Common Issues, Work Arounds, Common Issues, Work Arounds, Fun Facts to Know and Tell Fun Facts to Know and Tell

September 2007September 2007

Stop the Submit Due to Mis-matched AttachmentsStop the Submit Due to Mis-matched Attachments

A common problem with electronic proposal submission has been mismatches in the number of attachments that are expected and those that have actually been included. This condition causes the submission to fail at Grants.gov and prevents the proposal from reaching the intended agency.

Grants.gov failures due to attachments include (among others) the following examples:

1) Neglecting to attach the Bio-sketch for Key Personnel. 2) Cover Letter attached to proposal, yet the optional cover letter form not checked to be sent.

Additional edits are being incorporated in PDS to prevent the proposal from being submitted when there is a mismatch in the number of attachments. These edits follow the “Prepare to Submit” process and will occur immediately after the “SUBMIT Proposal” button is pressed.

If you receive a message stating this condition has been detected, simply:

1) Make note of the specific attachments referred to in the message;2) Un-check your Final Approval on the Submission Status page and <SAVE>; 3) Correct the attachment condition, Validate, Build/Preview Forms;4) Re-check your Final Approval on the Submission Status page and <SAVE>;5) Follow procedure to retry the submission using the ‘Prepare to Submit’ button;

Stop the Submit Due to Mis-matched Attachments (cont.)Stop the Submit Due to Mis-matched Attachments (cont.)

Copying ProposalsCopying Proposals

When copying a document, you need to generate the new Proposal_ID before making changes. This is particularly true when the Agency or Project From/Through dates need to be altered.

Potential issues resulting from combining changes when copying a Proposal:

1) Incorrect F&A rates and/or negative F&A amounts:

If, when reviewing the F&A Costs, you see rates that do not apply to the project periods, or the calculated F&A amount is a negative amount; the F&A rates were not built correctly.

Solution: Change the agency code <Save> and then change it back <Save>. This will direct the system to rebuild the default rate records relative to the current project periods.

Note: Changing the From and Through dates will also result in the rate records being rebuilt . However, this action could also affect the budget detail as project years are added or removed.

2) Budget Categories are not the ones expected for the agency code selected:When copying a document, the Budget Categories are always copied “as is” from the original proposal. The system is not in a position to reconcile differences between theold and new agency code.

Solution: If the new proposal will use a different agency or purpose code, from the proposal you are copying, or you have reason to believe the budget categories have changed, you should add the proposal from scratch instead of copying.

Best Practices for Copying Proposal DocumentsBest Practices for Copying Proposal Documents

After reaching the General Info A tab:

1) Enter the Proposal ID you want to copy;

2) Select “ALL” to include all proposal detail, or “General” to include only basic demographics;

3) Press the <COPY> button to ‘prime’ the information for the new proposal;

4) Enter the Department, Division ownership information as needed;

5) Check and set the Document Type as needed (New, Renewal, Continuation, etc…);

6) Press the <SAVE> button to complete the copy and generate the new Proposal ID

Now you have a copy of the original proposal and may proceed with any and all changes.

PHS398_ModularBudget Form Shows Total Amounts $1 Greater or Less Than PHS398_ModularBudget Form Shows Total Amounts $1 Greater or Less Than Online SummaryOnline Summary

This is the result of rounding differences between what you see on the Direct Cost Summary and the Grants.gov Summary pages – which is/are utilized to populate the forms.

In addition to the online summary pages, the Preview forms button is another place where this difference, if applicable, can be detected.

To address these differences:

1) Preview the budget form to see whether the amounts are $1 (ex: $251K) too high or (ex: $249K ) too low, relative to the intended amount (ex: $250K).

2) For each year affected, Modify the Modular Direct Cost lump sum amounts to add or subtract the applicable amount (ex: $1) <SAVE>

3) For each year affected, Modify the base amount on the F&A Cost screen to the intended amount (ex: $250K) <SAVE> by utilizing this override, you will ensure that F&A is calculated on the correct base amount.

4) Validate, Rebuild and Preview Forms. All years and totals should reflect the intended amounts.

RR_Budget Grants.gov Off Campus Personnel Amounts Missing in RR_Budget Grants.gov Off Campus Personnel Amounts Missing in OutYearsOutYears

This currently is an issue when the Personnel Costs are projected for the out years.

Note: Changes are being implemented in September to correct this condition. Until those are in place there is a way to address the issue.

To address this issue:

Enter detail for any individual having Off Campus amounts related to their Personnel Costs.

PI Professional Name Needed on the Grants.gov ApplicationPI Professional Name Needed on the Grants.gov Application

When an individual is added to a proposal, PDS retrieves associated demographic information from HRMS. HRMS will return the individuals employment name and since the information originates from HRMS, the name is protected from change.

There are cases where an individual may have a “professional” name (different than their employment name) they wish to continue to use on research proposals. A project is being implemented to allow central administration to manage a list of these individuals. By written request to your respective Grants Analyst (GA) in the Research Office or Grants & Contracts, a professional name will be provided to PDS.

When that individual is associated with the proposal, PDS will continue to retrieve demographic information from HRMS. However, it will also check to see if this individual has a professional name in PDS. If so, PDS will substitute the HRMS legal name with the PDS professional name in every place the name might be referenced (Cover Page, Budget, Senior Key, etc…)

Effort represented on Grants.gov Budget Forms by Calendar, Academic, Effort represented on Grants.gov Budget Forms by Calendar, Academic, Summer Month ValuesSummer Month Values

The Grants.gov RR Budget detail form uses Calendar, Academic and Summer month values to represent effort for Senior Key Personnel. PDS currently calculates all (3) relative to each line of Personnel Cost detail – for project years where detail has been entered. For projected personnel costs, the Cal, Acad and Sum month values are carried forward from the most recent project yearwith detail for that individual.

Considerations when submitting proposals via Grants.gov:

Always preview the forms prior to submitting the proposal to make sure you have captured the intended results. In the case of Cal, Acad and Sum months, review all years of the budget detail form.

Effort represented on Grants.gov Budget Forms by Calendar, Academic, Effort represented on Grants.gov Budget Forms by Calendar, Academic, Summer Month Values (cont.)Summer Month Values (cont.)

Some of the issues we have experienced:

1. Cal, Acad, Sum months are blank or different for an out year than expected:

This may occur for an individual when detail has been entered; projections for all remaining out years have been completed; then the budget detail for the individual is changed out from underneath projections. We believe this problem should notoccur.

However, a key to managing projections is to understand the accuracy of projected values is dependent on the order of building one year based on the prior year.

Solution: Remove that individuals’ projection in the first year following the budget Detail <Save>. Then re-apply the projection. This will force PDS to carryover the Cal, Acad & Sum month values into all subsequent out years where projections have been done.

Effort represented on Grants.gov Budget Forms by Calendar, Academic, Effort represented on Grants.gov Budget Forms by Calendar, Academic, Summer Month Values (cont.)Summer Month Values (cont.)

2. Warning messages are issued when the proposal reaches NIH for Validation:

PDS always calculates all (3) values, Calendar, Academic and Summer month for each line of personnel cost detail. NIH prefers that only Calendar or Academic/ Summer months be provided and will issue a warning to that effect. However, this is an agency specific preference and PDS must be ultimately be able to utilize the Grants.gov RR_Budget form for all (26) Federal funding agencies. We are yet to determine the preferences for each of the remaining agencies in this regard.

NOTE: NIH warnings are intended to provide information for the ‘next time around’ and should not be a reason to reject and resubmit an application. .

Options:

After the Cal, Acad and Sum months have been calculated, you may override these. Toaddress the eventual NIH concerns, you may blank out whichever month values you wishto exclude. Again, in reference to item 6.1 above, you will want to make sure to make the change to the detail –before- applying any projections. If not, be sure to review thebudget forms and re-apply the projections if needed.

NOTE: Until further advised, it is Central Administration’s suggestion to simply let eRA Commons provide the “warning” message.

Effort represented on Grants.gov Budget Forms by Calendar, Academic, Effort represented on Grants.gov Budget Forms by Calendar, Academic, Summer Month Values (cont.)Summer Month Values (cont.)

3. When Budget Form requires non-zero effort – yet individual will not be paid from proposal:

The following is a basic 12 month example. It's just a matter of entering .01 as the annual salary amount. Since the % Effort is not really used (by the agency), using 100% works OK. It mainly depends on what you want the Cal, Acad, Sum months to reflect. Adjusting the % Effort on the detail line will influence that.

NOTE: When you first enter this, if the person is benefits eligible, the system will calculate fringes, etc. So, you will likely need to override the Other Fringe Amount (setting it so zero or clearing it out). Otherwise, you will see it show up on the Cost Sharing side.

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