Bob, Very well put. Bob Robert P. Bloomberg Director, Office of Grants & Contracts Tufts Medical Center 800 Washington Street (Tupper 10) Boston, MA 02111 Tel. 617.636.1142 Fax. 617.636.8568 > -----Original Message----- > From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On Behalf > Of Robert R Beattie 1 > Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 10:01 PM > To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org > Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] Grants.gov problems, was Adobe Acrobat 9 Runtime > error Solved (at least for now) > > Steve discovered the "secret" of Grants.gov submission problems. Most > errors are just random. Try one time, and fail. Try another time and > succeed. Call the help desk and get told a myth. Monday we got the > Myth that you had to use just one version of Adobe for downloading, > filling > in and submitting. Today one of our staff got the Myth that you can use > only Internet Explorer. Earlier on the listserv I read the Myth that you > cannot use Adobe 9 for some applications. > > I am afraid that OMB and agencies think the problems with Grants.gov are > just server related -- add more servers -- The Big Burst and problems will > be solved. > > Instead, the biggest problem is in the programming. There are too many > false errors. Too many cryptic error messages that lead us to call and > jam up the help desk, while they take our names and phone numbers and DUNS > numbers and then give us a myth. We often think the help we get works > because we close all of our programs and restart our browsers and > download > a new version of Adobe, or re-do the application and resubmit and it goes > in. It would have probably gone in anyway, even with out all that extra > work. It's mostly just random. > > We are submitting the same application multiple times thus clogging the > band width and making it _seem_ as though there needs to be more, new > servers. We did not have this problem with PureEdge (but lots of others > with the forms themselves). Thus the new problems came with Adobe, and it > must be, sad to say, with the company that installed the Adobe based > system. > > This concept is reinforced in our minds when we consider that the Adobe > system was supposed to be live in April of 2006, but did not come up until > November, 2008. Almost none of the 20 some forms management issues that > have been brought up are yet addressed. For example, we still cannot > print > the whole application, and worse, now, only one budget year gets printed. > > Anyway, being in "Help Desk Hold Land" so long this week has given me too > much time to think about all of this. I keep thinking that if OMB wants > to > fix things, instead of going back in time to the bad old days of "every > agency goes it own way" why don't they ever ask us users what we want. I > have heard that the current Administration considers Grants.gov to be a > Bush initiative, and thus needs to be changed. They are so shortsighted > that they do not realize it is an initiative of the Grants Submitting > Community. We have been seeking this since the Clinton administration, if > not earlier -- remember the Federal Commons that we all wanted? > > Anyway, please do not get down on the idea of One Form, One Portal, and > One > System. Do we want to go back to paper submissions, or even emailing them > to agencies. Do we want Education's eGrants, the NIJ system, INSPIRES, > FedConnet or its evil twin IIPS, or even FastLane unless it lets us keep > our data. It is true that we are going through a bad time with the > current > version of programming with Grants.gov. I hope we can just throw out the > bath water, and get a fresh tub. > > Bob > Robert Beattie > University of Michigan > 734 936-1283 > By the way, if any of you have heard any Myths from the help desk, please > pass them along to me, directly, xxxxxx@umich.edu I was thinking of > doing a poster session at the FDP of these. > > > > On Wed, 8 Apr 2009 15:14:42 -0700, "Hunter, Steve :LPH SUP-LRS" > <xxxxxx@LHS.ORG> wrote: > > Thank you to everyone who responded to my plea for help. Acrobat Pro 9 > > still has some compatibility issues apparently. However, I took the > same > > completed formset to my laptop, and using Reader 9.0 -- that's the > Reader > > 9.0 not Acrobat Pro 9.0 -- had NO problem submitting and getting > > confirmed. > > > > This listserv is great! It's wonderful to be able to tap such a source > of > > expertise! I had lots of prompt responses to my post -- even after 5pm > > Eastern. > > > > Regards, > > Steve > > > > > > ====================================================================== > > 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") > > ====================================================================== > > > > > ====================================================================== > 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") > ====================================================================== ====================================================================== 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") ======================================================================
