Office of Research and Project Administration

Follow-on items to Dec. 5 Item of Interest

-        I’ve received a number of calls and emails from folks that are taking advantage of the special submission considerations extended to PD/PIs that are also appointed members of NIH Study Sections (NOT-OD-08-026). Their PureEdge submissions are resulting in the following fatal error from Grants.gov:

“The Closing Date of the grant opportunity for which you have applied has already passed and the grantor agency is no longer accepting applications. 

Although the “grant opportunity” itself (e.g., PA-07-070) may still be open, the PureEdge package attached to the opportunity has closed as a result of this transition. All applications to transitioned FOAs now must use Adobe application packages.  

We have done our best to minimize the transition impact on applicants. NIH literally receives electronic applications every day. Realistically, we can only plan around our published submission dates. The need for some applicants to move their application information from the old PureEdge forms into the new Adobe forms is unavoidable.  

Now that we have a proven, automated process for moving a set of FOAs from PureEdge to Adobe, we will be able to provide more specific timing information in advance of the transition of the remaining active FOAs still using PureEdge. We hope this additional communication will result in even fewer applicants needing to re-enter their application data.

-        I’ve also received some reports of server failures when trying to download the new packages. That issue appears to have cleared. The Grants.gov’s Contact Center is your best bet when you have trouble downloading FOAs from their site.

-        One more item worth passing on…an applicant asked “If I open the package with Adobe 9, but then use adobe 8 (both compatible) on a different computer, will there be a problem?” I asked Grants.gov this very same question and I was assured that as long as everyone that touches the application is using a compatible version there should be no issue.

That’s all for now…

eRA eSubmission Item of Interest – December 5, 2008

Yesterday PureEdge, Today Adobe!

NIH reached a major milestone in our transition from Grants.gov’s PureEdge-based application forms to their Adobe-based equivalents. NIH has updated more than 500 active Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) with Adobe-based application packages and closed their PureEdge predecessors (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-026.html.) This “Yesterday PureEdge, Today Adobe” switch would not have been possible without the support Grants.gov provided to “auto-magically” transition our active announcements to the new forms. Our sincere thanks go out to the Grants.gov Program Office and their development staff for their round-the-clock assistance with this transition!

The change was timed (accommodating the error correction window, application viewing window and late application policy) so that applicants submitting for the final PureEdge standard receipt dates could complete the submission process using the same form set.  We also tried to transition to the Adobe forms with at least 3-4 weeks for applicants to prepare Adobe-based applications for the next receipt dates. The January 7, 2009 receipt date for AIDS and AIDS-Related Applications will be the first NIH standard receipt date to use the Adobe-based forms.

Last September NIH began posting some announcements without associated application forms. NIH staff is now returning to those announcements to post Adobe-based application packages. This process will be finished early next week.

There are still a number of active FOAs that will continue to use PureEdge packages into January 2009, including some FOAs for grant programs with early December standard receipt dates (small business and conference programs) and FOAs due to expire in January. In early 2009, the remaining active FOAs with PureEdge forms will be updated and our transition to Adobe will be complete.

Important notes…

-         You will need a compatible version of the free Adobe Reader on your computer prior to downloading the Adobe application packages. See Grants.gov’s Download Software page (http://grants.gov/help/download_software.jsp) for a list of compatible Adobe Reader versions, download links and other important details. Using the correct Adobe Reader is critical to successful submission - application packages opened with other software or non-compatible versions of Adobe Acrobat/Reader can become corrupted and may fail to submit properly.

-         When downloading the new forms, look for “ADOBE-FORMS-A” in the Competition ID on the Grants.gov Download Application page to confirm you are downloading the correct grant application package.

-         The content of the actual announcements and the announcement numbers have not changed as a result of these form package updates. For example, PA-07-070 is still the “Parent R01” used for investigator-initiated applications.

-         Any in-progress applications using the old PureEdge forms associated with transitioned FOAs are no longer viable for submission. You must use the new Adobe-based application packages.

-         Check out NIH’s Electronic Submission of Grant Applications Web site (http://era.nih.gov/ElectronicReceipt/) for Adobe transition resources.

-         Grants.gov owns, maintains, and supports the Adobe application forms and they have applicant resources on their Web site (http://grants.gov/index.jsp) worth exploring.

-         For you folks that submit using system-to-system solutions rather than downloadable forms …although these transitioned announcements are now posted in Grants.gov’s 2007 system, Grants.gov has helped us “lock in” the exact form/XML schema versions used in the PureEdge/2006 system. You will need to use the newly posted packages in order to successfully submit, but should find no schema changes resulting from this transition.

A few more thoughts…

Many of you reading this message have already used Adobe-based forms to submit applications to other agencies and are more experienced with the new forms than we are at this point. Please continue to share any tips and words of wisdom (or caution) you’ve picked up along the way. Collective experience is a powerful tool that can be leveraged to make us all more successful. If you have general comments or suggestions about eRA eSubmission or eRA Commons services, Scarlett and I would also love to hear from you.

However, please direct your specific production issues to the appropriate help desk (http://era.nih.gov/ElectronicReceipt/support.htm). The help desks should always be your first line of defense. Not only are they equipped to handle the vast majority of support requests, they also officially document your issues and efforts to resolve them. Food for thought - it is hard to claim you’ve done “everything you could to resolve an issue before a deadline” and have no help desk record of a support request.

Take care,

Sheri Cummins & Scarlett Gibb

Customer Relationship Managers
eSubmission and eRA Commons

NIH Office of Extramural Research

askera@mail.nih.gov