The NSF FARE Planner Tool is a web-based portal developed and maintained by NSF NCAR's Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL) in collaboration with Maas Software. It allows scientists to request observing facilities and instrumentation from the NSF Facilities for Atmospheric Research and Education (FARE) Program, supporting the full lifecycle of a request and facilitates communication and document exchange between investigators and facility providers.

The FARE Planner is the required entry point for requesting NCAR-managed facilities and instruments. 

The FARE Planner provides a structured process for submitting facility requests, exchanging information with facility providers, and obtaining facility documentation needed for NSF proposal submissions. Investigators can use the tool to submit facility requests, upload supporting documentation, and access facility provider-prepared feasibility assessments and Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimates.

The platform also supports data management planning by collecting information needed to coordinate data management and archiving for field campaigns using FARE facilities when PIs choose to archive their data in the NCAR GDEX / Field Data Archive.

While FARE partner institutions may maintain their own request processes, the FARE Planner provides access to facility information and request processes for all participating FARE facilities. For projects requiring resources from multiple facility providers, the tool can help facilitate coordination across the requested resources.

Registered users can submit facility requests, upload required supporting documentation such as Experiment Plans and Data Management Plans, and download facility provider-prepared documentation and cost estimates. The platform also hosts the published FARE Program deployment schedule, which is publicly viewable without an account.

Partner institutions accessible through the tool include NSF NCAR, the University of Wyoming, Colorado State University, Clemson University, Michigan Technological University, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Utah, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Stony Brook University.