eRA eSubmission Items of Interest
eRA eSubmission Items of Interest - February 5, 2009
Grants.gov down for System Maintenance: Saturday, February 7 - Sunday, February 8
Grants.gov has announced that the system will be down to make system enhancements between Saturday, February 7 and Sunday, February 8, 11:59 pm EST. (If the deployment is ahead of schedule, it will be brought back on-line sooner.)
During this time, you will not be able to do any of the following:
- Search for Funding Opportunity Announcements
- Download grant application packages
- Submit applications
- Track Grants.gov application status
But do not fret, if your application is already in the queue prior to the system going down, Grants.gov will continue to process your application. So no rest for the weary, keep submitting through Friday!
Impact of Downtime on the Submission Process
This downtime notice is actually good news for applicants and grantor agencies, as the enhancements are expected to improve system performance in the following ways.
- Increase the number of concurrent users on Grants.gov
up to 2,000:This enhancement feature is expected to alleviate some of the trouble applicants have had accessing and getting responses from Grants.gov.
- Correct the primary cause of erroneous e-mail notifications: You know the routine. You submit your application several times, not sure if it has been processed, then you receive a couple of error notices, one validation email, and then a few more error notices. Thankfully, this enhancement is expected to correct this issue.
If there are any issues during this latest system build or if Grants.gov is unable to deploy the latest enhancements listed above, they will be able to rollback to the current system. NIH will also do its part and communicate any such occurrences and their impact on you.
Other Changes from the Upcoming Enhancement You May Appreciate:
Moving Tracking Numbers to the Beginning of E-mail Subject Lines.
Currently, when submitting multiple applications, it is hard to tell which submission notification email corresponds to which application submission without opening the email. After this weekend, the Grants.gov tracking number will be placed in front of every email subject line, allowing emails to be grouped in your inbox by tracking number. This should make tracking the progress of a particular submission much easier.
Simplified Registration Procedures. Logging into the user interface:
The enhancements also include simplifying the Grants.gov registration process, cutting the number of steps from six to three. While most of you are likely already registered, or are working with someone who is, this change will impact you as well. Come Monday, if you go to the applicant login screen and enter your username and password, you will be prompted to complete a profile and create a secret question/answer. Setting up a user profile allows a user to reset their password at any time.
An important note, especially since many of you may be working on submitting your applications, submitting a grant application package through the Save and Submit button will NOT trigger a prompt to complete a profile. Once your submission is complete, however, Grants.gov recommends you log in via the Grants.gov applicant interface to set up a profile so you can reset your password in the future.
To learn more about the technical aspects of this enhancement, please visit the Grants.gov Site Features and Enhancements page.
If you have any questions for Grants.gov, please call their Contact Center at 1-800-518-4726. Hours of Operation: Monday-Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Remember, the Contact Center will be closed over the weekend.
eRA Communications Office
NIH Office of Extramural Research
eRACommunications@mail.nih.gov
