Adobe Reader versions 8.1.5 and 9.1.1 released and compatible with Grants.gov

Adobe has released Adobe Reader versions 8.1.5 and 9.1.1. Grants.gov has tested both these versions and they are compatible. We are in the process of updating the website to reflect these new versions. The update will include adding these versions to the existing compatible version table: http://www07.grants.gov/help/download_software.jsp#adobe811

Check Your Grants.gov Registration Status

To check your registration status, login to Grants.gov with the username and password you created during step three of the registration process. Once logged in, click “Manage Applicant Profile”, if your registration is complete and approved you will see the message “AOR Status: Approved”.

About Registration
Grants.gov registration is a one time process. However, there is one step that requires yearly renewal (step two – CCR, please see Organization Registration page for details) if your organization doesn’t renew their CCR registration this will cause delays when attempting to submit a grant application package.

Registration is required in order to submit grant application packages. If you belong to an organization, you must be designated an Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) in order to submit grants on behalf of your organization. The E-Business Point of Contact (E-Biz POC) within your organization must approve your registration by logging into Grants.gov. You should receive an email once your registration is approved by your organization’s grant administrator (E-Biz POC).

The Grants.gov team is pleased to announce that the backlog of applications waiting to be validated by Grants.gov has been cleared. We expect that validations will be able to keep up with submissions going forward.

Grants.gov has focused significant attention and resources over the last several weeks toward being able to successfully receive a record number of applications leading up to a major grant closing on April 27. Grants.gov successfully received 30,000 applications over an 8-day period from April 20 – 27, nearly as many applications as we received in all of March. In focusing on receipts, however, we realized that we would then be in a position where Grants.gov would be able to receive applications much faster than it could validate them. We felt it was less disruptive to have slower validations of applications than for applicants to have problems submitting applications in the first place.

As a result of the record number of applications received, the backlog of applications to be validated rapidly increased, especially for those submitted directly to Grants.gov rather than through system-to-system submissions. This past week, many applications have taken five days or more to clear validations and be ready for agency download and further evaluation. Our target service level is to validate applications within 48 hours of receipt.

Grants.gov implemented a system change on Friday, May 1, that has allowed us to clear the backlog of applications awaiting validation. Equally important, we expect this change to minimize future backlogs of application validations as we achieve a better balance between receipt and validation processing speeds.

We understand the inconvenience and concern that the slower-than-normal application validations have caused, whether to grantor review processes or to applicants who have been looking in vain for their validation messages. We appreciate your patience as we have worked literally night and day to meet the challenges of unprecedented processing volumes.

The Grants.gov team continues to implement its "boost" intiative and other changes to ensure stable operations at continued high volumes and to improve the user experience for both grantor agencies and grant applicants. We look forward to continued and improved dialogue with users to ensure that Grants.gov fulfills expectations as the Federal Government's primary resource for finding and applying for grant opportunities.

AT07 Unavailable Evening April 30, 2009

Grants.gov will be conducting testing on AT07 from 5:30 PM EDT, April 30, 2009 through 12:00 AM EDT, May 1, 2009. Users are asked to not use AT07 during this period. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Grants.gov Submissions

Last evening, April 27, between 7:45 and 9:45 p.m. EDT submissions were not being processed through the system as a result of the SAN device capacity limitation. The SAN device is used for storing queued submissions, the device ran into an upper limit on UFS Solaris Operating System and halted submission acceptance. The system was unable to create new directories to accept incoming submissions. Corrective action has been taken.

From April 20 – 27 we processed over 28,000 applications. In this eight day period alone we surpassed the total monthly submissions for each month in FY 09, with the exception of March, when we processed 36,253 submissions. On April 27 we processed 8,392 applications, the largest one day submission total, surpassing the April 24 record high of 5,973.

On April 27 the Contact Center received 2,065 calls which was the third highest volume of calls we have received to date.

Form in Form submissions are taking greater then 48 hours to validate. We are working to validate all submissions within the 48 hour validation process.

Regards,
Grants.gov PMO

Two Hour Gap in Accepting Submissions on Monday Evening

At approximately 7:45pm, April 27th, the portion of the Grants.Gov system that manages the intake of new applications suffered technical difficulties due to the unprecedented number of new applications received today.

The immediate result was that users could not submit grant applications through Grants.gov for about a two-hour period from 7:45 pm to 9:45 pm EST. Grant opportunity search capability, and processing of applications that had already been submitted before the failure, continued to function normally.

Users who were not able to submit their applications should try submitting again now that full functionality has been restored.

Grants.Gov Program Management Office

Intermittent Issues with Password Reset and Registration

There are currently intermittent issues with resetting a password and registration. We are currently working to resolve these intermittent issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. If you experience an issue with resetting your password or registration do not submit multiple requests, please call the Grants.gov Contact Center at 1-800-518-4726 or email support@grants.gov.