UMass Amherst uses GAMS from ERASS to submit S2S proposals in
addition to developing budgets and doing electronic routing and
approval.  We have been very happy with the product, in particular
the S2S aspect.  The faculty and their support staff like it and find
it much easier to use than the grants.gov Adobe and PureEdge
application packages.  We have had many fewer problems than it sounds
like many of you have had and when there is a problem that we cannot
diagnose ourselves, the ERASS staff are immediately responsive and
stay with us until we get a solution and a successful submission even
if the problem has nothing at all to do with their product.  There is
built-in validation of all proposals that helps get them through the
Grants.gov validation portal and additional validation for NIH
proposals that further helps with NIH validation.

The bonuses, as some have already pointed out, is that we have a
complete, centralized copy of the submitted proposals including
tracking numbers and date/time stamps as well as a fully populated
database for reporting.  In addition, for Grants.gov applications it is platform independent and because the user doesn't have to touch the downloaded Adobe application package, there is no issue of corruption of staying on top of all the Adobe versions and security issues.

We have one staff member entirely dedicated to the system but that also includes post-award activities like bi-directional posting, billing, and aging.  We have 2 additional staff, totaling an FTE between them, dedicated to the pre-award side.

I understand ERASS is coming out with a smaller version that will
address the needs of institutions with less volume or who are
interested mostly in an S2S solution independent of budget building
and post-award activities.  It will also include some routing features.

--
Leanne Every
Systems
Grant and Contract Admin
70 Butterfield Terrace
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003-9242
413.545.5892  fax:413.577.1595
xxxxxx@research.umass.edu; web: www.umass.edu/research/ogca

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================