Grants.gov New Contact Center Hours

Beginning today, October 19, 2009, the Grants.gov Contact Center will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Contact Center provides customer service to the applicant community. The new extended hours will provide applicants support around the clock, ensuring the best possible customer service is received any time it’s needed. You can reach the Grants.gov Support Center at 1-800-518-4726 or by email at support@grants.gov.

ALERT: Grants.gov System Issue August 10, 2009

Grants.gov experienced a database issue on August 10, 2009 that impacted both Find and Apply functionality. Beginning at approximately 2:30 PM EDT applicants began experiencing intermittent issues searching for opportunities and applying as a result of slow system performance. This slow performance caused some interruptions in service when applicants were submitting applications requiring them to submit again. The issue was intermittent and did not impact all applicants.

The Apply functionality was unavailable from 8:05 PM and the system experienced a database crash at approximately 9:30 PM and applicants were unable to submit applications until the database was brought back online at 11:12 PM.

We are continuing to investigate the root cause of the issue and will provide you with more information once it becomes available.

The find and apply functionality is currently operating. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.

Regards,
Grants.gov

August Build Successfully Deployed

The implementation of Build 2009-04 for the Grants.gov system was successfully completed on August 9. Learn more about the system enhancements on the Site Features and Enhancements page: http://www.grants.gov/aboutgrants/buildreleases.jsp

Regards,
Grants.gov

Grants.gov System Unavailable August 8 - 9

Due to the implementation of Build 2009-04 the Grants.gov system and website will be unavailable Saturday, August 8, 2009 through Sunday, August 9, 2009. The system is scheduled to be back online at 11:59 p.m. EDT August 9, 2009. The system updates for this build will be available once the build is successfully deployed on the Site Features and Enhancements page: http://www.grants.gov/aboutgrants/buildreleases.jsp.

We appreciate your patience. If you have any questions or issues during the system downtime, please email support@grants.gov and the Contact Center will address your inquiry during business hours (Monday-Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., EDT).

Regards,
Grants.gov

Recovery Act and Grants.gov

A new feature was unveiled on Grants.gov to help users find and apply for The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant opportunities.

The launch of the ARRA or Recovery Act feature on the homepage of Grants.gov will direct users to Recovery Act opportunities, other Recovery Act resources, upcoming Webinars and links to www.whitehouse.gov/recovery and www.recovery.gov.

Regards,
Grants.gov

Grants.gov - Internet Browser Compatibility

Grants.gov routinely tests compatibility with numerous browser and operating system versions and combinations. While testing a newer version of Firefox and the beta version of Chrome, we identified potential compatibility issues with the current version of Firefox. We reported that compatibility issue to you prematurely. Further testing shows that the earlier compatibility issues were unfounded. As a result, we need to retract our earlier message regarding browser incompatibilities with our apologies for any confusion or concern related to this miscommunication.

Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers on Windows XP and Vista, and Firefox and Safari on Mac systems are compatible with Grants.gov. Also, based on our limited testing there were no issues found with using Google Chrome on Windows XP and Vista. Please note that Chrome is considered Beta software by Google (http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/why.html).

Again, we sincerely apologize for any confusion our previous communication may have caused. If you have any questions please contact the Grants.gov Contact Center (1-800-518-4726) or via e-mail support@grants.gov.

Regards,
Grants.gov PMO

Grants.gov Webcast

Please join us July 15th from 1:00 - 2:00 PM EDT for our Quarterly Grants.gov Stakeholder Webcast: http://grants.gov/help/stakeholder_communications.jsp

Agenda
- Grants.gov Activity Update  
- Grants.gov Recently Accomplished System Builds
- Grants.gov “Boost”   
- Applicant System-to-System (S2S)