eSubmission Items of Interest
NIH eRA eSubmission Items of Interest - October 27, 2010
Hello ADOBE-FORMS-B1
Hopefully you all saw these recently published notices in the NIH Guide for Grants & Contracts:
NOT-OD-11-007 - NIH, AHRQ, CDC, FDA & NIOSH to Require Use of Updated Electronic Application Forms in 2011
NOT-OD-11-008 - Updated Electronic Application Forms Required for F, K, T and D Submissions with Due Dates of January 25, 2011 and Beyond
As indicated in the announcements, new application packages with a Grants.gov Competition Id of ADOBE-FORMS-B1 MUST be used for Fellowship (F), Career Development (K) and Training (T & D) applications starting with due dates on/after January 25, 2011.
For all other application types (e.g., Rs), we are allowing for a transition period and will accept either ADOBE-FORMS-B or ADOBE-FORMS-B1 packages for due dates on/before May 7. Our opportunity posting team is hard at work making the ADOBE-FORMS-B1 application packages available for the 424 identified NIH opportunities that remain active past May 7. (Yes, 424 is the real number – pretty freaky!) As part of this process, we are actually changing the Close date for the ADOBE-FORMS-B packages. Please do not panic – we are also adjusting the “grace” period behind the scenes to allow Grants.gov to continue accepting the packages through the May 7 deadlines.
Modular Budget Schema Error
We understand that some users are encountering a Grants.gov “Schema Error” when submitting applications using the PHS 398 Modular Budget form. Grants.gov has identified the form bug and has provided us with a new version of the form. It will, however, take some time for NIH to complete the development work needed on our end and to incorporate the form into our application packages.
In the meantime, here is some advice to get around the issue:
- Check to make sure Direct Costs information (Section A) is included for every budget period that you touch.
- Save your application, close it and then re-open it (the forms do some “clean-up” work when you close them).
- Submit again.
Be sure to follow the standard process for reporting a “system issue” if the above steps do not work to resolve the schema error and you’re ability to submit on-time is threatened.
AORs, Mark Your Calendars
Grants.gov rolled out their new security updates over the Columbus Day weekend (see http://www.grants.gov/securitybuild/). Grants.gov users will now be forced to reset their passwords every 90 days. This means that many passwords will be expiring in mid-January – just a few weeks before our big Feb 5 R01 deadline. Users will start seeing a password expiration reminder when they login to Grants.gov starting 15 days before expiration. Mark your calendars now to login to Grants.gov and reset your password within the two weeks before your target deadline to ensure appropriate access is in place. Remember – the “error correction window” will no longer be around to cushion the impact of these foreseeable issues.
New Grants.gov Support Resources
Did you know that Grants.gov now offers the ability to submit a trouble ticket on-line and receive a confirmation ticket number? Their new Grants.gov Self-Service Web Portal
includes Top 10 FAQs, Alerts, access to their self-help knowledge base and the ability to track Ticket status. Clicking the Contact Us link in the upper right corner of the page brings you to additional links to Submit a Ticket on-line and access Live Chat. It is really a great new feature and complements our own self-help resource to provide an easy way to initiate the appropriate documentation should you encounter a system issue.
Have a Happy and Safe Halloween!
Take care,
Sheri Cummins
Customer Relationship Manager
eRA External Services, eSubmission
NIH Office of Extramural Research
