TariffShark Grid Tip

Grids are used throughout TariffShark to display lists of data. With only a couple of exceptions, the data displayed in a grid cannot be updated in the grid. Therefore, in order to update a row in a grid, you must select the row and click a command in the SmartBar.

The grid that displays the FERC Attachments that belong to a Filing (Hammerhead version shown below) is perhaps a little confusing.

FERC Attachments in TariffShark Hammerhead

The column labeled “Waiver?” appears to have a checkbox that can be clicked in order to request a waiver of a particular attachment. Instead, the checkboxes aren’t clickable — they indicate whether or not a waiver has been requested by showing either an empty box or a checked box. Clicking the checkbox merely selects the row within the grid.

Note that prior versions of TariffShark did not display an empty checkbox when a waiver hadn’t been requested. Instead the column was left blank, as shown below.

FERC Attachments in TariffShark v1.1 and prior

Do you have questions or comments? Do you want to know more about grids in Hammerhead? Post below or contact TariffShark Support.

Why Is December 31, 9998 Significant to eTariff

The OSEC Implementation Guide for eTariff contains a somewhat odd rule about proposing effective dates for tariff records.  Under the heading “Tariff Record Proposed Effective Date”, it says…

“If the effective date is not known at the time of the filing, such as the effective date is contingent on FERC approval, the closing of a plant sale, etc., the date of 12/31/9998 must be used.”

One of the highest priority goals for TariffShark is ease of use.  To that end, if there is ever uncertainty around the proposed effective date for a Tariff Record Version, simply leave it blank in TariffShark.  TariffShark has your back; it understands the 12/31/9998 rule and will put the appropriate value in the XML for submission to FERC.  With TariffShark, you don’t have to know the 12/31/9998 rule.

An unknown effective date is a rather uncommon situation.  In order to help prevent data entry errors, TariffShark will generate a filing validation warning any time it encounters a blank proposed effective date.  If you have left a proposed effective date blank intentionally, simply disregard the warning.

As always, if you have questions or comments, you may post them below or contact TariffShark Support.

FERC Posts Updated Filing Types

On October 31, 2012, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a notice under docket RM01-5 entitled “NOTICE OF CHANGE OF ETARIFF TYPE OF FILING CODES”. The full text of the notice may be downloaded from eLibrary.  Below is a summary of the changes to eTariff filing types.

Filing Code: 1220
Industry:Electric
FERC Program:Power Administrations
Description:Rate Extensions
Changes:This new code will permit Federal Power Marketing Administrations to file for extensions of rates consistent with 10 CFR 903.23 (2012) of the Department of Energy’s regulations. Tariff records included in such filings will be automatically accepted to be effective on the proposed effective date without further Commission action. The effective date of the new Filing Code is November 18, 2012.

Impact to TariffShark

New TariffShark software releasesthat accommodate the FERC changes will be available soon. You are only affected by this notice if you file electronic Tariffs under FERC’s Power Administrations program.

Hosted Customers

If you are impacted by the new Filing Type and your TariffShark servers are hosted by us, we will see that you are running the latest FERC-compliant server software on or before November 18, 2012. The upgrade will be done during the regular maintenance window (weekdays after 7pm and before 7am…or on the weekend).

All software releases (current and past) are available on the Downloads page on the TariffShark website.

As always, if you have questions or comments, you may post them below or contact TariffShark Support.

Changing a Filing’s Type After It Has Been Submitted

Several months ago we posted a blog article that described how to change the Filing Type of a Filing, which is helpful for Filings that have not yet been submitted to the Commission.  But, what do you do if you submitted a Filing and FERC has instructed you to submit the Filing again under a different Type of Filing?

The first thing you need to understand is that once a Filing has been submitted to FERC and accepted by FERC, it cannot be changed and submitted again.  This means that in order to “change” the Type of Filing, you actually need to make two additional Filings. The first of these is a Filing to withdraw the incorrect Filing and the second is a Filing with the correct Filing Type.

Preparing a Filing’s Tariff Record Versions’ (TRVs’) marked content and clean content for submission to FERC can take a fair amount of work.  It would be a shame to have to repeat that work simply because a Filing needs to be resubmitted with a different Filing Type.  By following the steps below, the replacement Filing can have all of the same content as the original Filing.  For each TRV in the original Filing…

  1. Open the Filing Details screen for the original Filing.
  2. On the “Tariff Record Versions” tab, select a TRV.
  3. Click the “Download Content” command in the SmartBar.  On the resulting form, download the TRV’s “Marked Document” and save the file somewhere temporarily (such as your desktop).
  4. Create a TRV for the replacement Filing.
    1. We recommend incrementing the Version by 1.  For example, if the TRV in
      the original Filing was Version 2.0.0, use Version 3.0.0 for the new
      TRV.
    2. On the Create Tariff Record Version form, place the new TRV into the replacement Filing.
  5. Open the Filing Details screen for the replacement Filing.
  6. On the “Tariff Record Versions” tab, select the TRV that was created in step 4 above.
  7. Click the “Build Content” command in the SmartBar.
    1. When the Build Content wizard asks “How would you like to build the content?” select the “Import Microsoft Word document” option.
    2. On the wizard next step, when prompted to “Select Microsoft Word file to import:”, select the file saved in step 3 above.
    3. Finish the wizard.
  8. TariffShark will open Microsoft Word with the content of the file selected in step 7b above.  Close Word and save the document when prompted.

Simply repeat this process for every TRV in the original Filing and the TRVs in the replacement Filing will have identical content.

If you have questions about this article, we’d love to hear from you.  Please comment below or contact TariffShark Support.