How do forms on Grants.gov get approved?

Grants.gov utilizes two categories of forms in application packages: agency-specific and government-wide. All forms used in grant opportunities posted on Grants.gov must be Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved. OMB does not allow agencies to attach non-cleared forms to Grants.gov application packages or require non-cleared forms to be filled out later in the application process. Grants.gov is responsible for clearing new and renewed government-wide forms. All of the government-wide forms in Grants.gov are identified with an 8-digit OMB control number that begin with “4040.”

The process to clear a form is established by the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). This clearance process is managed through OMB. The PRA requires that data collections (forms) go through a process to notify the public of the availability of a new or renewed form. Agencies that plan to use the form must estimate how long it will take an applicant to fill out the form (burden hours). The public and the agencies can provide comments on the form during two publication cycles of a 60-day and a 30-day Federal Register Notice (FRN).
Grants.gov receives questions regarding the use of forms that have an expired date on them. Forms appear to expire while they are under the PRA process. This is because the process overlaps the expiration date. As long as the 60-day FRN publishes within 60 days of the expiration date, then the form is still covered and remains “approved.” Once the 60-day FRN is published, Grants.gov and the working groups still must go through the comment review process, publish a 30-day FRN, review any additional comments and have OMB review and approve the final package. This process can take several months after the original expiration date occurs. Additional time is required to build the form in Grants.gov. We cannot begin this process until OMB has approved the form, since OMB can request additional changes to the form. Below is a basic schedule of time required by the PRA process for forms clearance.

Grant Policy Committee working group proposes form changes: 1 month
Collect burden hour estimates from the agencies: 1 month
Supporting statement, form and instructions mock-up prepared,
60-day FRN published: 2 months
Working group reviews comments received via FRN from
public and agencies, revise form as necessary: 1-2 months
Revised form and instructions submitted via 30-day FRN to OMB: 1 month
OMB reviews comments, may revise, approves form with new
expiration date: 2-3 months

Total Estimated Time to Clear the Form: 8-10 months

Key Areas the PMO are Addressing

1. Dates of the release of all R&R forms to testing (AT)
2. Dates to production of all R&R forms
3. Process for new forms development
4. Process for maintenance of forms development
5. Updated documentation for grantor web services and documentation for single
certificate to pull for sub-agencies
6. Update S2S documentation for both the grantor and applicant

RSS Tutorial

What is an RSS feed? A "really simple syndication" or "rich site summary" is used to deliver frequently updated web content to its audience. News media outlets, blogs, and other sources of readily updated information use RSS feeds to get the most up-to-date information to their audiences. In a similar manner, Grants.gov has began using an RSS feed to notify grant seekers of new opportunities posted to the site.

In the coming months, Grants.gov will no longer send out daily email notifications of new grant opportunities. Information regarding new opportunities posted to the web site will be made available in REAL TIME via the RSS feeds. The RSS feed will allow users to retrieve the latest grant opportunity posting information and sort the data it in a manner most relevant to the user. Since many of Grants.gov users may not be familiar with RSS feeds or RSS readers, it is suggested you view this tutorial (Google Reader: Getting Started) or any other and install an RSS feed reader of your choice. Feed readers are available from many sources, including your web browsers, and can be used on your computer or a wireless communication device.


For more information and to set up your Grants.gov RSS feed, click here.

Applicant User Guide

Applicant User Guide – A detailed guide to registration, finding and applying for grant opportunities.

Grants.gov - R&R Forms

The following are the initial FFATA changes to the Research and Related forms family placed in the testing environment (AT07) in Adobe:

• SF 424 cover sheet released into the testing environment (AT07): http://at07apply.grants.gov/apply/FormLinks?family=14

• A, B, C, D released into testing environment: http://at07apply.grants.gov/apply/FormLinks?family=15
• Release notes for all five are attached

We are working on additional R&R forms to execute the transition to Adobe and will provide them shortly.

Grants.gov Customer Service Process

Grants.gov Customer Service Process - A diagram depicting the procedures the Grants.gov Contact Center follows when a customer calls for assistance.

Testing Environment (AT07) Guidelines

As a result of Agencies transitioning to Adobe our testing environment (AT07) is being stressed. For those of you testing actively you have noticed slow processing times. This weekend we are taking AT07 offline to create a larger database file size and to move the database from its current location on the server to the Storage Area Network. This will make AT07 more robust so it can handle the load, but we do not anticipate increased processing times.

As the Research and Related (R&R) forms are released into AT07 next week for testing we would like to request the following parameters for testing to reduce the load on the testing environment:

Monday – Friday
· Agency only testing from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. EDT
· Applicant only testing from 4:01 p.m. – 8:59 a.m. EDT

We would request that you adhere to these timelines for the foreseeable future. Once the load on the system subsides we will notify you of a change to these guidelines. We have identified future plans for the testing environment to enhance performance. Part of this plan is to take portions of the existing PureEdge system and place them into AT07. We cannot execute these plans until all agencies are in Adobe.

We appreciate your consideration to the above testing timelines, all parties should benefit from adherence to these times. If you have any questions please contact the Grants.gov PMO staff.

Regards,
Grants.gov PMO

The Contact Center

An 'issue' arose at yesterday's User Group Meeting regarding the future of the Contact Center.

First, there is no 'issue' today.

Second, Contact Center costs must be contained by FY2010. Herein lies our challenge, a challenge briefed to the GEB in July when presenting the FY2010 budget for approval.

The following statistics are representive of a week's effort at the Contact Center:

• Filing for Financial Assistance - 781 calls or 12.02%
• Questions on how to engage the Offering Agency - 459 calls or 7.06%
• Individual looking for Assistance or looking for a Grant - 290 calls or 4.46%
• Questions regarding Government Grants for Small Business - 213 calls or 3.28%
• Finding Grants - Searching for Grant Opportunities - Advanced - 200 calls or 3.08%
• Password, Username and Log In - Forgot Password - Grant Community(!) - 145 calls or 2.23%
• Questions regarding Student Aid - 116 calls or 1.78%
• Questions on Possible Fraud - 67 calls or 1.03%
• Finding Grants - Searching for Grant Opportunities - Basic - 36 calls or 0.55%

Summing up the above, >35% (specifically, 35.49%) of the phone calls have little to do with "applicant submission." By this I mean the following, if you have to submit an application today by a specific time, you - the applicant - are competing with the above inquiries.

If 35+% of the Contact Center's effort is engaging miscellaneous phone calls, and I am by no means denegrating the merit of these phone calls, then the Contact Center's efforts are being taken away from the applicants who have toiled against a deadline to make a submission. Thus I hope you can understand why I included the entry below.

Now, of the remaining 64+%, just less than 50% deal with CCR registration, obtaining a DUNS number, determining the points of contact at a given agency, and other similar topics.

Therefore, of the phone calls received at the Contact Center, only ~15% dealt with the actual submission of an application on a given date due. This means that for every 20 phone calls at the Contact Center, 17 are (generally) non-critical while 3 are of a time-critical nature.

As a consequence the 5.66/1 ratio against the submitting applicant needs to be addressed if we are going to meet our Grants.gov PMO Strategic Plan vision, mission, goals, and values.

How are we going to take care of and place a priority on the "applicant" on the day s/he needs support? We believe we need to empower the applicant as much as possible. As we move to FY2010, we are developing a strategy that at present consists of the following.

Goal: Reduce Call Center Dependency by Empowering the Applicant

1. Employ full Adobe functionality in all future forms, i.e., employing Adobe’s ‘self-diagnostic’ capability.*
2. Employ a ‘self-diagnostic computer tool’ to assess the applicant’s computer to ensure s/he has the proper software &/or viewer as well as RAM, etc., to transmit the application.*
3. Include latest Adobe viewers, which display upload progress and speeds, i.e., telling the applicant the progress being made in submitting their application.*
4. Speed & Reliability Upgrade –will enable greater processing power than Grants.gov has ever had.*
5. Our 'new' systems Dashboards will allow us to replicate and/or view the applicant experience and proactively address problems.*
6. Transition to cloud computing will allow for greater scalability in supporting our applicant/customer base in terms of bandwidth and processing power.*
7. The transition to RSS from 700k daily emails will free up processing power for the applicant community and reduce stress on the system.*
8. Redesign our website, which has admittedly grown cumbersome over the years with 18+k pages, to make it more functional, interactive, and user friendly.*
9. Employ two Contact Center phone numbers: one for non-critical issues; one for day-of-submission applicant support. The latter would receive increased emphasis and take priority over the former.

All items marked with an "*" above, if properly addressed, will significantly reduce the phone call volume - but none so more as, perhaps, #8 above.

We believe that the more we empower the applicant with his/her own tools to simplify & verify the application completion and submission process, then the present ~15% of Contact Center day-of-submission calls will be significantly reduced.

Similarly, the better we structure our information architecture on the website, then the remaining 85% of calls will also be significantly reduced.

Yes, our objective is to eliminate the need for the Contact Center. It should be the objective of every effective and efficient organization. Will we attain that objective? Only time will tell the tale. But until we implement all of the above actions, and more, will we begin to make such an assessment.

ORC E-auth service restored

ALERT ORC E-auth service restored

Date/Time October 8, 2008 7:05 a.m.

What: The ORC service outage reported yesterday morning has been resolved. Service has been restored.

Impact: Grantors may access the Grants.gov system using their ORC credentials.

Information on forms in development now available on the Grants.Gov Blog

A link to the Forms Factory Control Log is now available in the Reference Library of the Grants.Gov Blog (grants-gov.blogspot.com).

ORC E-auth login outage

ALERT - ORC E-auth outage

Time/Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2008 - 8:30 a.m.

What: The Grants.gov PMO was notified this morning of an ongoing outage for the ORC E-authentication portal.

Impact: Grantor users trying to login to Grants.gov via ORC E-auth portal will receive a 404 page error. Users with Employee Express or USDA E-auth credentials can successfully access Grants.gov. Applicants are not affected by this outage.

Action: Notification being provided. Notification will be provided when outage is complete.

FY2008 S2S Submissions

ParentAgency Total
DOD 680
DOE 199
ED 11
HHS 12793
NEH 3
NSF 72
USDA 93
USDOJ 6
DOT 4
DOC 1
VA 1
USAID 1
Grand Total 13864

This cannot be overstressed...!!

This type of individual assistance is NOT available on Grants.gov: Personal Financial Assistance, Student Loans and Small Business Start-up Loans. To find out if you are eligible for grant opportunities offered on this site, click here.

Stakeholder Webcast

Please join us for the next Grants.gov Stakeholder Webcast on Wednesday, October 15, 2008, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. EDT. This meeting will be a webcast only and registration is NOT required. * Please read below as Adobe Flash Player is required to view this webcast. Real Player and Windows Media Player will no longer be used.

Agenda:
- Introduction
- Quarterly Update
- RSS Feed
- Applicant Troubleshooting Page
- Update on the Transition to Adobe
- Speed and Reliability Upgrade
- System Build 2008 – 03
- Central Contractor Registration – Process

Instructions:

Registration is not required. Click here: http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=10043712&msgid=143299&act=CXB4&c=171570&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hhs.gov%2Fgrants%2Fwebcast%2Findex.html at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 15.

*Please note you will need the Adobe Flash Player (http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=10043712&msgid=143299&act=CXB4&c=171570&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adobe.com%2F) installed on your computer in order to view the live video stream. You can test your ability to view the flash video stream starting at 10:00 a.m. EDT on the day of the webcast at the address listed above. If you are unable to view this live stream in the flash format, it will be available in flash video-on-demand shortly after the broadcast. Email your questions for the webcast panelists before and/or during the program to Grants.gov-webcast@hhs.gov.

Life of a Grant Application

Life of A Grants.gov Application Package - A Diagram depicting the role of the Grantor, Grants.gov, and the applicant in regards to the life cycle of a grant application package.