eRA Enhancements: New Features and Fixes Coming April 22 for eRA Commons

2011-050

eRA will deploy software updates to enhance various sections of Commons tonight. The new functionality will be available to users Friday, April 22. eRA Commons will be unavailable from 9 p.m. (ET) Thursday, April 21, until as late as 7 a.m. Friday, April 22 to complete this work. New features and fixes to be released are described below.

Personal Profile

Fix

·  The continuous submission eligibility period will be extended for all eligible PD/PIs. The eligibility period will begin on August 16, 2011 and will end on September 30, 2012.

Status

Fix

·  Previously, when an application was awaiting processing by NIH (Application ID= AN:0), the Status Result – Recent/Pending eSubmissions screen displayed the eSubmission Status as “eSubmission Error.” Additionally, the Show All Prior Errors link displayed even though no warnings or errors existed. Moving forward, when an application is still processing, the Application ID will show AN:0, but the eSubmission Status and Show All Prior Errors columns will remain blank until processing is complete.

eSNAP (Electronic Streamlined Non-competing Award Process)

New Features

·  A new role, Biostatistician, will be added to the Project Role drop down on the Edit Business – All Personnel List screen.

·  PD/PIs will be able to indicate time devoted to a project as less than one month. The Calendar, Academic, and Summer fields on the Edit Business – All Personnel List screen will accept a decimal value between 0 and 1 to indicate less than one month devoted to the project. This change applies to PD/PIs only; the Months Devoted to Project for all other personnel must still be entered as a value between 1 and 12.

xTrain

New Feature

·  Users will be able to appoint trainees for RL5 (Linked Education Project) and RL9 (Linked Research Training Award) grants in xTrain.

Fix

·  The Signature of Fellow or Trainee field and the Signature of Sponsor or Program Director field on the Termination Notice PDF previously displayed incorrect information. Moving forward, these fields will display correct information.