Re: Trouble with Grants.gov Bob Beattie 04 Mar 2009 11:36 EST
Let me add a few comments to this discussion. We too are have problems, but as I have said in the past, we can submit quite nicely until 11am. 27 so far today. 25 yesterday, but also in the afternoon so we got 40 in altogether. Afternoon submission took 4-5 trys. I thought I had written earlier, warning people to ignore that false credentials message. That is just part of the system user id overload. There is no excuse for it, but it can be ignored. I got it 2 or 3 times yesterday, once I ran out of the 3 allowed tries. I just closed the application and opened and tried again. All of our AORs have the same password -- an institutional password, not a personal one. Thus, I am not going to change anything for anyone. I have come to realize that the Help Desk does not really understand what is going on. They do not submit applications, nor know how the system works. They are just contractors with scripts to resolve simple problems. We all on this listserv are much more knowledgeable than any of them. I suggest that there are no tricks or changes that will help us get application into the system at this time. Just open the file, save and submit, and if you are lucky you will hit an opening. If not, try again. I believe the Grants.gov staff are working with their consultants from General Dynamics Information Technology to improve the process. Perhaps the GDIT folks did not realize what a pain using Adobe Forms would be when they got the contract back in 2006. Still, we expect them to meet the demands. A statement from them on why they cannot would be nice, but better to just fix the thing. It might be unfair to say that the big system fix in early February "hasn't fixed the problem in any way. It seems worse than ever." We are not now getting all those pesky false errors such that we did not know if the application got to the sponsor or not. I have noticed an improvement in submission speed, however, only before 11am :( The error checking process now seems to find real errors. This morning we got a rejection because there were 1000 participant/trainees listed in an R01 subaward budget. That has been the only rejection in the past couple of weeks, compared to the almost every submission prior to the big fix. I like Kathleen's point in the last paragraph that some drastic "thinking out of the box" is needed. In the meantime, as we all focus on the submission delays, we are not thinking about all the other issues that need to resolved. Wouldn't we like to print an entire application, with all budget years, for example. There are other such changes that we need, too. Keep thinking about what you want the system to do, besides be faster. Luckily NIH has been very flexible in helping us deal with the submission delays. By their next deadline, there will be new forms, and there must be improvements in capacity. Bob ------------------------------ Robert Beattie UMICH eBusiness Point of Contact University of Michigan xxxxxx@umich.edu (734) 936-1283 On Mar 4, 2009, at 10:23 AM, Foster, Kathleen C wrote: Winnie, I agree with your impulse to want to find a way to manage a situation that seems to be growing increasingly out of control with every large deadline we come to. We began seeing serious Grants.gov system issues three days before the deadline, which seems to indicate that the system upgrade Grants.gov implemented February 7th and 8th hasn't fixed the problem in any way. It seems worse than ever. I like your suggestions, but I'm not sure we'll be able to convince the agencies to see things from our point of view. NIH has been very accommodating, but other agencies less so. I want to relate a particularly frustrating and alarming experience I had with the Grants.gov help desk yesterday afternoon. We have been experiencing the full range of bizarre error messages and submission problems that everyone else has seen (just business as usual, at this point), but yesterday afternoon we saw a new one: failure to recognize the username and password of our AOR. I called Grants.gov to determine if this was just another symptom of system slowness or if something was really wrong with our AOR's credentials. The help desk representative ran a report and determined that the username and credentials were fine, and suggested that I reset the password. I did so, and we still received the error. I called back once more, just in hope of determining whether there was actually a problem with the password or not. The help desk representative really could't say, and advised me to ask our e-biz point of contact to delete our AOR's registration completely and have us re-register her under a new user name and password. When I pointed out that it seemed a bit unrealistic to take that action just two days before the NIH deadline, knowing it can take up to a day to process a registration, she indicated that it was my only option. I asked her once again if that was really necessary -- was there an actual problem that would be solved by taking this action? She would say only that they were recommending this action to everyone who was experiencing this error. I sat in my office for a few minutes, trying to make sense of the recommendation. We have been submitting successfully to G.g almost daily for two years. Since our initial registration, we've never done anything to change the username and password of our AOR. Was something really wrong with it? Could the re-registration be processed in time to allow us to submit the many other applications in queue by Friday? Would this just cause more problems that it solved? Did I really want to contact our E-Biz POC and ask him to drop everything and deal with this? While I was thinking this over, my colleague came to my office door and said, triumphantly, that he had just been able to submit two applications. So, there was absolutely nothing wrong with our AOR's credentials at all. I was advised by Grants.gov to take a course of action that would have been incredibly disruptive and problematic, and might have jeopardized our ability to submit for the rest of the week, for absolutely no reason. Why would the help desk rep give me such bad advice? Why wasn't she able to determine that the error message was just a false message, and that the real problem was the same system overload that we've encountered at every deadline? I think what bothers me most of all is that there seems to be a failure to acknowledge what is now obvious to all of us: the Grants.gov system is not able to handle the thousands of applications that hit the system in advance of a major NIH deadline. The help desk continues to advise us to try one pointless thing after another, when in reality, the only actual solution is to submit at a moment when there isn't a bottleneck. Why not save us all the time and energy and figure out a way to stagger submission windows by area of the country, for example, so each region has a designated time to submit? I'm sure there are many other solutions as well, but until the problem is acknowledged, it can't be solved. Kathleen Foster Director, Research Systems and Funding Information Office of Sponsored Programs Boston University p: 617.353.4365 f: 617.353.6660 From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On Behalf Of Wilma Ennenga Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 7:05 PM To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] Trouble with Grants.gov I’ve followed the traffic over the past days and weeks (years!) as the capacity issues a Grants.Gov have caused more and more of us to fail to submit on the first, second, third, fourth, ad infinitum attempts until finally the proverbial waters part and we’re able to slip through. Out here in the west, Grants.Gov has advised us to try to submit after 7:00 p.m. and I suppose the west coast universities try after 8:00 p.m. I’ve gotten the same error messages as listed by other people, and found the same error messages disappear when the grants.gov system clears out. Last night (yippee) I submitted two proposals between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. with the second one going through finally about two hours after the first, and the proposal numbering indicating that some 60 to 70 other proposals had been submitted in the interim. Since the proposals were due at 4:30 Wasington time today, there was no way we would have been successful this morning. Because of the capacity issues at Grants.Gov, even if we (try to) submit our proposal days prior to the deadline we are likely to be cross deadlines with some other program and be unable to submit. THIS IS INSANE AND WE CAN’T KEEP DOING THIS!!! The collective cost to our universities is horrendous both in wasted time and in time not available for other projects. So, it seems to me we need to develop new rules institutionally and within the community: (1) We will try no more than X (3?) number of times to submit one proposal (2) Upon failure, if due to capacity issues at Grants.Gov, we will write via e-mail to the Grants.Gov help desk and the Agency program officer, explaining the problem and requesting an extension to submit the proposal. (3) There will be a consensus among sponsors that exceptions will be provided in all these cases so that our proposals may be submitted. (4) If granted, we will try again to submit within regular business hours. If we fail, fall back to (2) above. Comments welcomed. Winnie P.S., I particularly appreciate that certain message from grants.gov that I’ve exceeded the cap of three times that I can try to enter my user name and password! Oh the irony! Wilma G. (Winnie) Ennenga Director, Office of Grant and Contract Services Northern Arizona University Applied Research and Development Bldg. #56, Suite 240 1298 South Knoles Drive Flagstaff, AZ 86011-4130 Telephone: 928/523-8319 Fax: 928/523-1075 P Please consider the environment before printing this email From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On Behalf Of Lisa Williams Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 9:18 AM To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] Trouble with Grants.gov Hi - I was having the same problem last night between 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Mountain - G.gov wasn't recognizing user credentials. I reset passwords a couple of times, to no avail. Finally, for no apparent reason, the system accepted my user credentials and allowed to me log in. Submission took less than a minute, and validation came within 5 minutes. I did ask a colleague I called in a frustrated panic to breakdance to generate some good luck and I managed to log in moments afterward - though I'd like to believe that it was that simple to fix, I think there was something else going on - either some nightly job or update or whatever. It would be nice to know, if that were the case, the schedule of such things. You can't submit anything during working hours, and apparently if you hit the wrong window after hours you can't submit then either. Anyone know what the G.gov maintenance schedule is? Lisa Williams, CRA ph 208-426-1425 cell 530-867-6727 >>> Balvinder Kumar <xxxxxx@CSUEASTBAY.EDU> 3/2/2009 9:21 PM >>> I’ve been trying to submit an application to the NEH since this AM and the latest is that grants.gov does not recognize us as a user in the system. Is anyone else experiencing this? I was able to submit one of our NEH applications last night. Thanks for any help! Balvinder Kumar ORSP-California State University, East Bay From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On Behalf Of schauerap Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 8:09 PM To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] Trouble with Grants.gov I too am able to submit almost immediately in the mornings before 11am and then again, from home in the evenings after 7pm...but during the day after 11am, nothing goes at all. This has been the pattern for at least the past month. I am in Cincinnati, OH, eastern time zone. I have also noticed that the few PureEdge packages I have had to submit go through immediately, regardless of what time I submit. It only seems to be the Adobe packages that will not go. On Mar 2, 2009, at 7:02 PM, Robert R Beattie 1 wrote: We submitted 14 applications on Monday between 7am and 11am. Then nothing. We are in the eastern time zone, far western side. I note that those who are not having success are central zone or further west. Have people in the eastern zone been able to submit in the morning? If so there seems to be enough capacity to deal with just a partial group of submitters, but as new zones come to work, there is sluggishness. We are not getting those pesky false errors now. We are just not getting connected. Maybe people can report their inability to connect on the Grants.gov blog. There needs to be a systematic accounting of the problem. Regarding the JavaScript warning. This is an Adobe generated message telling users that they are using Javascript to make the submission. Everyone one gets this message, it does not indicate a problem. Don't turn Javascript off. I will get to work early to get all of ours submitted early so there will be some band width for our western colleagues :) Bob On Mon, 2 Mar 2009 15:23:58 -0800, Deborah Hofer <xxxxxx@SOU.EDU> wrote: Yes!! I press save and submit, enter id and p/w. The box thinks a minute and closes. Question, at the bottom of the box it says Warning: JavaScript Window. Do you know what that means? Deborah d'Este Hofer MM Grants & Sponsored Programs Institutional Review Board Administrator Southern Oregon University 1250 Siskiyou Blvd Ashland, OR 97520 Churchill #205 541.552.8662 xxxxxx@sou.edu "Sandra D. Garcia" <xxxxxx@TAMUK.EDU> 3/1/2009 2:48 PM >>> Is anyone having trouble with G.g right now we cannot get it to submit our proposals? And we are trying to get out three. 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