eRA Commons: New Features and Fixes
New features and fixes added to the Commons module are listed below:
Features
Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI)
NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-09-001 - NIH Announces a New Business Process for Reporting an Identified Financial Conflict of Interest for Grants and/or Cooperative Agreements beginning October 10, 2008.
- New Commons service that allows institutional users to:
- initiate and prepare FCOI reports
- electronically submit reports and supporting documents to NIH
- search and view FCOI reports previously submitted through the Commons
- edit or rescind submitted reports with NIH involvement
- access history of actions
- Pilot expanded to include all Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) members and a small sample of non-FDP members
Electronic Non-competing Award Process (eSNAP)
- Added text at the top of the eSNAP Edit Business page to clarify Human Subject codes
- Added the capabilities in Zip Code for foreign applicants to enter letters and numbers (digits and numerals)
Personal Profile
- Added text at the top of the Personal Profile Degrees screen to clarify process
xTrain
- System aligned with recent xTrain policy change regarding requirement
for signed paper copies of all post-doc trainee actions
- Appointment forms and termination notices submitted through xTrain will serve as official documentation. System will no longer prompt user to print, sign and mail signed appointment forms and termination notices for post-doc trainees.
- Signed payback forms for post-doc
trainees in their first year of NRSA support are still required
and the system will provide link to print document
- Business rule checks (i.e., validations) against ethnicity and disability information have been separated from checks against other profile information. Ethnicity and disability became required fields as of May 1, 2008 (part of most recent OMB cleared changes for the 2271 form). The change was necessary to allow proper paper processing of forms submitted prior to May 1, 2008 that did not include ethnicity and disability information.
Fixes
Electronic Non-competing Award Process (eSNAP)
- Users can now revoke ‘Delegate Submit’ authority without an error message being generated
- Implemented new terminology throughout the eSNAP screens:
OLD TERM NEW TERM Principal Investigator Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) Key Personnel Senior/key Personnel Performance site Project/performance site
- Made changes within eSNAP to accommodate the new NIH Public Access Policy
- Provided ability within eSNAP to designate a primary Project/Performance site, enter a DUNS number and effect other changes to accommodate the requirements of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA).
Features
- xTrain
- Number of months for Other PHS Obligation support now required
- Disability Status will be required for Trainee
- Provide link to description for Disadvantaged Background
- PI and Trainee now may modify Field Of Training before saving an Amendment
- Add Registration events to the Routing History
- Add a Recall button
- All users may now view the Application throughout full life cycle even when not the current reviewer
- Many new features for internal users to expedite processing of
Appointments and Terminations
- Status
- SO users can now see previously successful application when a subsequent application results in errors
- Search by Grants.gov tracking number for SO users now works the same way as for PI users
- Reject eApplication link may now be seen in General Status screen
Fixes
- xTrain
- Rename buttons from Route to Save & Route
- Having an Appointment period of 12 months and 1 day now triggers the error that 12-month Appointment period has been exceeded
- Middle name has been added to xTrain termination emails
- Tuition and Travel amount in 2271s may now be zero
- Current Reviewer is now displayed for Appointments when Pending Agency Review
- Fixed bug that created another re-appointment when saving the current re-appointment
- Status
- Changes to Progress Report printable face page to include latest Office of Management and Budget (OMB) revisions
- Made modifications to Race and Ethnicity screen to be consistent with OMB requirements
- On the Personal Profile page you may now enter either the last 4 digits or full Social Security Number, but only the last 4 digits will be displayed
- xTrain changes
Note: xTrain is a new Commons service for managing research training appointments/amendments/terminations through the eRA Commons. It is currently in pilot with nine institutions. xTrain is expected to be available for broader use later this year.- Adding middle name to hit list returned when using the Identify Trainee link
- Allow previous PI to perform actions for only their support years and allow current PI to perform actions for all support years
- View routing history once appointment/termination accepted
- TA screen redesign of search for appointments/terminations
- Modifications to the pre-population of the payback form to for printing and paper submission
- Remove requirement to supply Appointment Start Date (From and To fields) from the Search Appointments and Terminations screen (NIH staff users)
- Stipend greater than zero must be entered
- Performance improvement for Work In Progress (WIP) Appointment and Terminations query (NIH staff users)
- Cancel button consistently returns users to previous screen
- Trainee Roster Search options will switch to Latest Awarded Support Year, Latest & Previous Awarded Support Years and All years. Default set to Latest & Previous.
- Address 500 server error received when viewing PDFs and Routing History for actions that share start/end dates
- Address 404 system errors received when routing Termination Notices from Business Official to Trainee
- Correction to Auto-routing message that is sent to Business
Official after 14 days of no action from PI
- General changes
- Remove IPF search parameter from Employments screen of Personal Profile
- Changes to DP1 reference letter processing
- Corrected reference letter email text sent to referee
- Changed reference letter screen to provide flexibility in RFA/PA number format (frequent help desk call)
- xTrain changes
Note: xTrain is a new Commons service for managing research training appointments/amendments/terminations through the eRA Commons. It is currently in pilot with nine institutions. xTrain is expected to be available for broader use later this year.- Screen clean-up
- Workflow corrections
- Corrected pre-population of Payback form
- New search feature: Ability to search for and track electronically
submitted applications from the Status screen using the Grants.gov
tracking number. The Grants.gov tracking number will continue to be
searchable throughout the lifecycle of the application/grant - even
after the NIH assigns its own application ID (i.e., accession number
or grant number).
- Reorganization of the application/grant data into two separate sections:
- Recent/Pending eSubmissions - includes
electronic application submissions that require action to complete
the submission process (e.g., checking errors/warnings, viewing
assembled application). It also includes those that have been
refused by a Signing Official or are within the two day assembled
application viewing window.
- List of Applications/Grants
- includes both paper and electronic applications that have been
submitted successfully and are available for post-submission status
(e.g., review assignments, review results, summary statements,
Notice of Award). It also includes the list of awarded grants
for accessing other Commons functions.
- Recent/Pending eSubmissions - includes
electronic application submissions that require action to complete
the submission process (e.g., checking errors/warnings, viewing
assembled application). It also includes those that have been
refused by a Signing Official or are within the two day assembled
application viewing window.
- Grouping of multiple submission attempts for a single application
to provide a cleaner screen view and consolidated submission history.
- In internal eRA applications, the PI view within the grant folder now includes a link to files added to the grant folder via eAdditions.
This page last reviewed: October 8, 2008
