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Cerberus e-Portal

Sponsors

Guidance for NSV application

Version 1.4 - Produced by DBS-NSV-VSS

August 2013

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Introduction

These guidance notes provide instruction for you as the Sponsor on how to activate your e-Form account on either the secure RLI/GSI portal or on the Internet portal when registration has been completed by the Customer Services Division (CSD) in the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting (DBS NSV). This guide also provides information on how to use the RLI/GSI and Internet e-Form portals from a Sponsor perspective, e.g. creating new NSV applications. For enquiries, please contact our Helpdesk and select Option 1 for MOD Sponsors and select Option 2 for OGD/Repayment customers. DBS-NSV Helpdesk Tel: 01904 66 2644 (Mil: 94777 2644) Email: DBS-NSV-CustomerEnquiries(MULTIUSER)@mod.uk

Roles and responsiblities of a Sponsor

• As an authorised NSV Sponsor you are responsible for creating the Subjects’ account on the e-Portal and managing the progress of the application.

• There are two Portals – RLI/GSI (for Subjects completing the form over the restricted system i.e. at work) and the Internet Portal (for Subjects completing the form over the internet i.e. at home). The two portals are completely separate and the Sponsor must ensure they create the account on the correct one as they cannot be switched.

• Only the Sponsor has access to the personal information which they input into the ‘create new account’ area and the applicant must match it exactly. If the information does not match then they have to contact the Sponsor to confirm the information and get the account unlocked. (The DBS-NSV Helpdesk cannot help as they do not have access to the information).

• The Sponsor MUST complete and submit the sponsor part of the e-form before 63 days of the account being activated by the subject. Once the 63 day point is reach if one or both parts of the form have not been submitted the whole form will be cancelled and a new application will have to be created. (An email will be automatically sent at the 42 day point to alert the Sponsor that only 21 days remain before cancellation).

• It is important that the Sponsor completes the ‘My Account’ details within the ‘Default Values’ tab on both e-Portal accounts. This information is pulled through onto the automated emails and populates the ‘Correspondence Address’ section of the Sponsor part of the form.

• The Sponsor ID can also be found in the ‘My Account’ area within the ‘Default Values’. This ID number is unique to each Sponsor and should be kept secure and quoted in all correspondence with DBS-NSV. It should NEVER be used by anyone other than the Sponsor themselves.

• If the Sponsor account is no longer required DBS-NSV MUST be informed via the Sponsors authorising body to enable the account to be deactivated.

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Ser. HOW DO I? PAGE NUMBER

A Activate my Sponsor e-Form account? 4-9 B Create a new NSV application? 10-11 C View Application Status Information (ASI)? 12-13 D Complete the Sponsor section of the NSV application? 13-19 E View the Vetting Status Information (VSI) facility? 19 F Export information into Microsoft Excel? 19-20

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Page Number

1. My Subject’s surname contains a special character how do I input this onto the Portal?

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2. My Subject’s surname is McCabe how do I input this onto the Portal?

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3. My Subject’s forename contains a hyphen how do I input this onto the Portal?

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4. My Subject’s surname contains a hyphen how do I input this onto the Portal?

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5. My Subject’s town of birth contains a hyphen how do I input this onto the Portal?

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6. Is the Portal case sensitive? 22 7. My Subject’s email address contains an apostrophe, does

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Ser. WHAT DO I DO IF? PAGE NUMBER

1. My Subject does not receive their e-Form account activation email?

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2. I forget my password? 15 3. I forget my username? 16 4. I want to change my password? 14 5. I want to edit my contact details 19 6. My Subject has a close association with DBS NSV? 16 7. I have completed a section but I can’t see a green tick? 16 8. I want to check my application for errors? 16 9. I want to save my application and return at a later date? 16

10. I want to log in and out of the e-Portal 17 11. I want to submit my section of the form? 17

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A. Sponsor e-Form Account Activation Once the registration process has been completed you will receive a standard registration email from DBS NSV. This email contains a link that will direct you to one of the e-Form portals (RLI/GSI or Internet). If you have applied to use both the RLI/GSI portal and Internet portal the separate activation emails will be sent to you and you will have to complete the activation process for each. Each email will clearly specify which account the activation link relates to. Your unique Sponsor ID, which you will have been given upon registration as a Sponsor with DBS NSV, will be included in the email and this field will automatically be completed on the Sponsor section of all e-Form applications you create. If both secure and internet portal accounts have been requested, the Sponsor ID will be the same for both. The RLI/GSI activation emails will read as Figure 1 below:

Figure 1 The first link in the email is the activation link which will take you to the relevant e-Form portal and the ‘Confirm user details’ screen (Figure 2). This will verify you as a registered Sponsor with DBS NSV. The second link in the email is the link to be used for all subsequent access to your e-Form portal account. This can be saved to your favourites.

Figure 2 You will need to input all information in the mandatory fields which are highlighted by an asterisk (Figure 3). This will verify your information against the information that was provided to

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The Security Operating Procedures must be agreed by ticking this box before the account can be created.

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DBS NSV to create your Sponsor account. (Please note: Providing only your first name is the preferred option for the ‘Forenames’ field.)

Figure 3 Figure 4 Please note that if you provided your country of birth as England to DBS NSV, rather than UK or United Kingdom, then you will need to put ‘England’ in this field. The e-Form will only accept the exact information and will not recognise the links between England, UK or United Kingdom (Figure 4). If you are unsure of the exact details you provided, please refer to the form which you completed and sent to DBS NSV. If you input these details incorrectly more than 5 times the account will lock and you will need to contact the DBS NSV Helpdesk to unlock your account. If you are emailing DBS NSV to unlock your account, please write ‘Sponsor Account Unlock’ in the subject line of the email as this will help us to deal with your enquiry promptly. We have a dedicated team dealing with our email and fax communications. You will need to provide your Sponsor ID and personal details to unlock your account. Once your details have successfully been confirmed, following guidance provided, you will be prompted to create your own Username and Password for your Sponsor account (Figure 5). Your Username can be anything easy for you to remember; however you must follow the guidance provided to create your Password. If this does not meet the criteria a red asterisk will appear to the right of the field (Figure 6) and you will be prompted to re-enter a Password.

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Incorrect DOB given

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Figure 5 Figure 6 The ‘Activation Completed’ screen (Figure 7) will appear once an acceptable Username and Password has been created.

Figure 7 Clicking on the ‘Home’ link (Figure 7) will take you to the Sponsor Home Page (Figure 8) Please note: Super Sponsor accounts will show the Filter options, regular sponsor accounts will show the search options only.

Figure 8 The Sponsor Home Page will list all the NSV applications that you have initiated as a Sponsor. If you have initiated numerous cases then you can search for them using either your Sponsor Reference (Figure 10) or by the case ID which Cerberus will generate when a new application is created (Figure 8).

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The VSI Option is only available on the RLI Portal.

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If you have a Super-Sponsor account you will be able to click on ‘All My Organisations’ on the Home Page and it will show all the applications that have been initiated by your organisation/department. The default view is ‘Mine only’ and shows only those cases that have been initiated by you as a Sponsor.

Before creating any applications you must ensure that the ‘Default Values’ have been completed. This is important because Cerberus draws on this information and pre-populates the ‘Sponsor Notification’ part of the e-form ensuring accuracy and consistency. It also pulls the Sponsor contact details from here when it sends emails to the Subjects, and it will use the email address you provide here when contacting you. Please ensure that ALL the Sponsors in your organisation use the same addresses and they update it with any changes. How do I edit my Default Values on the Portals?

Figure 9 Go to the My Account Tab and then click on ‘Default values’.

Figure 10 The Sponsor Name and ID are greyed out and are the only boxes that cannot be edited. Complete all the boxes with your details, using a group email address is useful for large teams as it ensures emails will be received even when staff are absent or leave. The information from the Notification address is used to pre-populate the Sponsor part of the e-form saving time and ensuring accuracy.

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You may wish to consider using a group mailbox address here to ensure emails are picked up when sponsors are absent.

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Figure 11

Figure 12 Example of Sponsor Questionnaire, Contractor Details Section where the ‘Default Values’ have pre-populated the fields to answer ‘YES’ to the questions ‘Will the employee be on your company’s payroll? And ‘Is the clearance required for access to a site only?

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Ticking these boxes automatically defaults to answer YES to these questions in the contractor section of the sponsor part of the form.

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Figure 13

Back to TopB. Creating a new NSV application

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To create a new NSV application, click on the ‘New Subject’ tab at the top of the ‘Home: Sponsor View’ screen. This will take you to the ‘Create New user Account’ page (Figure 14).

Figure 14 You will then be prompted to enter seven mandatory pieces of personal information relevant to the subject for whom the new NSV application is for. These are: Forenames: enter vetting Subject’s forename – if using a middle name you must tell the Subject in order to match the personal information. Email address: Make sure you use an email address on the appropriate network. The network on which the applicant wishes to complete their e-Form, either the Internet or RLI/GSI, will determine which email address the activation email should be sent to. If you are a Sponsor on the internet e-Form portal the Subject will not be able to complete their e-Form application on the restricted RLI/GSI e-Form portal. They will need to provide you with an unclassified address (e.g. ******@hotmail.com). Please note: .aol addresses are not compatible. The system will also not accept special characters – for example steve-o’neil@hotmail.co.uk – the subject would have to create a new account – for example steveoneil@hotmail.co.uk. Date of Birth: This should be in dd/mm/yyyy format. Vetting Service: The vetting services listed in the drop down menu are the services which are available to you as a DBS NSV customer. These will be specific to your requirements as previously agreed with DBS NSV. Please note that if a Subject already holds, or has held a security clearance, and you are applying for a clearance of the same level, then you should select the ‘review’ option against that clearance level. Sponsor’s reference: This is a reference that you as a Sponsor can select (Figure 10). As this reference is chosen by you it could be something that links to your internal business practice. If this reference is unique to each application, you can use this to search for a Subject.

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Figure 15

Once the Subject account has been created, a confirmation screen will appear (Figure 16). A new NSV application will have been created for the Subject and an automated email will be sent to them to enable them to activate their account and access the e-Form to complete their section of the application form. They will have 30 days to activate their account. This new NSV request can be viewed by following the ‘Back to main menu’ hyperlink which takes you back to the ‘Home: Sponsor View’ page. On there, the new application will be listed and will show a status of ‘Awaiting subject activation’ (Figure 17). It also shows the basic details for that application, i.e. Sponsor reference, forenames, surname, vetting service and date the application was created. The ‘Details’ hyperlink will take you to a further screen which is where you can access the Sponsor section of the NSV application (Figure 18). Please note: Sponsors will not be able to see the contents of the Subjects section of the application form through the e-Forms system.

Figure 16

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Sponsor’s Reference

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Figure 17

Back to TopC. Application Status Information

There are three status definitions that will be used for the applications you have in progress on the e-Form: 1. Awaiting Subject Activation – as soon as you have created a new application for a Subject this is the first status at which the application will appear. By clicking on the ‘Details’ hyperlink against this application you will be able to access the Sponsor section of the e-Form for this application and also be able to carry out the following actions while the account is in this state:

a. Resend Activation email – if the Subject fails to receive the email to activate their e-form account within 24 hours of you creating their account, you can resend the activation email by clicking on this link.

b. Modify Subject’s Details – if the personal mandatory information that you used to create the Subject’s account is incorrect and needs amending, i.e. the cause of the Subject not being able to activate their account, then you can select this option to modify these details. Following any amendments you will need to resend the activation email and inform the Subject that this has been done so that they activate the amended account. N.B. Actions a. and b. are ONLY available until the Subject has successfully activated their account.

c. Withdraw Application – if a clearance is no longer required you can withdraw their application by clicking on this option at any time up until both section of the form have been submitted. A secondary screen will appear which will ask you for confirmation that you wish to withdraw an application. This is because an application cannot be reinstated once it has been withdrawn and a new account will have to be created.

d. Unlock Subject’s Account – this option will only present itself if the Subject has locked their account. Clicking this link will unlock the Subject’s e-Form account.

2. Waiting for Subject Actions – this status will appear when the Subject has activated

their account and is in the process of completing their application. The ‘Withdraw Application’ activity is also available at this time. The ‘Unlock Subject’s Account’ option will also be available if the Subject locks their account whilst completing the application form.

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3. In Progress – this status will appear when both sections of the e-Form application (Subject and Sponsor) have been completed and submitted to DBS NSV and the application is being processed. You will not be able to withdraw the application through the e-Forms facility when the application has reached this state. If you need to

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withdraw the application you will need to contact the DBS NSV Helpdesk. You will also not be able to amend the Sponsor section of the application form.

Figure 18

Back to TopD. Completion of the Sponsor Section of the NSV Application Form

As per the hard copy NSV001 and NSV002 forms for the application of CTC/SC and DV level security clearance respectively, Sponsors need to complete their section of the application form. Unlike with the hard copy forms, Sponsors will only be able to access their section of the application form (see ‘Complete sponsors part of SC’ hyperlink in Figure 13 above) and view the progress that the Subject has made on their part of the application form. The status of the Subject’s progress towards completion of the application forma can be seen in the line above the Sponsor’s link. There are three stages of progress:

1. Subject’s Part of the SC/DV Not Started – this means that the Subject has not activated their e-Form account and created a Username and password

2. Subject’s Part of the SC/DV in Progress – this is when the Subject has activated their account and is in the process of completing their section of the application form. There is a maximum of 63 days in total for both the Subject and

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Please note: At present this feature is not enabled. Further communication will be released when this is available.

Hyperlink to Sponsor part of the form

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Sponsor parts of the application form to be completed. If the application exceeds this timeframe, it will be cancelled and a new application will need to be generated. After 42 days, you will receive a hastener email explaining that there are 21 days remaining for you and the Subject to complete the e-Form or it will be cancelled.

3. Subject’s Part of the SC/DV Complete – this means that the Subject has completed their section of the application form and they have submitted this to DBS NSV.

To complete the Sponsors section of the application form you will need to click on the hyperlink ‘complete sponsors part of the SC/DV’. This will load the Sponsor’s section of the e-Form which may take a couple of minutes depending on the version of Adobe that you are using and/or the speed of the network. If the e-Form fails to load after a few minutes then please refer to the Cerberus & e-Forms Troubleshooting Guide. If you continue to experience problems please contact the DBS NSV Helpdesk. Once the e-Form is open, you will see a list of sections down the left hand side menu for you to complete (Figure 19). The opening screen provides some instructions to help you complete the e-Form and what to look out for. Additional guidance is available to help you complete the specific fields. This can be accessed by hovering your mouse over the right hand side of the field. A comments box will appear providing guidance on how to complete a specific field.

Figure 19

Please note that you should only select the ‘Submit’ button when all of the sections of the e-Form are shown as ‘Complete’ and you are happy with the information provided. If you wish to come out of the e-Form at any point before final completion and submission you should select the ‘Save’ button.

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F. Helpful Hints

1) Subject’s non receipt of e-Form account activation email – if your vetting Subject contacts you because they have not received their account activation email (please allow up to 24 hours), there is a facility in the ‘Details’ screen against that application for you to resend the activation email. If the Subject still fails to receive the activation email then please contact the DBS NSV Helpdesk.

2) Forgetting your password – Please be advised that if you forget your password you will be locked out of your account after 5 attempts. If you cannot remember your password then please use the ‘forgotten you ‘password?’ link (Figure 20). This will take you to the ‘Recover password’ screen (Figure 21) where you will be asked to enter your username to identify you. An email will then be sent to you (Figure 22) which contains links to direct you to the ‘confirm your details’ page (Figure 3). If you do lock your account you will not be able to use the password reminder until your account is unlocked. You will need to contact DBS NSV to unlock your account.

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Figure 20 Figure 21

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3) Forgetting your Username – You will also be locked out of your account after multiple attempts if you input the incorrect Username. If you select the ‘forgotten your username?’ link, as shown in Figure 20, this will take you to a ‘recover username’ screen (Figure 23), where you will be asked to enter 3 pieces of information to identify you and your account (Figure 24). Your username will be sent to the email address which you used to activate your account (Figure 25). Again, if you have locked your account you will not be able to use the Username reminder until your account is unlocked by the DBS NSV Helpdesk.

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Figure 23 Figure 24 Back to Top

4) Subject’s association with Defence Business Services National Security Vetting – Under the ‘General Information’ section there is a question which asks whether the Subject’s post for which the clearance is required, is within or closely associated with DBS NSV. This should only be answered as ‘yes’ where the Subject (or a close relative of them, if known) is connected personally or professionally to DBS NSV. This checkbox is intended to identify anyone who is, has been or will be employed by DBS NSV or is an authorised administrator with system access. A ‘yes’ in this checkbox when not relevant will delay an application. Back to Top

5) Section completion – Look out for ‘Next’ at the top right of a page. This indicates that

there is more information to complete on another page within that section. A section will not show as complete until all the pages contained within it have been completed. When all the mandatory fields on each of the pages within a section have been completed the status at the top right hand corner of the form will change from ‘Section no complete’ to ‘complete’ and will show as a green tick – this will also be the case next to the section heading on the left hand side menu. Back to Top

6) Check for Errors – If you are having problems completing a section or a page and it is

not showing as complete with a green tick, you can click on the ‘Check for errors’ button towards the bottom left of the screen under the section menu (Figure 14). This will detail what mandatory parts of the form are still to be completed for the section to show as ‘complete’ and it will direct you to the respective questions within the form. Back to Top

7) Save and Return – You can save the Sponsor section of the application form at any

time and come back to it as long as the section of the form that you are working on has been completed in full. Additionally, if you want to come out of the form before you have even started to complete it, you will need to click the save button. In each case, clicking on the save button will direct you to a confirmation screen (Figure 21). This will confirm that the form has been saved in its current state and from this screen you can return to your ‘Home: Sponsor view’ screen which will show you the list of clearances that you have ongoing. Back to Top

Figure 25

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8) Logging in and out of the e-Form Portals – If you log out from the e-Form, the

second time you login you will need to use the second link in the original ‘DBS NSV Registration’ email to get to the e-Form login screen (i.e. https://www.nsv.mod.uk). This will bring up the Username and Password screen for you to login to your account, taking you straight to your Home Page. Inactivity of your account for a period of time will result in the session timing out and you will have to log back into the site (Figure 22). Back to Top

Figure 26

9) Sponsor section form submission – Once all parts of the Sponsor section of the application form have been completed and you are ready to submit it, please make sure that you are happy with all the information you have provided as once the form is submitted it cannot be amended online and you will need to contact the DBS NSV Helpdesk. Once both you and the Subject have submitted both sections of the e-Form application the portal will accept the application totally and this will be received by the Cerberus Case Management System which manages the onward processing of the application. Back to Top

10) Change your password – When in the Home: Sponsor view screen click on the ‘My

Account’ tab. This will take you to the My Account screen which contain hyperlinks to the ‘Change Password’ screen and the ‘Default Values’ screen (Figure 26). Here you can change your password using the criteria described (Figure 27), you may change this whenever you like, you do not have to wait to be prompted.

Figure 27

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Figure 28

Figure 29

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You may wish to consider using a group mailbox address here as this will more than likely be in use when clearances are due for renewal.

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11) Edit your contact details - Clicking on the Default Values hyperlink takes you to the sponsor details screen (Figure 29). If you complete your contact details and address, this will pre-populate onto the relevant fields on the e-Form sponsor section. The email address does not have to be the same address as the one provided to activate your account. The email address you include here will be the address at which the Portal will notify when a clearance is due for review. You can also use a group mailbox email address for this as when the time comes for a clearance to be reviewed the email may no longer be in use.

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E. Sponsors with the Vetting Status Information (VSI) request facility For those Sponsors that have requested the VSI facility, this can be viewed by clicking on the VSI tab located at the top of the Home Page. You can enquire as to whether a Subject already holds a valid security clearance with the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting by inputting three mandatory pieces of information, which are:

1. Surname 2. Forename 3. Date of Birth

If the Subject is serving in the military or is an MOD civil servant a service or staff number can be added to the query to narrow the search. A response to this enquiry can either take a few seconds or a couple of hours depending on the number of requests being sent to Cerberus and other factors such as the time of day. There are three possible responses to a VSI enquiry:

1. If there is no match to this basic information, the response will come back as ‘not found’, i.e. DBS NSV do not hold a record for this individual.

2. If there are multiple matches this is because there are other individuals with the same mandatory pieces of information that hold a clearance. In these cases you will have to contact DBS NSV for further information. The response in this case will be ‘contact DBS NSV’. You will need to provide further personal information to ascertain which record is for the individual you are enquiring about before any clearance details are provided.

3. If there is one match with the mandatory information then you can check on the ‘Details’ tab which will display the information DBS NSV has supplied for that Subject i.e. level of clearance, when this was issued and when it is due to expire.

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F. Exporting information into Microsoft Excel In some situations it may be necessary to export some information into Microsoft Excel relating to the cases that you have set up and are in action, or for the cases that you may have withdrawn or cancelled. If you are a ‘super sponsor’ you will also be able to export the cases of your organisation into one single spreadsheet. This can be done by completing the following stages:

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1. Whilst looking at the Home: Sponsor view screen in the e-Portal right click anywhere on this screen to reveal a menu (screenshot 1)

Screenshot 1 Clicking on the Export to Microsoft Excel option opens an Excel document which shows the following error message (Screenshot 2)

Screenshot 2 Selecting OK clears the error message however the screen remains blank and shows no information. In order to fully export the information into Excel you need to click on the ‘Edit Query’ button which is located in the ‘External Data’ toolbar. N.B If this toolbar is not visible in your workbook you can add it by clicking View > Toolbars and tick External Data. This will populate a small toolbar which can be dragged up to attach to the existing toolbar (Screenshot 3)

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Here you can filter your information to view only your cases or all of your organisations cases; or by sponsor reference or case ID

Once you have right clicked, within that menu select the option ‘Export to Microsoft Excel’

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Screenshot 3 Within the small External Data toolbar select the ‘Edit Query’ button which is on the furthest left. Clicking on this option brings up another screen which shows the DBS NSV e-Portal login page (Screenshot 4)

Screenshot 4

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Use your sponsor login details to log into the e-Portal through this screen. Once you arrive at the Sponsor: Home view screen you can click on the import button which will once again bring up excel and your information should be contained within.

Frequently Asked Questions

• My Subject surname contains an apostrophe (O’Connor) how should I input this into the e-Portal? Names with apostrophes can be input as O Connor – without the apostrophe and including the space, or you can remove the space and apostrophe – OConnor however as the Sponsor you must inform the Subject how you have typed it in order to match when they confirm their details.

• My Subject’s surname is McCabe how do I input this onto the Portal? Names like McCabe can be input as they are – i.e with the small ‘c’

• My Subject’s forename contains a hyphen how do I input this onto the Portal? Forenames with hyphens in (Sarah-Louise) can be input as they are

• My Subject’s surname contains a hyphen how do I input this onto the Portal? Surnames with hyphens in (Van-Der-Weir) can be input as they are

• My Subject’s town of birth contains a hyphen how do I input this onto the Portal? Towns with hyphens in their name (Stoke-On-Trent) can be given as they are

• Is the Portal case sensitive? The e-Portal is not case sensitive the Sponsor can create a new Subject using all upper case and the Subject can confirm their details using a combination of upper and lower case

• My Subject’s email address contains an apostrophe; does the Portal accept addresses with special characters? Emails with apostrophes in are not accepted on the e-Portal. The Individual will need to provide an email address which doesn’t include the apostrophe (a temporary one-off address can be created using a free email provider like hotmail or gmail)

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