuration file are only taken into account after the restart of the
server.
af.menu.rendered.step1.partner=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectcescription=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectcescription.projectrelevance=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectcescription.projectfocus=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectcescription.projectcontext=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectcescription.horizontalprinciples=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectcescription.projectrisks=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.workplan=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.workplan.workpackagelist=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.workplan.targetgroups=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.workplan.defineperiods=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectbudget=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectbudget.partnerbudget=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectbudget.activitiesoutside=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectbudget.purchaseofland=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.projectbudgetoverview=false
af.menu.rendered.step1.attachments=false
38
C AL L SETUP
Assignment of fields to different phases of a call can be carried out by clicking the
“Manage Multilanguage for call” button. This section allows assignment of input fields
to different phases. Please navigate to the respective element you want to assign and
change the configuration there.
A user with the “admin” privilege can unlock an already published call, even if there are already
application forms linked to this configuration.
Please be careful in changing anything in the call setup after it is already published as it will
affect already submitted application forms and projects
Warning
Please consider that changing configurations in published calls might lead to irreparable
damage of data.
Please test any change in the configuration thoroughly in a testing environment, before
applying them to a productive installation.
Damages due to configuration changes are a consequence of data processing they are not a lack
of software quality.
39
A P P LI C AT I ON F O R M
Application Form
Most of the forms in the application form are mostly self-explaining. We want to highlight only a
few special forms and describe the implemented functionalities.
eMS calculates a maximum co-financing rate per partner, taking into account several different
configured co-financing rates. Some of the percentage values (like different co-financing rates
per NUTS region) can only be changed in the technical database.
Configuration can only be done on Programme level. Exact co-financing rate is stored by
partner, therefore a later change of the configured percentages does not affect already created
application forms – it only changes the maximum co-financing rate for new projects.
The algorithm always takes the lowest amount out of several configured co-financing rates.
40
A P P LI C AT I ON F O R M
Periods
Defined periods are a prerequisite of successful checking and submitting the AF. Periods can be
set in the Application Form ->Work Plan -> Define Periods section.
Depending on the call configuration, periods might be either generated automatically (based on
a plugin) or inserted manually by an applicant.
Applicants need to be very cautious about changing the Start / End date of a project, as this
change needs to be reflected also in the period definition. Therefore, it is recommended to
“Recreate periods” or manually adjust the periods in the “Define periods” section after every
change in these dates.
Budget
Budget belongs to the most important parts of the Application Form. Budget needs to be
inserted per partner. Therefore, partner information in the “Partner” section needs to be
inserted before Budget can be defined.
Partner Budget is usually inserted per Work package or per period. Hence, this information
should be also included before filling in the budget. If other order of filling in the AF is applied,
you need to be aware, that new cells in the budget will be created with an automatic value (0€)
for the additional period/Work package.
The individual budget items can be inserted in the Project Budget -> Partner Budget -> Define
Budget section.
Flat rates
Besides calculating using real expenditures, flat rates can be used for calculating certain budget
items, particularly for Staff costs ad Office & Administration costs.
Staff costs (if flatrated) are calculated as a percentage of a sum of expenditures used for all the
items but Office & Administration and Net Revenues.
If a value in any cost is changed / added by the applicant, it is better to click the “recalculate”
button.
When applying Flat rates, it is important to bear in mind that all the previously inserted sums in
Staff costs and O&A Costs will be replaced by the calculated (flatrated) costs.
41
A P P LI C AT I ON F O R M
In certain cases, it is necessary to grant an exception and to allow an applicant to submit the
Application Form even if not all the requirements to check successfully have been met. These
cases need to be managed individually.
In such a case, a JTS user needs to open the project. The project even if not submitted can be
found using the Application Browser.
After entering the project, in the left side menu -> Management, you can click either “Set
Project State To Checked” or “Allow Submit Without Check”. These settings might be applied
only on a particular project, not on multiple projects at once or on the whole call.
Attachment upload
After entering the project as JTS, in the left side menu -> Management, you can also see the
item “Attachment upload allowed”.
42
A P P LI C AT I ON F O R M
AF non-submitted: Using this button for a non-submitted (saved) project, you can
prevent the applicant from uploading attachments.
AF submitted: Using this button for a submitted project, you can enable the
applicant to attach additional documents to an already closed (submitted)
Application Form.
These settings might be applied only on a particular project, not on multiple projects at once or
on the whole call.
Attachment JS
Figure 18 Attachments JS
Documents
Templates for Pdf creation might be selected in the Documents section of the JTS view.
Figure 19 Documents
43
A P P LI C AT I ON F O R M
After entering the project as JTS, in the left side menu -> Management, “Documents” item needs
to be selected in order to get redirected to this section.
44
B O O KM AR K P R OJ E C T S
Bookmarking projects
Every user is able to bookmark a project, i.e. mark it for easier and quicker access.
Projects can be bookmarked by clicking on the corresponding item on the left side
menu in an opened application form. The same applies for removing a bookmark.
Bookmarked projects can be accessed by clicking the corresponding item on the left
side menu of the main page.
45
B O O KM AR K P R OJ E C T S
46
P R OJ E C T I D E A
Project Idea
This module serves for posting and sharing project ideas with the purpose of finding
partners or provide inspiration for others.
After selecting the “Project Idea” menu item you will be redirected to the Project
Idea Overview where you can see other ideas and also insert your own ideas.
When creating new project ideas you can fill in the name and description, specify
whether you are looking for partner, describe partners and potential partners, etc.
47
P R OJ E C T I D E A
Creating a project
Based on the idea, you can easily create a project by clicking the “Create Project”
button at the bottom of the Project Idea page.
Afterwards, you are only required to select a call and all the information (including
details on partners) previously saved as project idea will be directly copied into the
new project.
If the checkboxes “Publicated” and “Partners Needed” are ticked, the Programme can
publish the provided information on its website to allow potential partners to search.
There is currently no possibility in eMS to directly search for potential projects. A link
to an external website has to be implemented by the programme.
48
C HE CK L I ST S
Checklists
These types define at which step in the workflow the checklist will be available (e.g.
evaluation of first step, eligibility check).
Type Description
Phase 1 Eligibility Admin and eligibility check of the first step in a two-step
procedure
Phase 1 Evaluation Quality assessment of the first step in a two-step procedure.
Follows “Phase 1 Eligibility” in the workflow.
Eligibility Check Either
- Admin and eligibility check of the second step in a two-
step procedure
- Admin and eligibility check in a one-step procedure
Project Evaluation Either
- Quality assessment of the second step in a two-step
procedure
- Quality assessment in a one-step procedure
First Level Control Check FLC checklist, linked to each partner progress report.
JTS Progress Report Check JTS checklist, linked to each project progress report.
Inherent Risk FLC assessment, linked to each partner progress report.
Control Risk FLC assessment, linked to each partner progress report.
MA MA checklist, linked to each project progress report.
CA CA checklist, linked to each project progress report.
It is possible to create several checklists of the same type.
49
C HE CK L I ST S
Checklists do not have to be in place, when the call is launched for applicants, but
they have to be in place the first time they are used. For example, for “Phase 1
Evaluation” checklists this means, the configuration has to be finished once you start
evaluating projects in Phase 1.
To establish the link, we have to enter the management of the call again. This is
carried out in the “Calls” section. At the bottom of the call configuration, there is a
section called “Checklist Selection”. Here you can choose which checklists should be
used in this call.
If you use a two-step call, you need to register a checklist of type “Phase 1
Evaluation”.
There are HIT-Templates available for “Eligibility check” and “Project Evaluation”.
You can select for a given type, one or several checklists or no checklist. If you use
none, the section later on will contain no questions. If you select one, during the
evaluation, only the questions from this checklist will be displayed. Choosing several
checklists will show the checklists one after the other in the evaluation.
To cover this feature, in addition to creating the checklist, the eMS creates a user
privilege to access this checklist. The name of the user privilege follows the pattern
“CHECKLIST_NAME_OF_THE_CHECKLIST_id”. If you create your first checklist and
name it for example “Formal and eligibility check”, the corresponding user privilege is
called “CHECKLIST_FORMAL_AND_ELIGIBILITY_CHECK_1”.
To allow for example your JTS to answer this checklist, you have to go to the “Manage
Roles” section and assign this privilege to the user role.
Question types
In the “Manage checklists” section, you can click on the most right icon “Show
questions” to see the questions attached to one checklist.
50
C HE CK L I ST S
All questions take the verification configuration into account. Here you can choose
how many different users have to answer this question.
- min = 1, max = 10, steps= 1 would make 10 stars, where each is selectable.
- min=0, max=10, steps=2 would make 5 stars, each counting for two points
- min=0, max=10, steps=5 would make 2 stars, each counting for five points
The weight defines how this question is weighted to the total evaluated result of the
checklist. It represents the importance of the question with regard to the total
evaluation. The weight defines the maximum value, which can be achieved by putting
the maximum number of points.
51
C HE CK L I ST S
Only the weight goes into the total. The evaluated result is defined by the weight and
the reached points.
52
C HE CK L I ST S
In an opened project, the individual checklists appear as separate menu items (see
Figure 2).
- EVALUATE_PROJECT_PHASE1
- EVALUATE_PROJECT
- SUBMIT_EVALUATION
- ELIBILITY_CHECK
- ELIGIBILITY_CHECK_SUBMIT
After evaluating a question, the “DONE” checkbox needs to be clicked. This action is
necessary for each question.
53
C HE CK L I ST S
It will make this answer available in the further step where the different given
answers are displayed and combined to a final result.
54
C HE CK L I ST S
Remark: the “blocker” feature does not block the user from finishing the final check.
It does not have influence on the workflow. It is the user’s decision what to do, if a
checklist contains a negatively answered blocker.
Here the user can see the given answers (in the light rows) and assign a final result.
Again, the user has to confirm completed evaluation by checking the checkbox on the
right.
After all questions have been answered by all evaluators and are treated in the
consolidation view (and after saving), a button appears to finish the answering of this
checklist.
Checklist types
There are predefined steps in the workflow of eMS, where checklists can be defined.
If the configuration of a checklist is wrong, the eMS allows to reset the given checklist.
Be aware: this removes all given answers and sets the checklist back to the
initial/empty state! No answers from any user who answered this checklist for this
project will be kept!
This feature can be used as well, if e.g. a wrong checklist was assigned to this call. In
this case, please change the configuration in the call setup and reset all answers
afterwards.
This feature is available to users, who can do the consolidation of this checklist.
Checklist export
In the consolidation view, eMS allows to export the result of an assessment. This
report is template based; it can be adapted to the needs of each ETC Programme.
56
E L I G I BI L I T Y D E CI S I O N , RE CO M M E N D A TI O N ,
MC D E CI SI O N
Eligibility decision
JTS can assign the eligibility decision for all applications in this state in one form. This
form is available separately for the first and for the second step.
Recommendation
The recommendations are not binding for MC. Programmes might decide not to use
this feature and might therefore not provide such information to the MC.
57
E L I G I BI L I T Y D E CI S I O N , RE CO M M E N D A TI O N ,
MC D E CI SI O N
Next to this, the system allows to generate quality assessment reports for each
application individually. This report can be extracted in the consolidation view of the
quality assessment. The report is template based and can therefore be adapted to the
needs of the Programme.
Approved
Approved under condition
Reserved
Rejected
Postponed (Optional)
58
E L I G I BI L I T Y D E CI S I O N , RE CO M M E N D A TI O N ,
MC D E CI SI O N
The values determine the future workflow of the applications. “Approved applications-
” are forwarded to the “hand-over” phase, “Approved under conditions” opens the
application form for the applicant for further modifications, “Reserved” puts
applications on hold, and “Rejected” closes the application procedure.
Figure 37 To add conditions to an application, the quality assessment checklist must first be finalised
by pressing ‘Final Check’.
59
E L I G I BI L I T Y D E CI S I O N , RE CO M M E N D A TI O N ,
MC D E CI SI O N
Figure 38 This opens the interface for entering conditions under which the JS wishes to recommend
the project for funding to the MC.
Figure 39 The JS can choose to recommend applications under conditions and view conditions in a
pop-up.
The final decision lies with the MC, which can decide that a project is ‘Approved under
conditions’ (menu item: ‘Funding decision (MC)’). Please note that the MC is free to
take any funding decisions regardless of the recommendations by the JS. Conditions
can be further edited after the MC meeting.
Figure 40 After the MC funding decision, final conditions can be further edited.
Saving the MC funding decision as ‘approved under conditions’ moves the application
to the menu item ‘approved under conditions’. The status of the application is
changed to show that a modification request is in progress.
Opening the application in this view will show details of the ongoing modification
request.
60
E L I G I BI L I T Y D E CI S I O N , RE CO M M E N D A TI O N ,
MC D E CI SI O N
Figure 41: (JS view) Approving projects under conditions leads to a modification request from the
programme to the LP
Caution!
Please note that in the ‘Modification Requests Details’ view, the ‘decision status’ is
set to ‘accepted’ because a modification request is initiated by the programme and
therefore (i.e. by approving a project under conditions) is automatically accepted.
This does not mean that the actual modification by the LP is automatically accepted.
It just means that the LP can proceed to modify the application without further
approvals on the side of the JS.
The LP can enter the application and will then see the same interface as the one
shown above and can access conditions via the interface.
Figure 42: (LP view) Approving applications under conditions leads to a modification request from the
programme to the LP and reopens the application form for editing.
The LP then modifies the application and presses ‘check modification’ and ‘submit
modification’ to close the modification.
Check modification calls a validation plugin, which checks the modification according
to pre-defined rules. Via this plugin programmes can e.g. monitor the flexibility rules
and prevent changes which are not allowed by programme rules.
Figure 43: (LP View) To submit a modified AF, the LP must first check the modification and then
press submit
The JS reviews the modified application form and sets the status to refused, accepted,
or handed back.
61
E L I G I BI L I T Y D E CI S I O N , RE CO M M E N D A TI O N ,
MC D E CI SI O N
Refused: terminates the modification process and omits all modifications done by
the LP. No new version of the AF is created. The project is rejected and archived.
Accepted: accepts the modifications introduced by the LP and generates a new
version of the AF. The project status is changed to ‘approved’ and the project is
moved from ‘approved under conditions’ to the ‘handover and contracting‘
section.
Handed back: reopens the AF for further modifications by the LP.
Please note that it is not possible to partially accept modifications (e.g. accept those
in the project summary section but not those in the budget). Modifications are instead
handed back to the LP and the process is repeated until all issues are solved.
Figure 44: (LP View) The JS can decide to refuse or accept modifications or to hand them back to the
LP. The compare modification functions opens the track changes functionality
NOTE:
In order to access the messages via the ‘Modification request Details’ shown above,
you need to click the small arrow to the right.
In order to access the drop-down and the messages interface you need to click
somewhere in the green row.
62
H AN D OV E R
The applicant has to enter the project again. A notification like shown in the image
below will pop up.
By clicking on the left side on the section “Lead Partner” you will enter the menu to
select the future lead partner.
By typing the name of the prospective lead partner and by clicking the button
“Declare As Lead Partner” the procedure is done.
JTS has to accept the proposed partner. After acceptance, the lead applicant loses
access to the application, the lead partner gains access. The lead applicant can see
63
H AN D OV E R
the Application Form the way it was submitted and approved, however, cannot see the
reporting phase of the project, cannot request modifications, edit users or intervene
into the project in any other way.
64
CONTRACTING
Contracting
Logged in as “ADMIN” or as a user with the privilege “MG_CONTRACT”, you can enter
contracting in the section “Handover And Contracting” “Contracting”.
Then you have to choose a project to contract by clicking on it. On the left side there
will be the section “Application And Contract”. By clicking on “Subsidy Contract” you
will enter contracting.
It is also possible to print the subsidy contract. After clicking on “print” an html form
of the contract will show up. This form can still be modified before clicking on print
By clicking “Approve Contract” and confirming it, the project receives the state
“Contracted”.
Projects which are contracted are listed in the section “Handover And Contracting”
“Contracted”
65
CONTRACTING
66
S U P PL E M E N T A R Y I N F O RM A T I O N
Supplementary information
Supplementary information represents a way of providing additional data by a lead
partner.
The supplementary information section is not locked. The lead partner is free to
change the information at any time.
67
S U P PL E M E N T A R Y I N F O RM A T I O N
As the lead partner is always free to change the data in the supplementary
information, eMS allows seeing the changes.
In order to trace what was modified, the JTS can see in a comparing view, which
elements have been changed. Changes can be confirmed by the JTS directly in the
particular section.
68
S U P PL E M E N T A R Y I N F O RM A T I O N
The eMS allows to configure, if the lead partner has access to certain sections of the
application form. This configuration hides the respective forms. For example this
might be useful in case your programme has a centralized FLC. You might not need the
FLC section then.
#Project Management
subLP_PM=true
#Bank Information
subLP_BI=true
#FLC Requests
subLP_FLC=true
#User Assignment
subLP_UA=true
#Documents
subLP_DC=true
Setting the properties to “true” makes the respective elemens visible for the lead
partner, “false” hides them. All other tabs are not ment to be used by the lead
partner – only privileged users should get access.
Each section in the supplementary information has read and read/write privileges,
which can be assigned to user roles.
69
S U P PL E M E N T A R Y I N F O RM A T I O N
Project Management
Project Management includes information concerning Project Manager, Financial
Manager of the Project and Communication Manager of the Project. Details on partner
institution and accredited person responsible for the particular position are to be
provided in these sections.
Bank Information
Bank information includes details on the Bank of the Lead Partner such as name and
full address. Further data involve specific bank connection data including Account
Number, IBAN, SWIFT, Nat Bank Code, Internal Reference and Holder of the account.
FLC
Supplementary information contains details on the contact person of the FLC
institution as well as the name and full address of the FLC.
User Assignment
The User Assignment section enables the Lead Partner to assign specific user(s) to all
project partners. Only users assigned to a PP are allowed to create and submit reports
for partner reports.
Documents
In the Documents section, the location of the official project documentation has to be
provided. This information can be entered by a partner.
70
S U P PL E M E N T A R Y I N F O RM A T I O N
State aid
In case of state aid, the authorities can make notes and upload documents. These
notes can be added per partner.
71
S U P PL E M E N T A R Y I N F O RM A T I O N
Outputs
The authorities (usually the JTS) can make notes on the outputs of a project. For
example, they can add the address of the output, upload attachments or mark the
output as available in the final version.
Here they can mark an output as being publishable. eMS does not publish outputs
automatically. But external systems could use this information and e.g. provide the
output on the programme website.
72
S U P PL E M E N T A R Y I N F O RM A T I O N
Codes
The codes section needs to be filled in by the authorities as well. Here the different
categories of intervention are visible. The different dimensions of codes are visible.
Only the codes are visible, which have been selected in “Manage Programme” under
the priority axes.
73
P AR TN E R RE PO R TI N G
Partner Report
When a project has been contracted, the Reporting section is available for partners.
Reports are to be inserted per reporting periods. After submitting, they are to be
evaluated by FLCs.
Partner reports are to be inserted after the contract has been approved and generated
by JTS. For viewing and inserting reports, the project just needs to be opened. After
the contract has been generated, “Reports” view is the default one for a project.
Partner reports can be inserted when a role is set to “pp” in the upper select menu.
For creating a new report, you need to click “Create New Report” under the table
displaying an overview of partner reports. Afterwards, you are redirected to a partner
report corresponding to a particular reporting period.
Partner Report
74
P AR TN E R RE PO R TI N G
List of Expenditures
Budget Line
Work Package
Total Value Of Item In Original Currency
Declared Amount In Original Currency
Information concerning Internal Reference Number, Invoice Number, Invoice Date,
Date Of Payment, Currency and VAT can also be filled in by a user. Three text input
fields for descriptions are available in this section as well.
75
P AR TN E R RE PO R TI N G
Attachments
Partners are also allowed to upload additional attachments to the whole report.
Forecast
In the Forecast section, Report Forecast covering Estimated Expenditure, as well as In-
kind Contribution might be inserted.
76
P AR TN E R RE PO R TI N G
Before submitting a partner report, the saved report needs to be checked (analogically
to checking saved project) by clicking “Check Saved Report” in the left-side menu.
A new partner report can be opened once the previous one has been submitted.
77
FLC A S SI G N M E N T
FLC Assignment
General remarks
Countries could have centralized and de-centralised approaches for the FLC work. eMS
concentrates on the de-centralised approach, but it can handle the centralized
approach as well.
FLC assignment in eMS can be performed according to country, therefore, there could
be several “FLC assigning units” in one installation of eMS.
For each selected NUTS region in the setup of the programme (section “Manage
Programme”), the system generates a separate privilege for each selected NUTS 0
region. This privilege allows a user to assign FLCs for this country.
Users with this privilege do not work as FLC. They only create and manage FLC units
for their country.
FLC managing authorities can create/edit/delete FLC institutions for their country.
These institutions can have a list of users assigned. To assign the user, the institution
first has to be available in the system by registering or adding. Afterwards, the user
can be assigned to the FLC institution.
78
FLC A S SI G N M E N T
FLC assignment
Each project partner has to have his separate FLC assignment in eMS. Therefore, the
assignment is done on partner level. To do this, the FLC assigning unit can select a
value from the dropdown list to select the right FLC institution.
If no specific user is selected, all users of this institution can do FLC work for this
project partner. eMS allows to restrict access to single users as well. Please do this by
selecting the “assign user” button and select a user there.
FLC assignments get only stored when clicking the save button.
79
M AN AG E M E N T VERIFICATION - FLC
Access to reports
FLC can keep an overview on their work in an overview table. There they can directly
access the list of expenditures, see and validate different expenditure items.
The overview table shows – per budget line – how much was declared and how much
was certified by FLC.
In the “List of Expenditures”, the FLC can correct payment items and can include
them into a FLC certificate. If an expenditure item should be included into a
certificate, the item needs to be marked as “Verified by FLC” (the corresponding
checkbox needs to be checked).
80
M AN AG E M E N T VERIFICATION - FLC
For expenditures calculated using Flat rates (Staff costs, Office and Administration),
the difference and certified amount are calculated automatically. They also do not
need to be marked as “Verified by FLC”, as they are marked when any other
expenditure is checked as verified. Direct deductions on flat budget lines are not
possible.
FLC Documents
FLC needs to fill out the “FLC Documents” section. Here they can include information
about verification of certain provided information like bank account and partnership
agreement.
81
M AN AG E M E N T VERIFICATION - FLC
FLC Report
eMS allows the FLC to verify a partner report and fill in an own report on the
validation in the system. The information to be provided in this section includes Type
of Report, details on Designated Project Partner Controller, Methodology of the
Verification, Description of Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations and Follow Up
Measures For The Next Partner Report.
82
M AN AG E M E N T VERIFICATION - FLC
FLC Checklist
The FLC checklist can be defined by Programmes. This feature follows the normal
behaviour of checklists. Questions can be defined by Programmes.
INTERACT provided a script to insert the HIT FLC checklists and checklists for
“inherent risk assessment” and “control risk assessment” with eMS version 3_0.6.
Those checklists are an optional step in the update and can be inserted with later
versions as well.
As the HIT FLC checklists contain a lot of duplicates (e.g. for flat rate butgetlines or
for real cost) you can either remove them from the script, so that they will not appear
in eMS, or delete the not needed checklists from eMS in the “Manage Checklists”
section.
After executing the script, the checklists appear in the “Manage Programme” section.
The checklists behave like any other checklist – you can add/remove/change questions
or wordings and you need to assign the user privileges to user roles.
In this section, it should be possible to assess the risk of organizations. The values will
be copied from report assessment to report assessment, but can be changed by FLC.
Usually, this is only needed, if something changed in the organization or the
partnership.
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M AN AG E M E N T VERIFICATION - FLC
The control risk assessment has to be done with every assessment of a report.
The FLC Control risk Assessment can be defined by Programmes. This feature follows
the normal behaviour of checklists – checklist type “Control Risk” needs to be selected
when creating the assessment form.
Within the Control Risk Assessment, Quality of the expenditures when originally reported and
Quality of the expenditures after clarifications is evaluated and Number of clarification rounds
with the beneficiary is reported.
84
M AN AG E M E N T VERIFICATION - FLC
FLC Certificate
After FLC reporting has been completed, FLC might generate an FLC certificate within
the application.
After including at least one payment and answering a FLC checklist, the FLC
certificate might be issued. The FLC certificate section can be found after navigating
to the “FLC Expenditures” section of the navigation bar, in the left-side menu.
FLC cannot directly revert the report to the LP. If FLC requires additional documents
or information, FLC needs to contact JTS. JTS then creates a new partner report for
the corresponding period. Further details can be specified via internal message.
85
P RO J E C T P R O GR E S S R E P O RT
Project progress reports can be inserted when a role is set to “lp” in the upper select
menu.
For creating a new report, you need to click “Create Report For” and choose the
period under the table displaying an overview of project progress reports. Afterwards,
you are redirected to a project progress report corresponding to a particular reporting
period.
Report
Workpackages
Reporting per work package is also a part of a project progress report. Reports of
individual work packages can be opened by clicking the corresponding item in the
navigation bar.
They should contain a summary description of activities carried out and contribution of
each partner, problem justification and deliverable description with evidence in the
form of an attachment, as well as Work package, Activity and Deliverable Status in the
particular reporting period.
Certificates
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P RO J E C T P R O GR E S S R E P O RT
Attachments
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P RO J E C T P R O GR E S S R E P O RT
Partners are also allowed to upload additional attachments to the whole report.
Before submitting a project progress report, the saved report needs to be checked
(analogically to checking saved project) by clicking “Check Saved Report” in the left-
side menu.
A new project partner report can be opened once the previous one has been
submitted. More than one Project Progress Report can be submitted per period.
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P RO J E C T P R O GR E S S R E P O RT
M ONI T O R I N G
For reverting the report to the LP, the privilege “LP_REVERT_REPORT” is required.
For reverting the report to the FLC and PP, the privilege “JS_REVERT_REPORT” is
necessary.
JTS can see project progress reports submitted by lead partners and also FLC reports.
It can see the content of the report, the application form and via certificates it also
has access to the “List of Expenditures”.
List of expenditures
In the “List of Expenditures”, the JTS can correct payment items by setting the
difference or the certified amount.
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P RO J E C T P R O GR E S S R E P O RT
M ONI T O R I N G
Besides viewing the project progress report, eMS allows JTS to ask for another project
progress report, revert the report to the LP, FLC or PP, to evaluate it and to submit a
JTS report.
Reverting
If JTS is not satisfied with the provided Project Progress Report or its part, it can
revert it to the LP by clicking the corresponding item at the bottom of the left-side
menu.
If JTS is not satisfied with the FLC report and/or certificated expenditures, it can
revert it either to the FLC or to a project partner by clicking the corresponding button
in the “List Of Partner FLC Certificates” section of the Project Progress Report.
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P RO J E C T P R O GR E S S R E P O RT
M ONI T O R I N G
Assessment
JTS can evaluate the report by filling in a checklist. The checklist is available after
clicking the left-side menu item “Checklist”. If needed, the checklist can be
customised in cooperation with the ETC Programme.
Figure 82 Left-side Menu of JTS displaying the available operations including Checklist
JTS Report
After finishing the assessment by filling in the Checklist, JTS might submit the Report
by clicking the corresponding item in the left-side menu.
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A S S I G N I N G O FF I C E R S
Assigning Officers
Assigning Officers can be entered after selecting the corresponding item in the left
side menu Applications.
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A S S I G N I N G O FF I C E R S
Afterwards, you are redirected to the section “Assign Officer to a Project”. First, the
user to be assigned as officer has to be chosen. Afterwards the projects have to be
specified. The process needs to be confirmed by clicking the button “Save Assignment
Changes” on the left bottom of the page.
Only users with assigned “JTS” privilege show up in the dropdown for selection.
Access to the assigned projects is via the left side menu Applications “My Officer
Applications”.
After clicking the corresponding item, you are redirected to the list of “My Assigned
Applications”, where you can see the applications assigned to you.
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AS SI GNIN G E X T E R N A L E X P E RT S
Used functionalities
The following functionalities are used in this workaround.
User management
User roles/privileges
JTS assignment
If you wish to read more about the different functionalities, please check out the
specific chapters of this manual.
2. Assign the JTS user role to this user (only with assigned JTS privilege he will show up in
the “Assign officer” user list.
3. Assign the relevant projects to this user in the “Assign officer list” section
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AS SI GNIN G E X T E R N A L E X P E RT S
4. Remove the JTS user privilege from this user (otherwise the user would have access to
much more functionality than needed)
5. Set the user to active again – he will be able to login to the system again.
For de-assignment, please follow the same logic. To assign/de-assign users in the
“assign officer” functionality, the user has to have during the assignment JTS
privileges.
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MA R E P O R T M O N I T O R I N G
MA Report Monitoring
Access to reports
MA can see the project progress reports submitted by lead partners and also FLC
reports and JTS deductions (differences). It can see the content of the reports, the
application form and via certificates it has also access to the “List of Expenditures”.
List of expenditures
In the “List of Expenditures”, the MA can correct payment items by setting the
difference or the certified amount.
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MA R E P O R T M O N I T O R I N G
Besides viewing the project progress report, eMS allows MA to revert the report to the JTS,
to evaluate it and finally, to submit to CA.
Reverting
If MA is not satisfied with the provided Project Progress Report or its part, it can
revert it to the JTS by clicking the corresponding item at the bottom of the left-side
menu.
MA Approval
A report can be approved by MA in the “MA Approval” “MA Approvals” section of the
left—side menu.
Figure 89 MA Approvals
In order to approve the report, the checkbox “Approve Current Report” needs to be
marked and the form must be submitted.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Certifying Authority
The Certifying Authority user role should have the following user privileges allocated in
order to be able to access the relevant sections of the eMS:
ARCHIVE
BROWSE_APPLICATIONS
CA
CAN_REVERT_PROJECTSTATE
CA_REVERT_REPORT
DASHBOARD
FINAL_CORRECTIONS
FLC_REVERT_REPORT
JS_REVERT_REPORT
LP_REVERT_REPORT
MAILBOX
MA_REVERT_REPORT
MG_STARTUP
PROGRAMME_LIVING
PROJECTFINANCE_CA
PROJECTFINANCE_PAYMENTCLAIM
REPORTING
SHOW_ALL_APPLICATIONS
SHOW_APPLICATIONS
SU_BI_R
SU_CO_R
SU_FLC_R
SU_OU_R
SU_PM_R
SU_PROCUREMENT_R
SU_SA_R
SU_UA_R
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Many CAs use checklists for approving project reports. These checklists can be accessed
directly from the table by clicking the ‘Checklist’ button. They can be filled out and saved.
To see how to create a checklist and allocate it to the relevant user and step in the
workflow please see the chapter ‘Checklists’.
CA has access to the project report and to the List of Expenditure included in each of the
FLC certificates. CA can decide on deducting or increasing some costs. In order to do this,
the CA should open a relevant report and access the certificate in question. From the List
of Expenditure, the CA can open any item and introduce changes. The CA can also see
changes and approvals done by all the previous authorities.
Note on financial corrections by CA: The CA will typically correct reports that have not yet
been included into a CA certificate via the interface shown below (List of expenditure). At
later stages (e.g. expenditure already included in a payment application to EC), the CA
uses the financial corrections interface (for more information please see the chapter
‘Financial Corrections’).
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
If necessary, the CA can also revert a report to MA or JS for further verification. In order to
do this a following user privileges need to be assigned to the CA user role:
JS_REVERT_REPORT and/or MA_REVERT_REPORT. You will see these options in the left-side
menu of a project report.
Figure 93 CA has the option to revert reports to MA or JS. This re-opens the report for these authorities.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Only CA can close a control. The CA can access the financial correction module directly from the
‘Generate CA certificate’ view by clicking on ‘View control’ in the relevant row of the Financial
corrections table.
Figure 94 Generating a CA certificate – Controls need to be ‘closed’ before the can be included in the
certificate
CA should check the control and all relevant findings, fill out missing data and then click on ‘Close’
tick box in the control section. Closed corrections cannot be modified unless they are re-opened. It
is possible to re-open the control only as long as it is not included further in the workflow, i.e. in
the CA certificate.
Generation of a CA certificate
In order to include one or more project report(s) in the CA certificate, the CA user needs
to select the relevant report(s) from the list and click on the ‘submit’ button. The
report(s) will disappear from the current list. Please note that also financial corrections
need to be included in a CA certificate. CA certificates can therefore contain:
Please note that – in case of financial corrections via adjustment of subsequent payments
to projects (i.e. correcting sums to be paid to projects), CA certificates must contain a
report AND a correction of the SAME project partner.
Note on multi-fund: Please note that CA certificates are multi-fund so in case one report
contains partner reports of multiple funds (e.g. ERDF and IPA), ALL funds will be selected
at the same time to be included into one CA certificate. At later stages (‘Payment to
projects’, ‘Payment applications to EC’ and ‘Accounts for the accounting period’ as well as
all the tables related to irregularities) all figures are shown separately for each of the
funds. It is possible to decide at a later stage to e.g. payout one fund to the project but
not the other.
All the generated certificates can be accessed through the ‘CA certificates’ menu point.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Figure 97 Overview of CA certificates – The table shows all CA certificates that exist in the system.
All the checklists saved when generating a CA certificate are accessible here, by clicking
the ‘Checklist’ button next to the relevant project report.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Payment to projects
Figure 99 Payments to Projects Overview – Table shows all reports already paid as well as to be paid
Note on Priority axes co-financing: The overview of payment to projects shows two values
for co-financing for each fund. In the case of ERDF this is:
‘ERDF partner co-financing’: The ERDF value calculated based on the actual co-financing
rates of the partners. This value is needed as it shows the actual amount to be paid to the
project.
‘ERDF priority axes co-financing’: The ERDF value calculated based on the co-financing rate
of the priority axes. This value is shown here for informational purposes as SCF calculates
reimbursements to programmes on the basis of priority axes.
In case a programme applies the priority axes co-financing rate to all projects in a CA
certificate, the two ERDF values mentioned above are the same for this CA certificate.
Each CA certificate is listed separately and in order to modify or view payment details
please click on ‘View payment details’ button.
In each ‘Payment to project’ interface all the project reports included in a Certificate are
listed separately and shown per partner. Payment information must be introduced per
partner even if programmes are usually paying the Lead Partner only.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Figure 100 Payments to Projects – Table shows all reports included in the CA certificate per partner
It is possible to either pay in full the due amount (it is currently the default option) or to
pay in installments. If the project is paid in full, the CA needs to introduce a date of
payment and save the information.
In order to record data on payment in installments please unclick ‘paid in full’ and click on
‘add installment’ button.
Figure 102 Payments to Projects – Unclicking the ‘Paid in full’ button opens the option to pay in
instalments
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
The system proposes the full amount as the first installment, which can be modified. It is
possible to add installments as long as the full amount is not reached. Each time an
installment is added, the system proposes the remaining amount as the payment value.
1. Adjustment in the next ERDF payment: This means that the error will be corrected by
adjusting a subsequent payment to the project partner.
2. Repayment by the project: This means that the amount to be corrected will be shown in the
‘payment to projects’ interface as a separate item. Negative amounts to be corrected will
not be automatically deducted from any positive amount.
Please note that financial corrections can be negative (and most frequently are) or positive
(e.g. in the case of advance payments to projects – see the chapter ‘Financial corrections).
So technically the ‘repayment by the project’ could also be a payment by the programme
to the project.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
The way the financial corrections are handled at the ‘Payments to projects’ module
depends on the action selected in the ‘Financial correction’ module as well as the way the
CA certificate is generated:
1. The eMS will first check if the affected invoice(s) are included in the same CA certificate. If
it finds the relevant invoice(s) in the same certificate, it will decrease/increase the amount
to be paid to the partner accordingly. Please note that currently it is not marked that the
amount to be paid was adjusted, the system just shows an amount different to the one
claimed in the project report.
2. If there is/are no corresponding invoice(s) OR the financial correction does apply to a
project partner (and not to single invoice(s)), the system will check if there is a project
report included in the same CA certificate, which includes the affected project partner. If it
finds the partner in a project report, the amount to be paid to this partner will be adjusted
by the amount to be corrected. Please note that currently it is not marked that the amount
to be paid was adjusted, the system just shows amount different to the one claimed in the
project report.
3. If there is no corresponding invoice or corresponding partner in the same CA certificate, the
system will generate a separate negative (or positive) payment entry. This means that
technically a repayment situation is created even though the ‘adjustment in the next ERDF
payment’ option is ticked in the financial correction interface.
If ‘repayment by the project’ or any action other than ‘adjustment in the next ERDF
payment’ is selected in the ‘financial corrections’ interface, the system will generate a
separate negative (or positive) payment entry in all cases. This means it will do so even IF
it finds a matching invoice item or partner report in the same certificate.
Figure 104 Payments to Projects – Financial corrections are shown separately in case ‘repayment by the
project’ is ticked in the financial corrections interface OR in case ‘adjustment in the next ERDF payment’
is chosen but no partner report is found in the same certificate from which the amount could be deducted.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Once all reports and/or financial corrections from a certificate are paid / repaid, the CA
can close the payment by clicking the ‘Close ERDF’ button. In case a certificate contains
multiple funds, it is possible to close payments of each fund separately. In such a case a
‘Close XXX-fund’ button appears for each of the funds in question. Once a payment is
marked as closed it is not possible to modify it anymore. However, the payment can be re-
opened for further modifications if needed by clicking ‘Reopen ERDF’ (or ‘Reopen XXX-
fund’ in case of multiple funds) as long as the CA certificate is not included further in the
workflow, i.e. is not in the payment application to EC.
Please note that if you do not close the payment, the CA certificate will not be shown as
fully paid later in the workflow.
Please note also that it is possible to include the CA certificate in the payment application
to EC regardless of the payment to project status. Many CAs first pay the project partner
and then include the amount in the payment application to EC. Since there could be
exceptions, the eMS does not require payments to projects prior to including the amount in
the payment application to EC.
Caution!
Only full CA certificates are taken into account for the payment application to EC and therefore
even if the project is paid just partially (e.g. in case of payments in installments or withholding of
one partner share) the system will calculate the entire amount for the payment application to EC.
In the eMS the generation of payment applications is subdivided into two steps namely:
In the menu item ‘Generate Draft Payment Applications to EC’ the CA can select one or
more CA certificates to be included into draft payment applications to EC. It is possible to
generate multiple drafts: The CA certificates do not disappear from the list and can be
included in many drafts at the same time.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Figure 105 Generate Draft Payment Applications to EC – List of CA certificates waiting to be included
Note on multi-fund: In multi-fund programmes, CA certificates are divided per fund and
each fund is treated separately. For each fund a separate table is displayed.
Please note that CA certificates contain also financial corrections and the CA needs to
decide on how to include them in the payment application to EC (withdrawal or recovery).
The ‘Draft payment application to EC’ menu item shows a list of all generated draft
payment applications to EC. CA can analyse different draft payment applications to EC and
choose one to accept and create the final payment application to EC (i.e. press: ’Create
payment application to EC’ below the selected draft).
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Figure 106 Draft Payment Applications to EC – List of all available drafts, one of which is selected for
further processing
Once a draft is accepted (and accordingly all included CA certificates), all included CA
certificates are removed from the list in ‘Generate draft payment application to EC’ and
can no longer be included in new drafts. Also, once a draft is accepted (and accordingly all
included CA certificates), it is no longer possible to accept also other drafts that contain
overlapping CA certificates
After accepting one of the drafts, it is recommended to remove all other drafts by clicking
on ‘Remove all payment application drafts’.
Payment applications to EC
After the payment applications to EC are generated (i.e. at least one draft is accepted),
the Programme should transfer the information to the Commission via SFC2014.
Information on the SFC2014 transfer (date, number and comments) should be entered into
the eMS and saved. It is also very important to select in which accounting year the
payment application to EC was submitted to SFC2014.
Please note that if you do not select any of the available accounting years, the CA
certificate will not appear in the list ‘Generate draft accounts for the accounting period’
as the system will not be able to allocate it to any of the periods.
Figure 107 Payment Applications to EC – Some information from SFC as well as the accounting year
concerned must be entered into the eMS
For information purposes the system shows all payment applications to EC also broken
down per type of cost (real cost/flat rates/lump sums/standard scales of unit cost). The
data is taken from project reports. In case programmes do not allow for some of the types
of costs or none of the projects is using simplified cost options, the corresponding columns
in the tables will remain 0 EUR.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Please note that all the figure reported to EC are total expenditure as SFC automatically
applies the priority axes co-financing rate to calculate the actual amounts to be
transferred to the programmes. Accordingly eMS tables also show total amounts.
In case a mistake was made, the CA can destroy the payment application to EC by clicking
the ‘Destroy’ button. The payment application to EC can be destroyed as long as it is not
included in the accounts for accounting period. Destroying always reverts the action by one
step; therefore destroyed payment applications will become drafts again.
In the eMS the generation of accounts for the accounting period is subdivided into two
steps namely:
In the screen shot below all payment applications are shown according to accounting year.
Please note that in case you did not allocate any accounting year to your CA certificate, it
will not be shown in any of the lists. The example below shows the accounting period
01.01.2014 to 30.06.2015. The CA selects one or more payment applications to EC from a
relevant accounting year and generates a draft account for the accounting period.
Figure 108 Generate draft accounts for the accounting year – All available payment applications to EC are
shown per accounting year
It is possible to create multiple drafts including the same payment applications to EC. The
payment applications to EC are available for draft generation as long as they are not
included in a final account for the accounting period.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Please note that at this point in the workflow, it is also possible to add additional
financial corrections, which might be necessary prior to closing the account for the
accounting year. For this reason, the eMS shows a list of all financial corrections that were
not previously included in any CA certificate and payment application to EC. These
financial corrections are shown in a separate table. Similar to the ‘Generate CA
certificate’ interface, only corrections which are closed can be selected from the list.
Caution!
Currently financial corrections added at the level of accounts for the accounting period are NOT
linked to the payment application to EC or the payment to projects parts of the workflow nor are
they reflected in the reports on withdrawals, recoveries, recoveries according to art. 71, amounts
to be recovered or irrecoverable amounts. It is our understanding that there needs to be the option
to include financial corrections prior to closure of the accounts but links to other parts of the
workflow are presently unclear.
In the ‘Draft accounts for the accounting period’ menu item a list of draft accounts is
shown. There could be several drafts including different applications of payment to EC and
different financial corrections. CA selects the draft which should become the final and
approves it by clicking ‘Generate Final Account for the Accounting Period’.
Figure 109 Draft accounts for the accounting year – A List of all available drafts, one of which is selected
for further processing
It is possible to accept drafts only as long as the payment applications to EC are not yet
included in the final account for accounting period. Once a draft is accepted, the related
payment applications to EC are removed from the list in ‘Generate draft account for
accounting period’ list.
After accepting one or more of the drafts, it is recommended to remove all other drafts by
clicking on ‘Remove all accounts drafts’.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Under the ‘Accounts for the accounting period’ menu item, you will find a list of all
accounts generated. As there is no direct link to SFC2014, information from SFC2014 on the
date of submission of the accounts must be entered in the eMS manually.
Figure 110 Accounts for the accounting period – Some information from SFC must be entered into the eMS
In case a mistake was made, the CA can destroy existing accounts for the accounting
period by clicking the ‘Remove account’ button. Destroying always reverts the action by
one step, therefore removed accounts will become drafts again.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Payments from EC
Under the ‘Payments from EC’ menu item, information on payments received from the
European Commission should be entered. The system is not linked to a programme banking
system so the transfers are executed outside of the eMS. The CA should just record
information about received funds.
The payments from EC are stored separately for each of the funds. Once a payment from
the EC is received a CA should click on ‘Add payment from EC’ button and introduce
information about the payment.
There are several types of payments from European Commission and based on the type
selected more or less information can be introduced into the table.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
If a type ‘interim payment’ is selected, additional fields appear in the form and you should
select a payment application to EC based on which the payment was made. The system will
automatically show the date of submission of the payment application to the SFC2014 and
requested amount.
Please note that currently the requested amount is a total amount of the payment
application to EC and not the fund amount so the actual payment will be lower. This will
be changed in the next release.
Figure 113 Payments from EC – Interim payments can be linked to payments applications to EC
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Financial corrections marked as ‘To be reported to EC’ are allocated to one of the 4
reports covering 5 categories (withdrawals and recoveries, recoveries according to art.71,
amounts to be recovered and irrecoverable amounts). In order to do that the system needs
to know certain information from the financial correction input form.
In order to include an amount into one of the 4 reports on irregularities, the amount to be
corrected must have been included in a previous payment application to EC. If a correction
is for an invoice, the system suggests in which CA certificate the amount was previously
included. In case of flat rate cuts, the user needs to manually allocate the relevant
certificate.
Figure 114 Financial Corrections Interface – CA certificates that include the error need to be manually
selected if the correction is not at an invoice level.
Once a certificate is selected, the system will display all relevant information and the tick
box ‘To be reported to EC’ will become active. When the tick box is selected, a drop down
menu with possible actions on programme level will appear (withdrawal, recovery,
recovery according to art.71, amount to be recovered, irrecoverable). The CA should
select whatever is applicable.
Figure 115 Financial Corrections Interface – Selecting the programme level table which will show the
irregularity.
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Once the CA certificate with the correction is included in annual accounts, the system will
automatically allocate the correction to the relevant report based on the action selected.
The system will also know in relation to which year the correction occurred. All the reports
can be found in the left-side menu and are accessible per accounting year (see below).
Caution!
As mentioned above, ticking a correction as ‘withdrawal’ does not automatically lead to a
withdrawal. For a withdrawal to be enacted, the eMS must find a correction as well as a positive
amount in the same payment application to EC. Otherwise there is no amount from which the
system could withdraw the irregularity.
Figure 116 Withdrawals and Recoveries – Programme-level tables on withdrawals and recoveries per
accounting year can be accessed via this interface
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C E RT I F Y I N G A U TH O RI T Y
Figure 117 Withdrawals and Recoveries – Programme-level tables for an accounting year
A list of all financial corrections that were entered via the financial corrections interface is
available under the ‘Financial corrections’ menu item. It is possible to view the details of a
financial correction as well as details of the CA certificate in which it the error was
included (if available). Financial corrections that are part of the normal reporting
workflow (cuts by different authorities using the List of expenditure) are not shown in this
table. They can be viewed in the List of expenditure.
Figure 118 Financial Corrections – Programme-level tables showing all financial corrections that were
entered via the financial corrections interface
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F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Financial Corrections
The (financial) corrections module allows corrections to already submitted, processed
or paid project reports.
Store data on different controls and audits with or without financial impact.
For each control/audit one or many ‘findings’ can be introduced into the system. The
total value to be corrected results from the sum of all findings.
Control/audit 1
Figure 119 Each control/audit is given a sequential number and can be associated with ‘findings’
A user who wants to work with Financial Corrections currently must have the ‘JTS’,
‘MA’ or ‘CA’ user privilege.
Any user having the user privilege ‘JTS’, ‘MA’ or ‘CA’ can add a (financial) correction
to any project which is in the status ‘contracted’ or any later status. ‘Finalized’
projects can also be corrected (i.e. financial corrections are possible also after the
project is closed) but the user needs additional privilege to do this (see above).
Financial corrections are accessible inside the project view, via the overview of
project reportss. In the left side menu click on a button ‘Financial Correction’.
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F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
After accessing the (financial) correction module, an overview table of all corrections
of this particular project in the system is displayed. In order to add a new correction
click the ‘Add’ button.
Figure 121 Financial Correction overview for selected project – adding a new (financial) correction
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F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Please note that the ‘close’ tick box can be activated only by CA users and remains
inactive for JS and MA users. The fields ‘Total ineligible expenditure’ and ‘Error rate’
are calculated automatically based on information given in findings.
Once the control is saved an upload function is activated and can be accessed through
the ‘Attachments’ hyperlink.
Clicking on the ‘Attachments’ button will activate the upload form. You may upload
multiple documents and see all the files uploaded before.
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F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Caution!
Attachments are only visible and accessible in the dialogue box ‘Attachments’. It is
not possible to see if there are any attachments for the control without clicking on
‘Attachments’ button.
Adding findings
Each control/audit can contain one or several finding(s). It is possible to add multiple
findings to one control and the system will sum up the total financial impact of a
control. Findings are added by clicking the ‘Add Finding’ button.
Findings usually have financial impact on the project. If you want to add a finding
without financial impact, we recommend to open a new control and do NOT add
findings.
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F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
The system gives each finding a unique number. The number consists of the project ID,
control number, partner number and sequential number of the finding.
A finding usually is recorded for a single invoice. Should it not be possible to assign a
finding to single invoice, a finding must at least be associated to the projectpartner,
budget line, work package and period. This information is necessary to make overview
tables of the eMS work (e.g. total spending per budget line).
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F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Once the invoice in question is marked, the system will record the finding for this
particular invoice. The system will know whether the invoice in question was already
included in a CA certificate, a Payment application to EC and Accounts for the
accounting period.
Figure 127 Financial Corrections Interface – Adding findings not for a single invoice
In case the finding is not related to a specific invoice, the system does not know if the
affected expenditure was already included in a CA certificate, Payment application to
EC and Accounts for the accounting period. In order to include such a finding in the
reporting on recoveries and withdrawals CA must manually allocate a CA certificate to
the finding (for more information see chapter CA functionalities).
Partner,
Project and
Programme level.
The remainder of the project level information and the entire programme level
information of the finding is only visible to users having CA privilege. CA users have
access to all fields of the financial correction form and can also close the control.
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F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Figure 129 Financial Corrections Interface –additional fields in findings visible to CA only
CA should check the control and all relevant findings, fill out missing data and then
click on ‘Close’ tick box in the control section. Closed controls cannot be modified
unless they are re-opened. It is currently possible to re-open the control only as long
as it is not included further in the workflow, i.e. in the CA certificate.
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F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Only closed controls can be included in the CA certificate and later on in the Payment
application to EC and Accounts for the accounting period. For more information,
please see the ‘CA functionalities’ chapter.
Some of the fields in the form influence the way the finding is treated later in the
workflow. The system will present the findings differently in the ‘Payments to
Projects’ module depending on ‘Action’ selected in the (financial) correction project
level section.
If ‘adjustment in the next ERDF payment’ is selected the system will do the following:
1. The eMS will first check if the affected invoice(s) are included in the same CA
certificate. If it finds the relevant invoice(s) in the same certificate, it will
decrease/increase the amount to be paid to the partner accordingly. Please
note that currently it is not marked that the amount to be paid was adjusted,
128
F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
the system just shows an amount different to the one claimed in the project
report.
129
F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
If ‘repayment by the project’ or any action other than ‘adjustment in the next ERDF
payment’ is selected the system will generate a separate negative (or positive)
payment entry in all cases. This means it will do so even IF it finds a matching invoice
item or partner report in the same certificate.
Only findings which concern expenditures already claimed from the European
Commission (i.e. included in a Payment application to EC) can be taken into account
for the Accounting year overview reporting on withdrawals, recoveries, recoveries
according to art. 71, amounts to be recovered and irrecoverable amounts.
In order to include the finding in the above mentioned reporting, please make sure
that the appropriate CA certificate is selected (in case of findings for an invoice, the
system will propose the right certificate; in case of other findings the certificate must
be selected manually from a dropdown list of all certificates already available for the
project in question).
If the certificate was already included in the Payment Application to EC, the tick box
‘To be reported to EC’ will become active.
130
F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
When the ‘To be reported to EC’ is ticked additional actions are available. The CA can
decide to which category the finding should be allocated under drop down ‘Action’.
Depending on which action is selected, the system allocates the amount in question to
the correct report table in the Accounting year overview reporting on withdrawals,
recoveries, recoveries according to art. 71, amounts to be recovered and irrecoverable
amounts.
Caution!
Ticking a correction as ‘withdrawal’ does not automatically lead to a withdrawal at
the programme level. For a withdrawal to be enacted, the eMS must find a correction
as well as a positive amount in the same Payment application to EC. Otherwise there
is no amount from which the system could withdraw the irregularity.
131
M O D I FI C A T I O N R E Q U E S T
Modification Request
Lead Partner – No special privilege needs to be assigned to ask for modification from
the side of a LP.
The eMS handles three different ways to reopen already submitted applications:
1) Via modification requests. This is the only way to generate a NEW VERSION of the
application form and can be done at any stage of the programme implementation
before the project status is set to ‘Finalised’. After the finalization of a
modification, the old version of the AF is archived and a new one is created and
becomes the valid application form. This process is described in detail below.
2) Via ‘revert to saved’ or ‘revert to saved2’ (in the case of a 2-step call). This
simply reopens the application form for further editing. NO NEW VERSION of the
application form is generated after the LP submits again the modified AF.
Caution!
Re-submission of reopened application form creates a new submission with a new
date! No trace of previous submission is kept in the eMS except for the audit log.
Figure 134 Revert to SAVED2 reopens an application form for further editing WITHOUT generating
a new version of the Application Form.
3) Via reopening the attachment upload section. This opens the attachment upload
section for further uploads by the LP. The rest of the application form remains
closed. No new version of the Application form is generated but it is easily
traceable which attachment was uploaded.
132
M O D I FI C A T I O N R E Q U E S T
Figure 135 ‘Attachment upload closed’ can be changed to ‘attachment upload open’ to allow the
applicant to upload further documents
Modifications can either be initiated by a programme authority (e.g. JS, MC) or by the
Lead Partner. Furthermore, modifications are initiated automatically if a project is
‘approved under conditions’ (after MC decision).
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M O D I FI C A T I O N R E Q U E S T
request. JS can then approve the modification request and open the Application
Form for editing by the LP or reject the request. The following workflows are
initiated:
o LP requests permission to modify -> JS approves request for modification ->
LP modifies AF -> JS approves modification -> new version of the AF is
generated.
o LP requests permission to modify -> JS approves request for modification ->
LP modifies AF -> JS requests further modifications -> LP modifies AF-> JS
approves modification -> new version of the AF is generated. OR
o LP requests permission to modify -> JS approves request for modification ->
LP modifies AF -> JS rejects modification -> AF remains not changed and no
new version of the AF is generated.
Figure 136 The menu item ‘Modification request’ leads to the overview list of all modifications for a
project and related messages
134
M O D I FI C A T I O N R E Q U E S T
Lead Partners can requests modifications after the project has been handed over
to a lead partner and the LP has been approved by the JS. Before that stage it is
not possible for LPs to request modifications.
Caution!
No authority can request modifications for projects which are finalized or archived.
Caution!
It is always the last valid application form which is a subject to modification request,
not the initial one!
Caution!
It is not possible to initiate a modification request (neither by programme authorities
nor by Lead Partner) if a previous modification is not finalized (i.e. approved or
rejected by JS).
The JS can initiate a modification any time after the application has been submitted
until the project is finalized. In the project view, the JS can initiate modification using
the left-side menu item ‘Application and Contract’ ‘Request Modification’.
Figure 137 (JS view) To request a LP to modify the AF, the JS enters the project view and requests a
modification
A modification initiated by the JS, automatically opens the AF for modification by the
LP.
135
M O D I FI C A T I O N R E Q U E S T
After the LP has been approved (see ‘handover’ chapter), he/she can ask for
permission to modify the AF using the left-side menu item ‘Application and Contract’
‘Request Modification’.
Figure 138 (LP view) Requesting the JS to open the AF for modifications
The LP then needs to wait for the approval by the JS to continue with the
modification. Once the JS approves the modification request, the AF will be unlocked
for editing.
‘New’: The JS does not decide yet whether to refuse ort accept the request to
modify the AF. Please note that the wording will be changed to ‘-‘ as ‘new’ is
confusing.
‘Mr Refuse’: Modification request refused. The JS refuses the request to modify the
AF. This closes the request and the AF remains locked. The LP can decide to open
a new modification request.
‘Mr Accepted’: Modification request accepted. The JS accepts the request for
modification and the AF is unlocked for editing by the LP.
136
M O D I FI C A T I O N R E Q U E S T
Figure 139 (JS view): The JS can accept or decline a request by the LP to modify the AF
JS choses the decision in the drop-down, enters a message text, presses ‘Save Mr
evaluation’ and ‘submit Mr evaluation’.
If ‘Mr accepted’ is chosen, the AF is now open for modifications and the LP can edit
the AF.
Figure 140 (LP view) After the programme allowed the LP to modify the application form, the Modification Request
section appears as default view when opening the project
The LP can now modify the AF and submit the modified AF to the JS for approval.
The JS can use the ‘Compare modifications’ function of the eMS to compare the old AF
with the modifications proposed by the LP (‘track changes’) (see below).
Figure 141: After the modification has been approved, the ‘decision date’ is added to the
‘modification request’ interface.
There are two modes for the authorities to compare proposed modifications with the
presently valid version of the AF.
1) The first mode makes the changes visible in form of a tree. Modifications can be
seen as separate elements in a table view.
137
R E C OM M E N D AT I O N & MC D E CI S I ON
2) The second mode uses the pdf extraction of an application form for comparison.
This comparison is similar to the track changes function used by some office
software. To access this mode, users need to press ‘Compare html’.
The eMS stores all versions of the Application Form in consecutive order under the
menu item ‘project history’.
138
R E C OM M E N D AT I O N & MC D E CI S I ON
Figure 144: To access the project history enter the project and press ‘project history’
The Project History gives an overview of the different versions of application forms.
Authorities can insert additional information about the different versions of the AF,
when and who decided etc. Additionally, contract amendments or other relevant
documents can be uploaded here. The date of signing the subsidy contract (or
amendments to the contract) is also entered here.
Different versions of application forms can always be compared via the comparison
function.
Figure 145: The project history shows important events in the lifetime of a project
The eMS also shows all currently open modifications for all projects under the
‘modification request’ menu item at the programme level.
Figure 146: To access the overview of open modifications, press ‘Modification requests’.
139
R E C OM M E N D AT I O N & MC D E CI S I ON
Modifications lead to changes in the status of a project as can be seen in the various
overview lists of projects and in the project history.
Note: It is possible to translate or rename these statuses in your version of the eMS.
140
R E C OM M E N D AT I O N & MC D E CI S I ON
Figure 147: (JS view) After the LP submitted the modified AF, the application browser shows the
project twice.
After the JS approves the the Cr_done version, a new AF is generated and the old one
is archived.
Figure 148: After the JS accepts the modification, the application browser archives the old AF and
shows the new version in the status ‘contracted’.
In the ‘my applications’ view only the latest version of the AF is shown.
Figure 149: (JS, LP) In the ‘my applications’ view only one version of the AF is show.
141
F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Reverting
At different stages of the workflow, eMS enables reverting a project or a report to a
previous stage based on the privilleges.
142
F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
143
F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
The corresponding button can be found in the left side menu under the General
items.
145
F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Revert a report
If JTS is not satisfied with the FLC report and/or certificated expenditures, it can
revert it either to the FLC or to a project partner by clicking the corresponding button
in the “List Of Partner FLC Certificates” section of the Project Progress Report.
146
F I N AN C I AL C O R R E C T I ON S
Project History
The previous versions of the project can be seen in the “Project History” section.
Needed privileges
For seeing the project history, no special rights are needed. For editing, the privilege
EDIT_PROJECT_HISTORY is necessary.
147
P RO J E C T H I S TO R Y
In the Project History section, the selected AF version might be seen, Modification
responsible for triggering its saving is described, as well as User responsible for the
decision is listed. Furthermore, the Project History enables selecting any two versions
and their comparing.
Privileged users might edit the Project History View by filling in additional
information on the modifications:
Attachment
Attachment Description (Attachment Upload Date & User Uploading the
Attachment are filled in automatically)
149
T E C HN I C AL A S S I S T A N C E
Reporting/Monitoring
Monitoring and reporting of TA expenditures is not carried out inside eMS, but eMS
allows putting money per timespan and priority axes. These amounts go into the
programme overview tables.
150
T R AN SL A TI O N /C O N F I G U RA TI O N
Translations
Translations is a tool in eMS used to change and translate each label in the user
interface. Programmes are therefore free to change each text visible to the users of
the system.
In the picture below, the sections of the application are shown which allow changes or
translations.
151
T R AN SL A TI O N /C O N F I G U RA TI O N
Choosing this language shows all keys of all elements in the system.
Keys in the application form are shortened using the character “*” as abbreviation for
“application form”. This means for example if you want to change the text of
“Programme priority”, you can find this element in the tree on the path
“application/form/projectSummary/projectIdentification”.
You can find the translation of the respective element and the configuration for the
attached input field in this section.
152
T R AN SL A TI O N /C O N F I G U RA TI O N
This feature is only for translations of global texts and is not yet implemented for all
user interface elements in eMS. Labels without a pencil icon have to be identified
manually in the translation tree.
This convenience feature can only be used for global texts. Texts specific for calls
have to be changed in the corresponding translation tree in the call configuration.
153
T R AN SL A TI O N /C O N F I G U RA TI O N
Tooltip
Tooltips allow you to display the description of expected answer to a question. They
appear when hovering over the text box or a dropdown menu. You can activate a
tooltip by choosing the desired node and by entering an input in “Global tooltip”.
Help button
The help button will open a pop-up window that shows a description of the question.
You can activate a tooltip by choosing the desired node and by entering an input in
“Global help”.
154
T R AN SL A TI O N /C O N F I G U RA TI O N
How to enter:
You have to choose a specific call, then scroll to the bottom and click “Manage
Multilanguage for Call”.
All modifications made will only be visible for the specific call.
Help system
The help system can be managed in the translation tree as well. The help buttons in
the AF are represented by questionmark icons, which are only visible if the
corresponding help text is not empty.
155
F O RM C ON FI G U R AT I ON
Form configuration
eMS allows to enable/disable specific fields in the application form. Configuration can
be performed for
Configuration
Additional TIF
For adding an additional question you have to click on “additionalTIF”. After choosing
the desired node you can enter the additional question. Afterwards, the save button
and “rebuild Localization” have to be clicked again.
156
F O RM C ON FI G U R AT I ON
157
HELP SYSTEM
Help System
Help system can be adjusted using the Translations tool in eMS. Each label of the Help
can be set in the user interface. Programmes are free to change each Help text visible
to the users of the system.
In the picture below, the sections of the application are shown which allow changes or
translations.
158
HELP SYSTEM
Tooltip
Tooltips allow you to display the description of expected answer to a question. They
appear when hovering over the text box or a dropdown menu. You can activate a
tooltip by choosing the desired node and by entering an input in “Global tooltip”.
Help button
The help buttons in the AF are represented by questionmark icons in the left side
menu, which are only visible if the corresponding help text is not empty. The help
button will open a pop-up window that shows a description of the question.
The help system can be managed in the Translations tree as well. You can
activate a tooltip by choosing the desired node and by entering an input in “Global
help”.
159
HELP SYSTEM
More information and tips on how to work with Translation tools might be found in the
chapter “Translations”.
160
A U TO M A TI C M E S S A G E S
Automatic messages
eMS contains multiple types of automatic messages. Some of them are triggered by the
user, some of them by changes of states of e.g. the application form.
eMS can send a notification to the registered email address of the user when receiving
an email. This email does not contain the text of the message; its purpose is to notify
the user about received messages in eMS.
Registration email
E-Mail to the contact person of the lead partner at submission of application form
(phase 1 and/or phase 2)
E-Mail on Lead Partner confirmation (after handing the AF over to LP)
161
A U TO M A TI C M E S S A G E S
eMS automatically sends messages at special points in the workflow. Most of them can be turned on/off via configuration.
The configuration needs to be done in a configuration file “message.properties”. The messages are sent via the internal message system.
The property file contains a global switch, to turn all messages off “automessage=off”. If this is turned to “off” the system will not send any
automatic notifications.
Please note: the system needs to be restarted to take changes in the configuration file into account.
automessage.flcCertified All involved partners and lead Upon FLC certificate submission
partner
automessage.projectReportSubmitted Assigned officers or all JTS Upon submission of project progress report
and lead partner
automessage.projectReportJSApproved Lead partner Upon submission of report by JS
automessage.maApproved Lead partner Upon submission of report by MA
automessage.caCertified To all assigned JTS officers Upon creation of CA certificate
and lead partner
automessage.projectClosed Lead partner Upon finalization of a project (close of project)
automessage.reopenForMa All MA users and lead partner Upon revert from MA to CA
automessage.reopenForJs All MA users and lead partner Upon reverting from MA to JS
All assigned JS officers, or all Upon reverting from CA to JS (skipping MA)
JS + lead partner
automessage.reopenForLp Lead partner Upon reverting from JS to FLC
Lead partner Upon reverting from JS to LP
Lead partner Upon reverting from JS to PP
automessage.reopenForFlc Lead partner Upon reverting from LP to FLC
automessage.reopenForPartner Lead partner Upon reverting from LP to PP
Subject Text
automessage.submittedApplication automessage.submittedApplication.subject automessage.submittedApplication.text
automessage.submittedApplicationP1 automessage.submittedApplicationP1.subject automessage.submittedApplicationP1.text
automessage.approvedApplication automessage.approvedApplication.subject automessage.approvedApplication.text
automessage.approvedApplicationP1 automessage.approvedApplicationP1.subject automessage.approvedApplicationP1.text
automessage.approvedUnderCondition automessage.approvedUnderCondition.subject automessage.approvedUnderCondition.text
automessage.handoverToLP automessage.handoverToLP.subject automessage.handoverToLP.text
163
A U TO M A TI C M E S S A G E S
164
A U T OM AT I C M E S S AG E S
Notification on MC decision
eMS can generate a notification upon MC decision. This notification is stored in the
system and is sent manually by a privileged user.
Needed privileges
User who wants to send a notification on MC decision needs to have the
APPROVE_NOTIFICATION or the almighty ADMIN privilege.
The default text of such a notification can be changed by the programme. After the
generation of the notification, it is visible in the “Saved Notifications” section.
165
A U T OM AT I C M E S S AG E S
Here a privileged user can change the text of each message manually. After approval
(clicking on the corresponding button) and selection in the checkbox, the system can
send all selected notifications as in-application messages to the applicants.
Each notification can as well be extracted to PDF with the “download” feature.
After sending, the notifications are still visible in the “Sent Notification” section.
166
P DF T E M P L AT E S
PDF templates
The application form is generated asynchronously, the user triggers the generation of
the pdf, the pdf gets generated and appears in the “Generated Files” section. This
allows the eMS to handle more users during peak times.
All other pdfs in the system are generated synchronously – they are available
immediately after clicking the button.
All pdfs are generated using templates. Default templates are provided in the
installation. These templates can be changed/adapted by ETC Programmes.
In eMS, the extraction of data to pdf is implemented using Apache Velocity templates.
These templates can be adapted and translated by Programmes.
The templates in eMS are implemented using HTML-standards, enriched with Velocity
placeholders. When generating the pdf, the placeholders are replaced by text/values
stored in eMS.
Example:
eMS generates pdfs in the language selected in the user interface. If you see the
German translation at the time of pressing the “Save as pdf file” button, the pdf will
be generated in German.
167
P DF T E M P L AT E S
If no special translation document is provided, eMS will use the general template.
The export to pdf does not take texts from the database or the translation tree in
account. The translations have to be done in the template files.
Please be aware: to be able to handle special characters the file encoding has to be
UTF-8.
# stand for apache velocity code, therefore cannot be simply rewritten as text
strings
$ stand for variables drawn directly from the eMS, might misbehave if retyped
wrongly
If you do not plan to change the template and only want to translate the text, you can
simply retype the text strings starting with the @. You do not need to specify the
language inside the template. The information will be obtained from the system.
Multilanguage template
If required by a programme, a multilanguage (recommended 2-language) template
might be used. In this case, the desired languages of the output pdf need to be
specified in the template, as the system enables using more than two languages. For
creating a pdf however, more than two languages would be difficult to read and it
would be difficult to stay oriented.
The languages selected to be used for the template need to be specified in the file
“VM_global_library.vm” by modifying the code of the country in line 16:
#set($languages = ['AT','HU'])
The modification is needed in order to use the correct values (language versions) of
eMS variables.
168
P DF T E M P L AT E S
Afterwards, you can simply retype the text strings, starting with the @ in order to
translate the template.
169
C U BE
Cube
The cube is a general purpose tool, which can be used to aggregate data in eMS and to
do further statistics, which are not implemented in the core system of eMS.
Please be aware: generation of statistics could need a lot of resources. Using this tool
during the end of a call is therefore not recommended.
The cube is defined in a configuration file, which is stored in the eMS configuration (in
default installation, this can be found in “EMS_HOME/conf/common/eMS.xml”).
The cube is implemented using a Mondrian OLAP server and is integrated into eMS by
using OLAP4j. It is possible to add/change /remove dimensions from the cube by
adapting the eMS.xml.
Adaptation
The cube dimensions can be adapted by modifying the ems.xml file by rewriting
selected parts of the document. The document might be edited using a standard text
editor such as Notepad.
The XML definition of the eMS Budget Cube consists of the following components:
Measures
Dimensions
Hierarchies
Members
Levels
Measures
Measures define the quantity that you are interested in measuring. In our case, it is
“Total” standing for total amount of money corresponding to the selected axis.
Each measure (see <Measure>) has a name, a column in the fact table, and an
aggregator.
Dimensions
Dimensions are attributes according to which the measures are divided into the
categories and sub-categories. They correspond to the row and column names.
170
C U BE
Dimension is connected to a cube by two columns: one in the fact table and one in the
dimension table. Each <Dimension> element has a foreignKey attribute (matching the
name of the fact table column).
Members
Dimensions consist of members. They are defined by a set of attributes. They can be
organized into levels.
Levels
Cubes are organized into dimensions and levels of data. The levels are then arranged
into hierarchies. A level is a collection of members (data) which have the same
distance from the root of the hierarchy.
Hierarchies
Hierarchy represents a systematic way of organizing the members into a logical
structure. Organizing members into hierarchies makes the analysis much more
convenient.
Hierarchies with the same fact table attribute are further grouped into dimensions.
Use of Cube
Needed Privilleges
For accessing the Cube section of eMS, the privilege REPORTING is necessary.
171
C U BE
At least one attribute from each, the Cube Budget Rows and Cube Budget Columns,
need to be selected for creating a report. After the attributes have been chosen, the
request might be submitted by clicking on the “Submit” button.
When the report is ready, its axis can be swapped, the table can be exported
to Excel or PDF or the Cube can be recalculated.
eMS also enables generating a graph (Pie, Bar or Line Chart) based on the cube
report.
172
AUDIT LOG
Audit log
eMS traces every creation, modification and deletion of documents and data, which
happen in the system. The logs are written to a table in the technical database called
“auditlog”.
Especially all changes of states of the application form, certificates and reports are
logged there.
173
U P L O AD OF D O C U M E N T S
Upload of documents
eMS allows the upload of documents at certain sections. None of the documents in eMS
is visible for public, only registered, logged in users with certain privileges or roles can
see those documents.
eMS does not transform/edit/modify any uploaded document. They are stored binary
identically to the uploaded file in the system. eMS does not allow to edit/modify those
documents in the application. Documents uploaded to the system can be downloaded
again, and shown in external third party applications (e.g. PDF Reader).
eMS does not modify any documents. Especially the modification of documents bearing
an electronic signature is not possible in the system.
174
I M P OR T O F D AT A
Import of data
eMS currently only allows manual import of translations. Currently no other importing
functionalities are foreseen.
Import of translations
eMS allows the import of translations and texts from the user interface. This feature is
importing previously exported translations from CSV format to the system.
The eMS automatically imports the monthly currency exchange rates from the
European commission
(http://ec.europa.eu/budget/contracts_grants/info_contracts/inforeuro/inforeuro_en
.cfm).
quartz.cronTrigger.interval=0 * * * * ? *
quartz.cronTriggerCSV.interval=0 0 4 1 * ?
quartz.cronTriggerCSV.receiveAllowed=true
quartz.cronTriggerCSV.url=http://ec.europa.eu/budget/inforeuro/index.cfm?f
useaction=dsp_html_monthly_rates&FileType=CSV&Language=en&Delim=c&
Period=#year#-#month#&Download=Yes
175
EXPORT OF D AT A
Export of data
eMS allows to export data on different levels and at different places in the
application.
Export of translations
eMS allows to export translations and texts from the user interface. This feature
exports to CSV format, which can be processed in any text editor. The exported
translations can be imported again in the same form of the user interface.
eMS allows the export of all data, which is used in the partner budget of the
application form. This feature exports data into Excel format, which can be processed
by proprietary tools like Microsoft Excel or free tools like Libre Office or Open Office.
176
EXPORT OF D AT A
eMS contains a variety of overview tables at different sections of the software. This
feature exports all the visible content of the selected data table to Excel format.
177
EXPORT OF D AT A
All lists of an application form or project elements can be exported to Excel. Only the
attributes visible in the corresponding table will be exported.
178
EXPORT OF D AT A
eMS allows to export several forms or objects to pdf. This exporting is based on
templates, which can be exported to pdf format.
Exporting of checklists
The system allows to export checklists and to generate reports based on this
information. For example, it is possible to create a report based on information from
the application form and the quality assessment, which can be provided to the
monitoring committee for decision.
The templates can be customized by ETC Programmes. The extracted document can
still be modified in an editor before transformation to PDF. Modifications in the
extracted document are not stored in eMS.
179
EXPORT OF D AT A
180
EXPORT OF D AT A
Cube
eMS contains an integrated OLAP cube based system. This system allows the export of
data to Excel or PDF.
Users with the appropriate user privileges can access two different sections
(application form and report) in the eMS. In those sections, programmes can define
their own templates for the extraction of PDFs.
The software uses standard SQL based RDMS. Therefore, any appropriate tool can be
used to export data from the technical database. For example, Mysql Studio can be
used to export data to different formats.
181
EXPORT OF D AT A
INTERACT recommends to install a third party reporting server, to extract data from
the technical database. Those tools usually support the extraction of any data
available in the database and allow generating a variety of different documents and
formats.
All uploaded documents in eMS are stored on the file system of the server. An
administrator of this server can export documents in any format like ZIP.
182
KEEP
KEEP
KEEP (www.keep.eu) is the only source of aggregated information regarding projects
and beneficiaries of European Union programmes dedicated to cross-border,
transnational and interregional cooperation within the European Union and between
European Union Member States and neighbouring countries.
The INTERACT Programme, with the support of the European Commission and the
remaining Interreg and ENPI/ENI CBC programmes, built this database and maintains
it, as part of its mission.
quartz.cronTriggerProgXML.enabled=true
quartz.cronTriggerProgXML.ftpServer=keep2.web.iway.sk
quartz.cronTriggerProgXML.ftpPort=21
quartz.cronTriggerProgXML.ftpUsername=***
quartz.cronTriggerProgXML.ftpPassword=***
quartz.cronTriggerProgXML.ftpWorkingDirectory=/var/lib/ems1/keepXML/
Please make sure, that your server can access the KEEP server on the specified url and
port.
eMS sends the information via FTP with explicit TLS to the KEEP server. To establish
the link, eMS creates an XML-file. Please find the specification of the submitted data
in the annex of this manual.
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B ACK U P & R E CO VE RY
Backup of eMS
eMS does not automatically backup any of the available data. Backup has to be done
by the environment the system is installed in.
There are two main possibilities to backup eMS. Both depend on the configuration and
the possibilities of the environment.
Usually the backup is done periodically (e.g. once a day). Parallel synchronized storage
of data was not scope of this project, but could (maybe) be added by the
environment.
Restoring of data
Restoring depends on the selected backup possibility. Any of the above mentioned
backup scenarios allow restoring of data.
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S E AR C H F U N C T I ON A LI T I E S
Search functionalities
Lists of application forms allow searching for all visible elements. For this reason, all
data tables contain a searching functionality.
As the data retrieved by the system are stored using standard technologies (RDBMS,
file system) it is possible to search for specific documents. This has to be done in the
technical database or on the file system. Please contact your technical administrator
for support.
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A D AP T AT I ON S & P LU GI N S
Logo
The logo of the Programme is located in the provided .war file and can be changed by
the Programmes by replacing the provided “Interreg_Logo.png” with the programme
logo.
Styling
Plugins
eMS contains a variety of plugins. Depending on the technology they are implemented
with, Programmes either need a text editor to change them or an integrated
development environment (like Eclipse).
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U P L O AD F I LE S FOR LOGIN
Needed privileges
In order to post the documents to the login page, the documents need to be uploaded.
You can enter the corresponding section by navigating to the left side menu ->eMS
Management -> “Upload Files For Login” item.
Here, you can select and upload files to be posted to the login page.
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U P L O AD F I LE S FOR LOGIN
188
P E RF O R M AN C E O F E MS
Performance of eMS
As eMS is a brand new system and it potentially has to deal with a lot of concurrent users and
big data. eMS provides a number of possibilities how to improve the performance of the system
and how to deal with a high number of concurrent users.
As eMS now is in productive use, we already gained some experience on this topic which we
want to share in this chapter.
It is recommended to install at least a second instance of the application server. Please note: not
only applicant or partner users count in the system as concurrent users, also authority users like
JS or CA are technical users.
To support the asynchronous generation of pdfs, eMS uses by default an embedded Apache
ActiveMQ instance.
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P E RF O R M AN C E O F E MS
5. Configure one or several separate application servers, which are not available to end
users to generate pdfs.
The following configuration in “programme.properties” can be changed to call different
activemq instances:
# ActiveMQ Configuration
# to start embedded server,
# use "vm://localhost?create=false" as address for activeMQ.server
# activeMQ.server=tcp://servername:port
activeMQ.server=tcp://localhost:61616
#activeMQ.server=failover://tcp://localhost:61616
activeMQ.receiveAllowed=true
Partner
Budgetline
Workpackage
Period
Subbudgetline
Due to this number of dimensions, the number of existing budget figures could increase a lot.
Due to this and the use of Spring Webflows, performance issues could occur.
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P E RF O R M AN C E O F E MS
Warning
In case of such large objects, Spring Webflows consumes all the CPU – the performance of eMS
tremendously decreases.
eMS contains a configuration in programme.properties, to not persist the budget data in the
Spring context, but reload the data from the database with each request. This puts more load on
the database.
First tests with big application forms show a tremendous increase in the performance of eMS.
CPU consumption decreased tremendously, while the load on the database was acceptable.
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S UP P OR T E D C H AR AC T E R S
Supported Characters
eMS allows to use any character from the UTF-8 character set.
The eMS furthermore contains configuration for the database connection in db.properties:
db.url=jdbc\:mysql\://localhost\:3306/ems1?characterEncoding\=UTF-8
hibernate.connection.CharSet=utf8
hibernate.connection.characterEncoding=utf8
hibernate.connection.useUnicode=true
Table 4: Section of db.properties to configure UTF-8 support
Therefore the files can contain all special characters from the UTF-8 charset.
vmCharacterEncoding=UTF-8
If this property is set to UTF-8 the generation of PDFs should support any character needed in
the EU.
The eMS user interface supports all kind of characters. This seems to be a webbrowser fallback
behavior to use a fallback character set in case characters are not included in the provided font.
Tests with Chinese characters showed, the font used to generate the PDFs does not include all
Chinese characters. Therefore Chinese texts entered into eMS might not show up in generated
PDF files.
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A B B RE V I AT I O N S
Abbreviations
Abbreviaton Meaning
CA Certifying Authority
HIT Harmonised Implementation Tool – Interacts Project on the harmonisation
of forms
JS / JTS Joint Technical Secretariat
LA Lead Applicant
LP Lead Partner
MA Managing Authority
NCP National Contact Point
PP Project Partner
193
ANNEX
194
ANNEX
195
ANNEX
196
ANNEX
197
ANNEX
198
ANNEX
Work Package Management- Deliverable Month Enables the input field for deliverable month in WP Mgmt.
Work Package Communication- Activitiy Budget Enables the input field for budget value for activity in WP Communication.
Work Package Communication- Activitiy Description Enables the input field for description for activity in WP Communication.
Work Package Communication- Deliverable Enables the input field for description for deliverable in WP Communication.
Description
Work Package Communication- Deliverable Delivery Enables the input field for deliverable month in WP Communication.
Month
Work Package Investment- Activitiy Budget Enables the input field for budget amount for activity in WP Investment.
Work Package Investment- Durability And Enables durability and transferability Input fields for WP Investment.
Transferability Of Main Outputs
Work Package Investment- Activitiy Description Enables the input field for description for activity in WP Investment.
Work Package Investment- Deliverable Description Enables the input field for description for deliverable in WP Investment.
Work Package Investment- Deliverable Delivery Month Enables the input field for deliverable month in WP Investment.
Work Package Implementation- Durability And Enables durability and transferability Input fields for WP Implementation.
Transferability Of Main Outputs
Work Package Implementation- Activitiy Description Enables the input field for description for activity in WP Implementation.
Work Package Implementation- Activitiy Budget Enables the input field for budget amount for activity in WP Implementation.
Work Package Implementation- Deliverable Enables the input field for description for deliverable in WP Implementation.
Description
Work Package Implementation- Deliverable Delivery Enables the input field for deliverable month in WP Implementation.
Month
Use Deliverables Enables Deliverables section in workpackage detail view
Disable Workpackages Disables the add-Workpackage feature. Mandatory Workpackages have to be created via Plugin
Display Targetgroups in Workpackages Shows selection for Targetgroups in Workpackage detail view.
Budget Settings
Cofinancing Source Fields Enables the selection of cofinancing sources
Budget- Enable Flatrates Enables budget flatrates for office/administration and staff
Budget- Enable Office Flatrates Only Enables office/administration flatrate only
Budget- Enable Inkind Contribution Enables in-kind contribution input
Budget- Enable Co-financing Source Shows/Hides cofinancing source in tables
Budget- Enable Fund Summary Shows/Hides Fund Summary in Tables
Enable Individual Periods In enabled the project has to define periods individually. If not enabled periods will be
created using the Period-Interface
Budget- Allow Individual Staff Subbudgetlines If enabled the user is allowed to create individual subbudgetlines for budgetline “Staff”.
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ANNEX
Budget- Allow Individual Office Subbudgetlines If enabled the user is allowed to create individual subbudgetlines for budgetline “Office &
Administration”
Budget- Allow Individual Travel Subbudgetlines If enabled the user is allowed (and forced) to create individual subbudgetlines for budgetline
“Travel and Accomodation”
Budget- Allow Individual Expertise Subbudgetlines If enabled the user is allowed (and forced) to create individual subbudgetlines for budgetline
“External Expertise and Services”
Budget- Allow Individual Equipment Subbudgetlines If enabled the user is allowed (and forced) to create individual subbudgetlines for budgetline
“Equipment”
Budget- Allow Individual Investment Subbudgetlines If enabled the user is allowed (and forced) to create individual subbudgetlines for budgetline
“Investment”
Budget- Allow Individual Netrevenue Subbudgetlines If enabled the user is allowed (and forced) to create individual subbudgetlines for budgetline
“Net Revenue”
200
ANNEX
Annex 3: Properties
Remark: properties need to be changed in configuration files by the technical administrator. Most changes require a restart of eMS to be
taken into account.
201
ANNEX
paginatorRows.project
paginatorRows.workpackage
paginatorRows.partner
activeMQ.server vm://localhost?create=f Queue settings for automatic tasks (active mq settings)
alse
activeMQ.queueName vm://localhost?create=f
alse
activeMQ.receiveAllowed true
quartz.cronTrigger.interval 0****?*
quartz.conTriggerCSV.interva Interval for currency fetching
l
quartz.cronTriggerCSV.receiv Enables job for currency fetching
eAllowed
quartz.cronTriggerCSV.url URL to currency service
currency.defaultId EUR Default currency
showStacktraceInGui false Shows stack trace in user interface when true
logPerformance False Enables Performance Logging
logInformation False Enables Information Logging
writerErrorsToStandardOutpu Writes Errors to StandardOut
t
upload.sizelimit Filesize Limit for Upload
upload.filetypes Filetypes allowed for upload
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ANNEX
financeReport.xxx
progressReport.xxx
flcInstitution.xxx
xxx.uploadPath Path for uploaded binaries in the corresponding report
customvm.path Path to template for custom documents
customvm.cache false Velocity cache mode
customvm.modificationCheck 10 Cache interval
Interval
customvm.cssfont.nam Font name to use for costom documents
customvm.cssfont.path Font path to use for custom documents
dateformat dd.MM.yyyy Date Format for GUI
privatelegalstatus.id 1 Default private status – do not modify
copy.enabled Enables application form copy function
timeformat dd.MM.yyyy hh:mm:ss Userinterface Time Format
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ANNEX
roundingMode
loExpColumns List of columns used in List of Expenditure
period.jarPath.autocreation Implementation of Interfaces
checks.jarPath.invoice
google.maps.apiUrl http://maps.google.com API Url for geocoding
/maps/api/geocode/jso
n
google.maps.defaultLat 48.858222 Default Latitude
google.maps.defaultLng 2.2945 Default Longitude
google.maps.defaultZoom 15 Default zoom factor in map
usePartnerMap False User Map in Partner section
velogDir Logdir for Velocity (PDF Creation)
reports.path Location for autogenerated reports
google.maps.jsApiUrl JS API Url for Google Map
htmlInPdf false If true, generated intermediate html documents will also be provided to the user
checklists_Phase1_Eligibility.xxx
checklists_Phase1_Assessment.xxx
checklists_Eligibility.xxx
checklists_Assessment.xxx
checklists_FLC.xxx
checklists_JTS.xxx
xxx.pathIntermediate Intermediate path for checklist print of defined type
xxx.path Path for pdf result of checklist print of defined type
xxx.filename Filename for result
phase1Ineligible.xxx
phase1Approved.xxx
phase1Rejected.xxx
phase2Ineligible.xxx
phase2Approved.xxx
phase2Rejected.xxx
phase2ReferredBack.xxx
xxx.file Template of notification document
xxx.path Path for resulting notification pdf
xxx.filename Filename for notification pdf
eligibilityCheckDecisionEnabl true
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ANNEX
ed
checks.jarPath.mr Check implementation for modification request
checks.jarPath.flc … flc submission
checks.jarPathfinalReport … final report submission
xml.path Path for keep export
postponeEnabled Enables postponing of projects
applicationBrowserColumns Columns shown in application browser
myApplicationsColumns Columns shown in my applications
showCategorizedQualityAsses false Quality assessment comments per category, if disables only 1 comment box will be shown
smentComments
useStickyMenu False Menu to the left will stick on top and not scroll with the content section of the
application
monthdateformat MMM.yyyy Format for date information on month level
automaticHandoverToLeadPar False Lead partner will automatically be assigned to the lead applicants user
tner
reporting.properties
mondrian.connection Mondrian Connection string with path to the eMS.xml cube definition and connection
settings to the relational database
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AN N EX
207