What is project closure? After the end of the implementation phase, projects on GMS enter the Final Reporting stage, where the implementing partner must submit the final narrative report and the final financial report for the project. Upon approval of these reports, the project will be pushed to Audit  (for non-UN Agencies only) and, if required, the final disbursement or refund will be activated.  All the following final instances of the project must be finalized and approved by the HFU and Finance HQ in order to initiate the project closure phase for the project in GMS: Final Narrative Report; Final Financial Report; Audit Report; Final Disbursement; Refund; Balance Due lesser than 1$.  The system will verify that the final reporting and financial instances have been closed in GMS before allowing the project to be moved to closure. This can be seen at the top of the project, on the ‘Disbursement’ and ‘Refund’ tabs for CBPF Finance or from the final narrative report for HFU. There can be two scenarios: There are no pending instances, as they have all being either finalized or approved (e.g. refund, FNR, FFR, audit). The GMS will indicate so by displaying a header, with all instances in green and a message stating that the project can now move to closure. Please note: this header will only be displayed for: - Finance HQ in the disbursement tab and in the refund tab after processing the refund - HFU in the Final Narrative Report screen after approving the report To hide this header, click on [click here].   Second case scenario, one or multiple instances of the projects have not yet been validated or approved. The GMS will not allow users to proceed with project closure as long as there are pending instances. Pending instances and balance due will be indicated in red. You can click on the instance’s name to open it on the GMS and finalise it.    

Throughout the year, HFUs have to make sure that the fund is up to date on the GMS in terms of contacts, risk management, evaluation etc.   For this purpose, we have created an HFU GMS checklist that you can open and fill in when you need to ensure that your fund is correctly set up in the GMS. This would reduce mistakes in your fund, ensure that your obligations are met and enhance data management and the effectiveness of the GMS.  Do not feel the need to actually submit the form, it is just there for your personal use. We will send out a periodic reminder for you to use your checklist to your advantage. 

If you wish to practice, test some features or provide training, you can use the GMS staging platform. It is a replicate of the GMS that allows you do everything you can do on the GMS. The staging platform has no impact on the GMS thus you can create and delete as many projects or allocations as you wish. How to login for the first time  If it is your first time on the GMS staging platform you will have to register.   To begin, go on https://stg-gms.unocha.org/ and click on [Login]. You will be redirected to the HID login page. Insert your HID credentials and click on [Login].  The system will ask you if you consent to share your name, email address and HID user ID with the GMS staging platform. Please click on [Allow]. You can now fill in and submit the registration form.  Fields description:  Pooled Fund: please always select ‘Dummy Fund 71’ when registering on the staging platform. Primary user group: although multiple user accesses are possible, please select the option ‘Others’ and insert the requested role (i.e. HFU, CBPF Finance) in the comment section.  Once you have filled in this form, click on [Submit Registration]. The GMS Support team will then approve your registration at your request. Please do not forget to send an email to gms-support@un.org once you have submitted you registration.  Once logged into the staging platform, you can give yourself access to multiple user roles from the 'System Users' page. To learn more on how to add or edit a user role click here. A useful way to use the platform would be to give yourself access as an Agency user and demonstrate to partners how they can access the platform, access their due diligence application and fill it in.  You can also show agency users how to know which monitoring instances are required, how to activate Interim reports and how to read the Timelines tab. In essence, this platform was made as a GMS playground with no effects on the real GMS.  Users with new roles and responsibilities, such as Program Officers and HFU Finance Officers, can also benefit from the platform by using it to see what their new role brings in terms of Timelines tab responsibilities or Budget Approvals.  The trick to a successful training using the staging platform lies in the preparation of your examples. Hence, do not forget to prepare a partner with a Due Diligence at ‘Active’ status if you are instructing on Due Diligence responsibilities, or to prepare a Timelines tab with relevant instances to your training if it centres around those responsibilities.   Most importantly, do not forget to come to GMS Support for any of your training needs! We accompany you in this venture whenever in doubt.   

Do you ever get just a little bit confused on how to cover extra costs incurred with an additional FTR? No worries, this post is for you! This blog post covers the creation of multiple FTRs by HFUs for one project.  The most common scenarios for this situation to occur are:  The partner revised the project and was granted a cost extension, or  Additional audit costs have been linked to the project – once incurred they should be updated in the Project Admin Tab  In these kinds of situations, the projects are not fully funded, and are hence marked within GMS as partially paid. For partially paid projects, the HFU must create another FTR.  The system will inform you that the project is partially paid for with an information icon under the field ‘Amount to pay’. Hover over the information icon   to see the following message:  “This project is partially paid in other FTR(s) and the total amount already paid is XXX.”  You will then need to subtract the amount indicated in the information message to the amount shown under “Total cost to Project” to get the correct figure that should be inserted in the field: ‘Amount to pay’. You can then follow the usual process to submit the FTR.  In the example above, the project was already linked to another FTR, and 123,456USD had already been paid for that project. Therefore, to fully fund this project, you need to calculate the following:  Amount to Pay (i.e., rest to pay to fully fund the project cost) = Total Cost to Project – Amount already paid (i.e., amount in information icon)  In our example the HFU must insert: 1,201,188.54 – 123,4556 = 1,077,732.54  Please note: as can be seen in the screenshot below, if you see that the amount indicated in the info message is “0.00”, it means that the project has been added to another FTR which has not yet been processed. Please check that it is not an unnecessary duplicate. You can check the other project’s FTR by using the filters in the FTR Report page.  

Business roles exist in the GMS to differentiate access and rights within one user group. There are several business roles on the GMS:  Business roles related to HFU users:  • The Fund Manager business role: only granted to Fund Managers. It allows Fund Managers to perform different actions which regular HFU staff do not have the right to do, more specifically, fully access the Case Management Module and the following rights on the Project Timelines: adding, editing, and deleting waivers, marking/unmarking the OM Compliant checkbox, authorizing the Timelines.  • The HFU Program Officer business role (also available to CBPF Finance user role): granted to HFU officers who work on Timelines’ validation on behalf of the Fund Manager. Users linked to this business role can, in the Timelines’ tab of projects, edit a waiver; mark/unmark the OM Compliant checkbox of report/monitoring instances and authorize/un-authorize the Timelines.  • The Compliance HFU team business role: granted to HFU officers who have been assigned the task to follow up and work on fraud / case management. The fraud related email notification alerts will be sent only to HFU users linked with this business role. This business role is assigned upon request from the Fund Manager and approval from the Oversight and Compliance Unit.  • The HFU GMS Admin business role: granted to HFU officers who have been assigned the task to fill in the relevant information in the COVID app.  • The HFU Due Diligence business role (also available to CBPF Finance and OCU user roles): only users linked to this business role can access the Due Diligence module on GMS.  To CBPF Finance user role: • The HFU Program Officer business role: granted to CPBF Finance officers who work on Timelines’ validation. Users linked to this business role can, in the Timelines’ tab of projects, edit a waiver; mark/unmark the OM Compliant checkbox of report/monitoring instances and authorize/un-authorize the Timelines.  • The HFU Risk Management Group business role (also available to HFU and OCU user roles): only users linked to this business role can access the Due Diligence module. To Cluster Leads and Support Officers user role: • The restricted Cluster Lead business role: granted to Cluster Coordinators, this business role restricts the search of projects in the GMS to those linked to the cluster which is associated to the Cluster Coordinator user. If a user is linked with this business role, the user will not be allowed to search/access projects from other clusters.  To Oversight and Compliance user role: • The Compliance CASE manager business role: granted to OCU officers who have been assigned the task to manage fraud / case and are listed as Case Manager in the Partner Portal. This business role grants the access and rights of a Case Manager to the user, i.e., access to the assurance measures and case management modules in both the GMS and the Partner Portal.  • The HFU Risk Management group (also available to CBPF Finance and HFU user roles): only users linked to this business role can access the Due Diligence module.