At the University of Michigan we have been using GrantSlam by Cayuse
Software
http://www.cayuse.com/

They are one of the original 6 vendors that got an SBIR grant from NIH
to develop competing application submission software.  Details here
http://era.nih.gov/Projectmgmt/SBIR/sbir_grants.htm

We have a subcontract from Cayuse to work with them on this project.
The original GrantSlam was developed for creating submit-able paper
copies and so the that technology was modified to create a data stream
as well.  We have the GrantSlam software on our local computers and a
central server. PI and staff to create the application on their
machines (Mac or PC) then the  grants office reviews it and submits.
At present, we are submitting via the Cayuse server as they have the
appropriate link to NIH.  We do all the work on our local computers.
If there is an error returned, then we get it, fix the problem and then
re-submit to Cayuse to NIH.

The program interface is a 398 application into which the user types
the required data.  There is an institutional profile that loads in the
UM data to the forms.  There is a PI profile that loads in the personal
data to the forms, and key personnel data too.  The biosketch is
created with Cayuse software that puts it into the format required by
NIH -- two files for the sections.  The science is also put into the
format required by NIH -- each section starts on a new page.  The
engine for the program has been FileMaker Pro that works on both Mac
and PC.  One reason we got into the arrangement with Cayuse was that
our own in house proposal/awards data management system uses the same
engine.

The Cayuse staff are now working on a open source fully web-based
version that will be much more flexible and might better meet the
central management needs of a large institution.  Cayuse is also one of
the few companies involved in creating access to the Grants.gov system
to system version. They will soon have a system that will do all
sponsors through G.g.

We have lots of war stories and we won in all of them :)  War stories
can have good ending can't they?  I guess we did have one bad ending.
A PI had completed preparing the application for submission and asked
how the graphics would be treated.  She had lots of beautiful color
pictures.  One of the advantages of the eCGAP project is that reviewers
get the electronic version of the application with the color graphics.
Paper submissions are scanned to the reviewer CD and lose the color.
However we discovered that the NIH staff would print the electronic
version in black and white for the two primary reviewers and so lose
the good color.  Our PI thus backed out.  NIH says they have since
created full color versions whenever they print the e-application. So
we won that in the end, too.

I suggest anyone wanting to do a vendor solution (COTS) instead of
creating a home grown system investigate Cayuse.  This is especially
true in the short term for all those schools that are now using their
software for paper applications.

Bob
__________________________________
Robert Beattie
Managing  Project Representative
 for Electronic Research Administration
Division of Research Development and Administration
University of Michigan
3003 S. State Street   Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1274
office: 734 936-1283    mobile: 734 717-6281
xxxxxx@umich.edu

On Mar 31, 2005, at 2:19 PM, Susan Burke wrote:

I'm taking a quick and dirty survey of what software people have chosen
to use in submitting proposals to NIH commons.  I gather there are
several different vendors.  Any war stories?
Thanks for your help.
Susan

--
Susan B. Burke
Project Officer
NYU Office of Sponsored Programs
15 Washington Place, 1-H
New York, NY 10003
telephone: 212-998-2017
fax: 212-995-4029

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 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
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