The July upgrade of the eRA Commons to Version 2.2.3.0 will include some significant enhancements to the electronic Streamlined Non-competing Application Process (eSNAP), currently in “pilot production” and scheduled for full deployment in early 2004. eSNAP is a Web interface for the submission of Type-5 progress reports. Although all grantees will be able to transmit SNAPS next year, NIH will continue to accept paper submissions for several years.

Enhancements in the upcoming release include:

• A form for the entry of the Minority and Gender Inclusion Report. The form will be pre-populated with information from the previous eSNAP, as well as with the protocol title and number used by NIH and the institution.    
• A quick way to determine if the individual sections of the eSNAP have been completed. There no longer will be a need to examine each page. The “Manage eSNAP” screen will list each page name with a status of “Complete” or “Incomplete.”    
• All Signing Officials (SOs) listed in the Administrative Official (AO) “picklist” on the Organization Info page. Additionally, if the SO for an institution also is acting as the AO, selecting the SO first automatically will populate the AO information with the same person’s name and address information.

Twenty institutions (Cornell, Dartmouth, Emory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Wayne State and the Universities of Arizona, California (Los Angeles, Davis and Santa Barbara), Florida, Michigan, Oregon Health and Science, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin) have been participating in a “production pilot.” 

With the assistance of these pilot users, the eRA Commons team has identified system bugs as well as process flows that do not conform to business practices in the extramural research community. As a result, eRA will implement many user suggestions in future releases, including:

• Allowing more than 10 results in a search result list.    
• Adding “Overdue” as a search option.    
• Allowing saves for incomplete or incorrect data. Catch errors only when user runs validation.    
• Changing default employment type to “federal” on Employment page.    
• Including SOs on AO drop-down menu.    
• Adding more space in the justification fields for SNAP questions.    
• Enabling delegation of eSNAP and PPF edit privileges at the same time.    
• Enhancing error messages to include the screen requiring correction.    
• Enabling users to determine if a submission was paper or electronic.

eRA now is taking requests from grantees who would like to participate in the pilot. These users must be willing to commit to processing at least six eSNAPs before the July deployment. If the July release goes well, eRA plans to open the pilot to as many as 100 institutions.