General | 2014 Support Materials MS

Firstly, you can read about SFC2014 and the regulations governing the application in our section About SFC2014.

Secondly, if you require access to SFC2014 you should contact your Member State Liaision (MSL) Officer who is responsible for authorising access to SFC2014.

• If you do not know who your Liaison Officer is, you can contact the SFC2014 Support Team (http://ec.europa.eu/sfc/en/contact) requesting the email address of your Liaison and mentioning the Country and Fund(s) for which you require access.

• When requesting access to your MSL you will need to have created an EU Login account. The European Commission Authentication System (EU Login) is the service allowing users to access most of the digital systems developed or used by the European Institutions.

• To create an EU Login account you can follow the instructions in our step-by-step video tutorial on Creating an EU Login account. Your MSL will ask you for your Unique identifier at the Commission (uid) once your EU Login account has been created. You can find this information by following step 4 of this video tutorial.

Finally, once your access has been granted, you will receive an email confirming your account details. You can then connect to SFC2014 via https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/sfc2014/frontoffice/ui using you EU Login Username and Password.

If you require further support a number of different Help resources are available in the SFC2014 Portal. If you cannot find the information you require here, do not hesitate to contact the SFC2014 Support Team at http://ec.europa.eu/…

This excel file contains a dynamic table per fund for the different objects/document types and the necessary roles and permissions.

No. Existing users of SFC2007 must explicitly request access to SFC2014 by providing their Unique identifier at the Commission (uid)​ to their MS Liaison.

This Unique identifier at the Commission (uid)​ is the same one that is used for the SFC2007 account and can be found accessing https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/cas and logging into EU Login and clicking on the gear at the top right corner to display the menu and select 'My Account' -> 'My EU Login Account Details' -> 'Unique identifier at the Commission (uid)'

Alternatively if a user already has an SFC2007 account they can login to SFC2007 and find their Unique identifier at the Commission (uid)​ on the top-left of the screen:

Once the access request sent by the MSL is processed users will then be able to access SFC2007 and SFC2014 with the same Username and Password.

In order to increase security for access to all SFC applications (and many other Commission sites), the way in which users can login has been modified.

You can find more information about the different types of authentication by clicking here

Security Keys (SK)

A security key is a small physical device that looks like a USB thumb drive, and works in addition to your password.

Trusted Platforms (TP)

You can use Windows Sign-in options in order to verify your access to SFC.

1. To do so, you will first need to set up one of the ‘Windows Hello’ options, by going to your Windows settings -> Sign-in Options and set up one of the below methods:

1. Copy and paste https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/cas in your Internet browser bar in order to connect to EU Login to create a new account.

2. Click on Create an account. There is no need to fill in the "Use your email address" field 

REMARK: The options to sign in with Social Media Applications do not work with SFC2014.

3. Complete the form with your personal details

REMARK: If any of the required fields is incorrectly completed or left blank, an error message is displayed in red, under the concerned field to be corrected.

An email containing a URL to reactivate your password will be sent to the email address linked to your EU Login account. Passwords are managed by EU Login, not by the SFC2014 Support Team, and it happens that the email sent by EU Login doesn't reach the user's mailbox because he uses filters (ex.:spam filter) or the email linked to his account is no longer valid.

If you have tried to reset your password but this has not solved your problem and you are sure that something happens with your registration or your username/password in EU Login, register an incident with the EC Helpdesk for the 'ACCESS-RIGHTS' team.

This can be done via the EC Central Helpdesk (EC working hours: 8 am - 6 pm CET): EC-CENTRAL-HELPDESK@ec.europa.eu

You can find the suggestions provided through the Help links on the login page and clicking on the help link: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/cas

and the Contact Support by clicking on the Contact link:

Contact support for assistance

To change your email address of your EU Login (ECAS) account, please follow the steps as described below. To do so, you will have to sign in. If you do not remember your password, please go to step 2) below.

1) Procedure to change the email address of your EU Login account

Click on the URL https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/cas to open the EU Login screen. Enter your email address and click Next:

Enter your password and click on the Sign in button:

You’re now logged into EU Login. Go to the wheel on the top right corner of the screen and open My Account.

Go to 'Configure my account':

In order to increase security for access to the SFC Portal (and many other Commission sites), the way in which users can login has been modified.

You can find more information about the different types of authentication by clicking here

To be able to login you need to have registered your mobile phone number in EU Login.

You can add your mobile phone number by following the steps below:

1. Go to https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/cas and login
2. Click on the settings button and choose the option "My account"
   

3. Click on “Manage my mobile phone numbers
…

The size limit per file is 500MB.

There is no limit on the number of files or the total size of all files in an object.

The following file extensions are allowed:

".7z",".bmp",".csv",".docm",".docx", ".jpeg",".jpg",".msg",".ods",".odt",".pdf",".png",".ppt",".pptx,".rar", ".rtf",".tif",".tiff",".txt",".xlsb",".xlsm",".xlsx",".zip",".gif"

IMPORTANT INFORMATION as of May 2024 :

Compression formats will be removed from the whitelist and will not be allowed as attachments anymore. This includes formats such as .zip, .z01, .z02, .7zip, .rar, .tar, .gz …

GIS file formats, as well as the following formats, are added to the whitelist and will be allowed: .asice, .adoc, .bdoc, .cdoc, .ddoc, .edoc.

The content of a programme can be seen by an EC user even before it is submitted to the Commission. This is to help the Member States during the amendments process.

Documents can only be consulted when they are sent. This is because documents do not have a full workflow as is the case for the structured data and their content is unknown and could contain sensible data which the Member State doesn't want the Commission to know before it is officially submitted.

Therefore, the "Other MS document" type and the "Informal Commission's Observations" document type were foreseen, so that the Member States could send whatever they want to send during the amendment process on an informal basis and the Commission could send them their observations already before the official submission.

Unfortunately this is a problem in the Microsoft Edge browser, not in SFC2014.

The browser doesn't recognize it's a .pdf file. As a workaround you should save the file and give it the name and extension as indicated on the screen, then you will be able to open it in your downloads folder.

The acknowledgement of receipt is signed with an electronic certificate guaranteeing the date and time of the signature as well as the integrity of this document. The certificate used to sign this document is held by the European Commission and can be verified by the corresponding public key.

The first step to validate the signature is to install the certificate in Acrobat.

(This step is only necessary once per machine)

• First download the SFC certificate file named CertExchangeSFCRootCA.FDF.
• Decompress the zip file and store the certificate on your computer.
• Open Acrobat.
• Go to File > Open and select the certificate from your computer.
• A pop up will be displayed. Click "Set Contact Trust…":

• On the next screen specify that this is a trusted root certificate by checking the option "Use this certificate as a trusted root" and click OK.

• A confirmation message will confirm the import.…

Once a document has been sent (there is a date visible in the 'sent date' column) it cannot be deleted.

However, if you are the sender of the document you may choose to 'hide' a sent document so that it is no longer visible within your programme by following the steps below:

1. In the Documents section of your OP (1) select the document from the list (2) and click the Edit button (3):

2. In the Document Details pop-up select the document you wish to hide (1)…

If a Commission user cannot see the other documents you uploaded, this is because these are type 'Other Member State Document' and are sent independently (as you can see below there is no 'sent date') of the Object (PA, OP, RDP IR etc.).

The following steps should be taken for each document in order for them to be sent to the EC:

Select the document to be sent (1) and click on the edit button (2):

Click on the Update &Send link to send the document to the EC:

When an object is returned by the Commission in SFC2014 it will display as 'Current node' -> 'European Commission'. This is because the version that has been returned is no longer editable by the Member state and they must create a new version of the object in order to edit the information.

The Sending of information by a Member State to the Commission should be electronically signed in accordance with Directive 1999/93/EC.

Sending of the different objects is generating a snapshot document and after the sending an acknowledge
document is generated by the European Commission.

This acknowledge document is signed but the Member State was not signing the snapshot document. The EU Login now provides a functionality of signing without forcing the user to have a certificate. The action to sign will only be triggered when sending to the European Commission:

(1) Enter your SFC2014 Password

(2) Click on the 'Sign' button

…

• When data is sent to the Commission, the sender receives an automatic notification from SFC2014
• On the search screen list of Programmes, Payment Applications etc, and in the 'General' section of the object under 'version information', check that the "current node" column is "Commission" and the "status" is "sent".
• In each object (excluding Standalone/referring documents) a snapshot document is added to the 'associated documents' section of the object.
• For single documents, check that the "sent date" is not empty.

- The Object has been sent to the Commission already which means you cannot delete it anymore.

- The Object has not been sent to the Commission yet but it contains a document of type 'Other MS document' which has already been sent to the Commission. In this case you cannot delete the Object anymore.

SFC2014 enforces the "four-eyes" principle, which means that the user who last validated the Object cannot submit it. Two different users are required; one to validate and another to send.

According to Article 3(2) of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 184/2014, “any transmission of information to the Commission shall be verified and submitted by a person other than the person who entered the data for that transmission. This separation of tasks shall be supported by SFC2014 or by Member State’s management and control information systems connected automatically with SFC2014.”

A communication problem error (like the one below) is most likely because you're not using the correct URL to access the application.

Please make sure you're logging in to https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/sfc2014/frontoffice/ui .

If SFC2014 is saved in your favourites, make sure it is saved correctly like this  https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/sfc2014/frontoffice/ui ​and not with a string at the end (eg: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/sfc2014/frontoffice/ui?ticket=ST-2586901-wsTm0beevLziHDdCx0EoXdiuRN83lza1DKnul2V02jKfTKHP22rIZJlnGyv3JyZ0OJyOgLJzoDkwOd4CYu1fXMW-Jj71zxYb8yr8lROlzRp19F-L8uDtzZeFc3TzJn8s0bfsFvj6dzrpAzUF5gRmt9LKuJ5 ).

To solve the problem you will have to clear…

Depending on your web browser version and settings, the following problems may occur:

• menus are not displayed (you only see 'Search' but nothing happens when you click on it):

• you can't see a full list or full screen
• the response time is very slow

If this happens, please follow the steps below to solve the problem:

1. verify that the View of your browser is set to 100%

In Internet Explorer (IE):

false

In Firefox:

In Chrome:

2. Turn off 'Compatibility View' in your browser

The format used for the CCI codes is YEAR CC DG FF TP SEQ eg: 2014BE16RFOP001

YEAR

Numerical code identifying the Start Year of the Programme/Object.

In almost all cases 2014.

CC

Character code identifying the Country or Geographical Region.

All Country iso-2 codes + TC for Territorial Cooperation, EU for European Union and EC for European Commission.

Remark: Currently UK is used instead of the iso-2 code GB.

DG

Numerical code identifying the leading DG (chef de file).

05=EMPL, 06=AGRI, 14=MARE, 16=REGIO, 65=HOME, ??=ELARG

FF

Character code identifying the Fund(s) covered by the Programme/Object.

TP

Character code identifying the Type of Object.

SEQ

Numerical sequence code making the CCI code unique.

Allowed combinations

The following combinations are allowed. All other combinations will not be allowed by the CCI Request functionality. It will help the SFC2014 users to request and allocate the correct combinations.

…

Languages of the SFC Systems' Interface

All screens and forms in SFC2007, SFC2014 & SFC2021 systems are normally available in all official EU languages. However, newly developed functionalities might temporarily appear in English only, pending the translation.

If you wish to see an SFC application in a different language, just choose the desired language from the selection box in the top-right section of the application screen.

If you find any error or problem with the translation in any particular language, please report it to the SFC Support team via the 'Contact Us' form in the corresponding period on the SFC Portal.

Languages of the SFC Support Service

We highly recommend communicating with the SFC Support team in English or French* as these two languages are commonly spoken by all members of the support team. Even if a support agent might know some other language, using English or French ensures effective processing and follow-up of the support requests in case of the agent's absence.

Languages of the SFC Support Materials

The SFC support documentation (guides, videos, FAQs) is generally available in English only. Given the limited resources and…

The text boxes provided in SFC2014 follow the official templates. The limits are defined by the Commission implementing act and cannot be extended.

You can provide additional information in other documents which may help the Commission in its assessment of the programme by adding an 'Other Member State document' type in the document section. However, according to article 2(2) of Commission implementing regulation 184/2014 you cannot make references to this in the programme and the additional information will not form part of the programme covered by the Commission decision.

Article 2

Content of electronic data exchange system

1. The electronic data exchange system (hereinafter referred to as ‘SFC2014’) shall contain at least information specified in the models, formats and templates established in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013, Regulation (EU) No 1299/2013, Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 3 ) and the future Union legal act establishing the conditions for the financial support for maritime and fisheries policy for the programming period 2014-2020 (the ‘EMFF Regulation’).

2. The information provided in the electronic forms embedded in SFC2014 (hereinafter referred to as ‘structured data’) may not be replaced by non-structured data, including the use of hyperlinks or other types of non-structured data such as attachment of documents or images. Where a Member State transmits the same information in the form of structured data and non-structured data, the structured data shall be used in case of inconsistencies.