TECHNICAL CONTENT CORRESPONDENCE

TCC-05-24

DATE: June 3, 2005

TO:  ALL FEDERAL OFFSET COORDINATORS

RE:  Federal Offset Program User Guide

Dear Coordinators:

We are pleased to announce the release of the revised Federal Offset Program (FOP) User Guide, Version 7.0, posted on the OCSE website’s Federal Offset Program Library page ( http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/newhire/library/fop/fop.htm). 

This updated version of the FOP User Guide reflects system changes implemented in releases 03-01 (August 2003), 04-01 (August 2004) and 05-01 (January 2005), as well as minor corrections and enhancements. Specifications for these releases are also available on the FOP Library page, as is the document, FOP User Guide Version 7.0 Changes, which provides a summary of the changes made to the Guide. The Guide and the Changes are both available in WinZip® Executable (.EXE) files.

The EXE files contain Word® documents compressed in the ZIP format. Click an EXE link and then click Run in the “File Download – Security Warning” window to download the desired document. If you receive a security warning regarding “unknown publisher,” click Run to continue the WinZip Self-Extractor process.  Click Browse to select the folder location for download, and then click Unzip. The extracted Word® file for the Guide will have the name ‘FOP User Guide V7.0 W2002 4-26-05 Web Submtl.doc’; the extracted Changes file will have the name ‘02 FOP User Guide V7.0 List of Changes.doc’.

The User Guide will soon have two additional formats posted to the OCSE website, HTML and PDF. The PDF format requires the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™ software. This software can be obtained for free from the website http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html. It is strongly recommended that the PDF format be used to print copies of the Guide, as this will ensure that the document will print exactly as designed. Differences in printers may cause unpredictable results when printing the Word® version (i.e., page breaks may inadvertently occur at the wrong place). The HTML format allows the document to be viewed directly from the OCSE website.

An e-flash notification will announce these additional formats when they become available.

If you have any questions or need assistance regarding Version 7.0 of the FOP User Guide, please contact Kelley Donovan at (202) 205-3421 or kdonovan@acf.hhs.gov.

Sincerely,

Donna J. Bonar
Associate Commissioner
For Office of Automation and Program Operations
Office of Child Support Enforcement

cc: State IV-D Directors
   Regional Program Managers
   ACF Regional Administrators
   State Parent Locator Service Contacts