Re: incredibly irritated was FedConnect Lesley Zajac 21 Apr 2009 16:12 EST

Bob:

Feel free to rant any time you want!!  You make excellent points but
until we start making a lot of noise, no-one will listen.  We need to go
to the top - if President Obama wants this to be open and transparent to
all, then they have to make it work for those on the front lines.

Lesley S. Zajac
Director, Research Administration
Jaeb Center for Health Research
15310 Amberly Drive, Ste 350
Tampa, FL 33647
Tel: 813.975.8690
Fax: 813.975.8761
email: xxxxxx@jaeb.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On
Behalf Of Bob Beattie
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 4:42 PM
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] incredibly irritated was FedConnect

Thanks Tina, now you have got me going:  rant on --

I have just been watching the GPC webcast about all of this and it is
distressing.

I think the recent decision by the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget to allow all agencies to ignore Grants.gov and
use any system they want to receive applications is the worst example
of government waste I have seen.  Universities have put millions of
dollars -- maybe all of us together, a hundred million -- into
systems and procedures for dealing with Grants.gov.  Yes, the system
has programming problems and needs more capacity, but we know it and
we know how to deal with it.

A bit more capacity and it might work just fine, and a little program
fix.  Many agencies have not been supportive of Grants.gov.  Compare
NIH receiving 86,000 applications through Grants.gov to NASA's paltry
121, or even NSF taking in only 600 of the tens of thousands they
get.  All agencies were required to contribute to Grants.gov, even if
they wanted it to fail.  Now maybe they will seek to not  support
it.  Tom Cooley, head of GPC, and CFO at NSF said on the webcast that
agencies could allow people to use systems other than Grants.gov but
that was optional.  We know this is not true, as Tina says, Energy is
requiring FedConnect or IIPS.  FedConnect was installed as the Energy
Department's GMLOB system, not to be converted into a submission system.

So using the ARRA as an excuse, and instead of fixing Grants.gov for
all of us, the Director of OMB says it is ok to move away from
Grants.gov.  So Energy, which just made a huge investment in
FedConnect as their exception to the Grants Management Line of
Business process, decides to now use it to replace Grants.gov, and
worse, they are still using IIPS -- two bad systems.   We might
accept FastLane or even INSPIRES as they don't work too badly.  But
the Energy  choices are clearly worse than Grants.gov, once you can
even figure out how to use them.  Don't we really want just one
system, for all grants, anyway.  I do not like many aspects of
Grants.gov but I want it to succeed.

So what to do?  You could write your congress people to complain that
you want one portal for grants submissions, and you have made a large
investment already in Grants.gov.  Write too, to support Senate Bill
303  now in the House, to renew Grants.gov with some stronger
components.  One being required user input.   We must complain about
the roller coaster ride we are being put on -- Grants.gov problems,
not fixed, new systems to learn, what next  - 26 systems, or  PAPER!?

Do we think that all agencies must accept Grants.gov, or their own
but the latter must  optional.  We should not be required to use
FedConnect.

Consider writing to the OMB person who seems to be in charge of the
Grants.gov reduction,  xxxxxx@omb.eop.gov

If you are upset with Grants.gov reductions in use, and with any
aspect,  maybe he will listen.

If you want to go higher,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
As the site says, President Obama is committed to creating the most
open and accessible administration in American history.  Open but
will anybody listen to us?

The FDP and COGR are working on this problem of lack of Grants.gov
support and attempts to move away from it.  I have heard that the
administration thinks of Grants.gov as a Bush Initiative, so
something to change.  What they do not realize is that it is a
College/University Initiative that was started during the Clinton
administration as the Federal Commons.  Be sure to let your reps to
FDP and COGR know what you want (if you are not them) and keep those
organizations pushing.  Consider contacting your state Grants people,
as they are also impacted.  They work through the National Grants
Partnership.

Are we  as mad as h*** and not going to take it anymore, yet?  Tina
is mild in her comment:

"We are incredibly irritated here that we and our PIs have to learn
yet another system."

That does makes a good slogan, doesn't.  Tell Mr. Werfel, "We are
incredibly irritated to have to learn another system."

rant off

keep the applications flowing :)

Bob
------------------------------
Robert Beattie
University of Michigan
xxxxxx@umich.edu   (734) 936-1283

On Apr 21, 2009, at 2:30 PM, Tina L. Cunningham wrote:

Hi Bob,

We are now seeing proposals submissions being required to go through
FedConnect (our first one is due the end of the month) and so I
searched the list serv to see what had been discussed and found this
thread (hard to believe it is over a year ago!).  I know that we are
stuck with what the RFP tells us to do, but is it truly proper to
require us to use a new system over Grants.gov?  We are incredibly
irritated here that we and our PIs have to learn yet another system.

Thanks!

Tina

********************************
Tina L. Cunningham, J.D., CRA
Administrator
Sponsored Programs Administration
Mississippi State University
133 Etheredge Hall
449 Hardy Road
P.O. Box 6156
Mississippi State, MS 39762

Phone: 662-325-7395
Fax: 662-325-3803
Email: xxxxxx@spa.msstate.edu

>>>
From: 	Bob Beattie <xxxxxx@UMICH.EDU>
To:	<xxxxxx@hrinet.org>
Date: 	2/18/2008 1:46 PM
Subject: 	Re: [RESADM-L] FedConnect

FedConnect is a change from IIPS.

It will be a post submission management
system, like Reserch.gov, NIH eRA Commons and other such operations.
As folks
may know there is a move within granting agencies to come up with a
limited number
of post submission management systems.  This is under auspices of
OMB.  The general
project is called "Grants Management Line of Business - GMLOB. There
are now three but
agencies can get an exemption, NIH has, for example. Also DoEnergy

Here is an overview of the whole process from 2005 at FDP site
http://thefdp.org/Meeting_Sep2005.html

Read about NSF's project - Research.gov
http://thefdp.org/Jan_2008_meeting.html

For some details on FedConnect itself, go here
http://e-center.doe.gov/doebiz.nsf/Special+Notices?OpenView
and then here
DOE Transitioning To Electronic Procurement System

 So FedConnect is not a grants submission system, maybe will be for
contract applications.
Below is a comment I got when I asked someone in DOE what this is about.

"DOE is not going to use one of the GMLOB consortia.  We received an
exception from OMB early last calendar year to add the financial
assistance module to our new acquisition mgmt system.  This decision had
many facets to it (and no it was not mine.)  The short story is none of
the other three gave us what we needed.

This system will be standardized across DOE and offices will have
limited abilities to do things their own way.  Most of the changes with
this new system will be internal and not will affect applicants and
recipients.  We will continue to use Grants.gov to post FOAs and receive
applications.  All pre-award, admin, and post award communications will
be through the fedconnect portal.  This includes making the award,
amendments and letters from DOE and reports submission and
communications from you.

We are still working out some of the details and the implementation
schedule, transition is scheduled to begin in April and last for 6-9
months.  Right now the biggest change is for you to register at
FEDConnect.  I believe NASA and parts of DHS and DOT are also going to
use this system for grants.  For acquisition, there are lots of agencies
going with Compusearch."

Hope this is helpful.  Maybe more than most people wanted to know :)

Bob
xxxxxx@umich.edu
734 936-1283

On Feb 18, 2008, at 11:38 AM, Giarrusso, Gary wrote:

A few weeks ago, we received an email from the Department of Energy
requiring us to register on FedConnect for the purposes of submitting
proposals and general award administration.  I was wondering if
anyone had information as to why DOE is not using Grants.gov.  It
would seem to me that this application is in competition with
Grants.gov.  Thanks.

Gary Giarrusso, CPA
Manager of Sponsored Programs Accounting and Financial Compliance
University of New Hampshire
Office of Sponsored Research
Service Building, 51 College Road
Durham, NH  03824
Tel (603) 862-0609
Fax (603) 862-3564
xxxxxx@unh.edu

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