January 07, 2015

Dear Colleagues,

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) recently posted notices regarding the anticipated deployment of the Transportation Award Management System (TrAMS), our next generation of TEAM, expected to go live in April, 2015 (specific date TBD). TrAMS will allow recipients to use a self-service account management module to manage their TrAMS user accounts. To proceed with this approach, FTA requests your assistance to identify individuals from your organization and serve as a TrAMS User Manager (UM) for your organization.

The responsibilities will allow the UM to:

• Create accounts for co-workers who need to use TrAMS and assign appropriate roles.
• Submit user access requests and supporting documents to FTA for certain roles.
• Modify user accounts for co-workers, as necessary.
• Deactivate accounts for co-workers, as necessary.
• Beginning in FY2016, annually re-certify that user accounts for co-workers are active and the roles assigned to these co-workers are correct.
• Manage the agency profile information and points of contacts
• Serve as the liaison with FTA’s Local Security Manager

FTA recently requested that recipients that report in the National Transit Database (NTD) designate a User Manager to manage users of the new NTD system. If you have already selected an NTD User Manager(s), you may also designate these same individual(s) to be the user manager for TrAMS or designate a different individual. The person you designate as the UM should already be a TEAM system user with an active account. The designated UM should firmly understand how your organization uses TEAM. We also encourage you to identify more than one individual to serve as a “back-up”.

How to designate a UM

To designate a User Manager, we request that your organization incorporate the attached template Designation Letter language on your organization's letterhead and have your CEO sign it; please upload it to TEAM by March 1, 2015. You can use the same letter to designate multiple individuals who will be the UM. Once the Designation Letter is signed 1) upload it to your organization’s profile in TEAM; and 2) add the designated individual(s) information under the Contact Persons feature of TEAM. (See attached instructions).

We also encourage you to update your Points of Contact to help migrate accurate information from TEAM to TrAMS; please create separate records for each User Manager for TrAMS and the NTD, even if the UM is the same individual. If your organization has not yet designated a UM for the NTD, you can follow this process to designate an NTD UM as well.

Please note, all active TEAM accounts and their associated account information and current system roles will be migrated into TrAMS. You do not need to fill out a new user access form to access TrAMS. Once TrAMS is deployed the UM can easily add, delete or modify users. FTA will provide guidance documents and training to the individuals who have been designated as a TrAMS User Managers prior to its deployment.

User access to ECHO after TrAMS deploys will continue to follow our existing process and will not require that recipients identify a user manager for ECHO.

If you have any questions or request technical assistance, please contact your FTA regional office or email fta.trams@dot.gov. Please also consider subscribing to the news feed at here to receive alerts on TrAMS deployment, training, and system guidance and technical assistance.