16.1 Applicant Release Notes

  • Production Deployment Date: November 18-20, 2017
  • Training Deployment Date: November 20-22, 2017

Summary

  • Applicant Enhancements
    • Subscription Management
    • Account Management
    • Workspace Enhancements
    • Forms Repository & Forms Status Report
    • Miscellaneous Enhancements
  • Summary of User Impact

Applicant Enhancements

Subscription Management

  • Add functionality to view and manage subscriptions
    • Grants.gov account required for subscriptions
  • Subscription Types
    • Grants.gov News
    • All New Opportunities
    • Specific Opportunities (Includes Forecast, Synopsis, and Packages)
    • Saved Searches
  • Unsubscribe from one or more subscription types
    • Subscriptions automatically removed from accounts with 3 years of inactivity
  • Since subscription types have changed and a Grants.gov account with recent activity is required, some existing subscriptions will no longer exist after November 20, 2017

Subscribe to Grants.gov News

  • Grants.gov Alerts
  • Grants.gov Newsletter

Subscribe to All New Opportunities

  • Nightly notification of all new opportunities

Subscribe to Specific Opportunities

  • One-click to subscribe to entire opportunity (Forecast/Synopsis/Package)
  • Manage your specific opportunity subscriptions

Subscribe to Saved Searches

  • Login to save your search criteria
  • Nightly notification of Forecast/Synopsis changes

Unsubscribe

  • Displays subscription types where user is currently subscribed

Account Management

Streamline Account Creation & Login

  • New users can register with Grants.gov without Organization affiliation
    • No need to provide DUNS or Funding Opportunity Number
    • Add confirmation of email address.
      • If not confirmed within 96 hours, user must restart the process
  • Consolidate login
  • New Connect Center for Users without Organization affiliation

Register

  • Consolidated Registration Process
    • Eliminate DUNS, Funding Opportunity Number entry
  • Prompts for code to confirm Email Address

Login

  • Grantor/Applicant tabs removed from login page

Connect Center

  • Landing page when user has no Organization affiliation

Delete Applicant Users

  • Users can be deleted from an Organization
    • Users continue to self-register and affiliate themselves to Organizations
    • Organization user profiles can be deleted by the Organization or by the user.
      • User account remains even if no profiles

Workspace Enhancements

  • Enhance Workspace Form Copy:
    • Add Copy Workspace feature to copy all relevant forms from existing Workspace (Manage Workspaces page)
    • Expand Create Workspace feature to copy all relevant forms from existing Workspace (View Grant Opportunity page)
    • Expand Form Reuse feature to copy across form versions
  • Add Create Workspace feature from Applicant Center menu
  • Add a "Read-Only" icon to identify read-only forms
  • Add Organization preference: View Grant Opportunity Page –Workspace Display Option

Copy: Create Using Existing Workspace

  • Enter Workspace ID of the Workspace to copy

Copy: Select Workspace to Copy

  • Specify Funding Opportunity Number or Opportunity Package ID to copy a Workspace

Copy Form: Reuse Across Form Versions

  • Workspace supports Form Reuse even if different version

Create Workspace Menu Item

  • Specify Funding Opportunity Number or Opportunity Package ID to quickly create a Workspace

Manage Workspace

  • "READ-ONLY" icon identifies read-only forms

Manage Organization Profile

Display based on preference:

  • All Workspaces for Organization
  • Workspaces where user has access

Forms Repository and Forms Status Report

  • New Forms Status Report in Production with consolidated view of all forms under development
    • Replace current In Progress Forms information available in Training environment
  • New Form Items Description (FID) pages with key DAT elements
    • Highlight changes between form versions
    • Add links to DATs, schemas, and PDFs for subforms and inactive forms

Forms Status Report

Displays status of all in progress forms, including new forms and form modifications

Form Items Description (FID)

  • Toggle between all DAT rows and Form Data Elements

Miscellaneous Enhancements

Apply for Grants –Get Application Package

  • Replace CFDA and Competition ID with Opportunity Package ID

S2S Retrieve Organization Submissions

  • Add certificate role: Expanded Submissions
    • If certificate has role: retrieve all submissions for the Organization
    • Otherwise: continue to retrieve submissions for this certificate
  • Affected Applicant web services:
    • Get Application Info
    • Get Application List
    • Get Application Status Details
    • Get Application Zip

Manage Organization Certificates

Applicant web services changing to use new role:

  • Get Application Info
  • Get Application List
  • Get Application Status Details
  • Get Application Zip

Grant Opportunity Search

Summary of User Impact

For the latest information on upcoming changes with user impacts, please check out the Grants.gov Notices page: http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/support/grants-gov-notices.html

Affected Users Effective Date Notice
Grantor, Applicant November 20, 2017 (Release 16.1) Opportunity Subscription Enhancements
Grantor, Applicant December 31, 2017 Legacy PDF Application Package will be phased out

 

Opportunity Subscriptions

Grants.gov will be enhancing the Opportunity Subscription Management capability to allow users to better manage their subscriptions within their Grants.gov account.

  • If you have an existing Grants.gov account before November 20, 2017, you will be able to view and manage your current subscriptions after Release 16.1 is deployed on November 22, 2017. Please note: the email address on your Grants.gov account must match the email address used to subscribe. Also, if you have multiple Grants.gov accounts using the same email address, please merge the accounts prior to November 20, 2017.
  • If you have subscriptions and do not have a Grants.gov account by November 20, 2017, you will need to use our new streamlined registration process to create an account and add your subscriptions on or after Release 16.1 is deployed on November 22, 2017.

Transition to Workspace

Legacy PDF Application Package will be phased out December 31, 2017.

  • Applicants will no longer be able to download the older, single PDF application package of forms.
  • Applicants can apply for grants using Grants.gov Workspace, which separates the application package into individual forms. Applicants can create a workspace, complete the forms online or by filling out the separate PDF forms, and submit their application workspace package.
  • The new online forms interface is now available in Grants.gov and is only accessible through Workspace.
  • For any funding opportunities where applicants have downloaded the legacy PDF application package, they will be able to continue to submit that package until March 31, 2018.
  • S2S Submissions will continue to be supported.

Transition to Workspace Resources