eRA eSubmission Items of Interest
eRA eSubmission Items of Interest - January 13, 2009
Issue Affecting Many Adobe-based Modular Budget Forms
We have identified an issue with the Adobe-based modular budget forms. Although no action is required by the applicant, it is important to be aware (and know that NIH is aware) of this issue.
Symptoms are as follows (does not occur for every submission):
- Issue has been seen with form-based and system-to-system solution submissions
- All fields are correct prior to submission and within
the XML data stream passed on to NIH
- This is the good news - NIH pulls the valid information contained in the data stream to populate our databases. This also explains why no validation warnings or errors are flagged for the submission.
- The PHS 398 Modular Budget
form image provided by Grants.gov to NIH includes a ‘0’ value in the Total
Indirect Costs field in section B.
Indirect Costs for budget periods 3 and beyond
- This is the bad news - the assembled application image viewed in eRA Commons is based on the provided form image and is, therefore, incorrect.
- The Total Indirect Costs value of ‘0’ also affects the calculations
for the following fields:
- Funds Requested in section C. Total Direct and Indirect Costs (A+B) for each affected budget period
- Total Indirect Costs for Entire Project Period and Total Direct and Indirect Costs (A+B) for Entire Project Period in Cumulative Budget Information section
A Grants.gov system software change is necessary to address this issue. Resubmitting the application will not change the result. NIH has alerted grants management, review and other internal staff of this issue. Since our internal data is correct, no action by the applicant is needed.
Kudos to the small number of applicants that noticed this bug when checking their assembled application image in eRA Commons! I know the rest of you are curious to see if you missed it, go ahead and check – eRA Commons link. After all, if you weren’t curious, you probably wouldn’t be working in research.
Federal Holidays – Impact on Support and Systems
The eRA Commons Help Desk will be closed on Monday, January 19, in celebration of Martin Luther King Day and on Tuesday, January 20, for the presidential inauguration. Inquiries submitted to the Help Desk during these dates will be acknowledged on the next federal business day (January 21). Remember, the NIH Grants Web site, NIH eSubmission Web site, announcement text and application guides are great resources, always available, and hold the answers to many of your questions.
MLK Day is a standard federal holiday and is not counted in the eSubmission “application viewing window” (two business days provided to view your assembled application in eRA Commons before applications automatically move forward to NIH’s Division of Receipt & Referral). Inauguration Day, however, is not a standard holiday and is counted in the application viewing window. Therefore, applicants with error-free applications submitted and assembled on Friday, January 16, have until Wednesday at midnight (Eastern Time) to view their applications in Commons.
Take care,
Sheri Cummins & Scarlett Gibb
Customer Relationship Managers
eSubmisssion and eRA Commons
NIH Office of Extramural Research
askera@mail.nih.gov
