System-to-System
Organizations interested in creating System-to-System (S2S) solutions to submit grant applications to NIH should first work with Grants.gov to establish S2S connectivity with the Grants.gov system. The Grants.gov website includes an Applicant System to System Integration webpage that provides the basic information required to get started. When setting up an account in Grants.gov’s test environment (AT Web), System-to-System Trading Partners should request that Grants.gov set up them up under the DUNS number they will use in NIH’s test environment. Otherwise, if Grants.gov provides an all-zero DUNS, S2S Trading Partners will not be able to test submissions through to Commons in the NIH test environment. Once the S2S solution is tested with Grants.gov you will want to do further testing with NIH to ensure the solution can successfully submit applications that pass the NIH validations process.
Accessing the Testing Environment at NIH
- NIH’s test environment (https://commons.uat.era.nih.gov/commons) accepts test applications through Grants.gov’s Acceptance Test Web environment (http://atweb.grants.gov/).
- You will need to set up a test and production environment at your end.
- To
access the NIH test environment [also called External-User Acceptance
Test (Ext-UAT) environment], you will need a Commons account:
- If you are the owner of a Commons account that you would like activated in NIH Ext-UAT, please email B2BSupport@mail.nih.gov
- Requests to activate accounts in NIH Ext-UAT that you do not own will require an email from the account Signing Official (SO) to B2BSupport@mail.nih.gov for implementation.
- NIH provides a detailed list of validations (system checks against agency-specific business rules that may result in errors and warnings) to System-to-System Trading Partners well in advance of their transition to production, so that the developers can ready their system in parallel with NIH. The validations document lists changes in red text. NIH has not yet implemented some rule checking done by the Grants.gov Pure Edge (soon to be Adobe) forms; therefore NIH encourages S2S Trading Partners to become familiar with edit checks and calculations done by the Grants.gov forms to prevent problems when applications are received by NIH.
- Link to Funding
Opportunity Announcements with Opt-Outs
A listing of FOAs with opt-outs, until a systematic way to determine opt-out FOAs can be provided to system-to-system developers.
– Link to SF424 (R&R) Validations (PDF, 613 KB) | SF424 (R&R) Validations with changes tracked (PDF, 626 KB)
(December 12, 2008)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: October 10, 2008 (PDF -798 KB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: August 8, 2008 (PDF -792 KB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: June 13, 2008 (PDF -776 KB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: April 11, 2008 (PDF -775 KB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: February 8, 2008 (PDF - 1.42 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: December 14, 2007 (PDF - 1.43 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: October 26, 2007 (PDF - 1.39 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: June 15 , 2007 (PDF - 1.26 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: May 18 , 2007 (PDF - 1.26 MB
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: April 13, 2007 (PDF - 1.24 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: March 26, 2007 (PDF - 1.16 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: December 19, 2006 (PDF - 1.15 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: November 14, 2006 (PDF - 1.14 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: October 16, 2006 (PDF - 1.09 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: September 22, 2006 (PDF - 1.10 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: August 24, 2006 (PDF - 1.14 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: July 14, 2006 (PDF - 1 MB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: May 11, 2006 (PDF - 960 KB)
Previously updated validations with changes tracked: April 28, 2006 (PDF - 978 KB)
- Link to a listing of NIH Test Opportunities available in the Grants.gov AT Web environment. The test opportunities are posted under the ‘NIH Stage’ agency. NIH will pick up and process these test applications just as it does in production. All the usual Grants.gov and eRA Commons email notifications will be sent. You can view the result of the submission in Commons Stage.
- Link to Grant
Program/Mechanism Specific-Limited Validations
(August 3, 2006)
There is a limited set of mechanism specific validations that, although standard values are assigned, NIH Institutes and Centers (IC) may choose not to have eRA systems enforce applicant compliance with these standard values in order to allow alternative values specified in a Funding Opportunity Announcements to be accepted. When this happens we call it “opting-out of limited validations”. This document explains the concept of limited validations and provides a chart of the limited validations and their standard values.
- NIH has set a standard
deployment window for the Ext-UAT environment as Monday-Friday 7-10
a.m. ET. This does not mean that Ext-UAT will experience daily deployments.
It does mean that when deployments are necessary, NIH will make every
effort to stay within this standard window. As agreed upon, NIH will
only provide notifications to the NIH_ESUB_SYS2SYS-L listserv of deployment
activities that fall outside the standard window.
If for some reason it is critical that Ext-UAT be available during the standard window (e.g., to do a demo), please send an email to B2BSupport@mail.nih.gov within 3 business days of the date in question and we will do our best to coordinate with you and the NIH technical team.
