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You are here: Home / News CRIS Forms NewsInformation for all site administrators who submit data to CRISApril 14, 2008 In order to improve the quality of our data collections, minor modifications will be made to the AD-421 Accomplishments Report web forms interface effective May 19, 2008. The Outputs and Outcomes/Impacts narratives continue to be required. For each of the fields, Participants, Target Audiences, and Project Modifications, a narrative will be required unless the option "Not relevant to this project" or the option "Nothing significant to report during this reporting period" is specifically selected. The Transition Standard Report guidance will be modified slightly in an effort to further clarify the guidance. The description of change in knowledge, part of the Outcomes/Impacts guidance, will be modified. The phrase "new fundamental or applied knowledge (such as results of sampling, surveying, laboratory, or data analysis)" will change to "new fundamental or applied knowledge significant enough to be included in a publication". Under the guidance for products, “invention, patent application and/or license” will change to “patent applications; applications for Plant Variety Act protection.”
Please refer to the following CSREES web site for further information pertaining to the CRIS Transition Standard Report: Reports that have been entered and marked complete prior to implementation of these changes, can be submitted as is. However, if the report is edited subsequent to the implementation date, the form changes become effective, and you will need to select one of the new options for each of the modified fields in order to submit the report to CRIS. February 14, 2008 A new feature was added to the Administrative functions which gives you the ability to print AD-416/417/CSREES-2008 forms that reflect updated information from CRIS at approval time as well as throughout the lifetime of the project. The function Display/Edit Projects (formerly known as Display/Edit Project List) has 2 new options which when used together, easily enable you to print forms for filing after new projects are approved or otherwise updated from CRIS. When formula funded projects (Hatch, Animal Health, McIntire-Stennis, Evans-Allen, RREA) are approved, reviewers sometimes change things like the classification, keywords, and other items so that the printed form originally filed when submitted no longer exactly matches the information in CRIS. Usually reviewer changes are minor, and there is no particular reason to re-print and file the forms if you had printed them when submitted. When new projects are approved, the CRIS office currently faxes the reviewer comment sheet, along with a facsimile AD-416, AD-417, and CSREES-2008 to the station. CRIS will continue to fax the reviewer comment sheet but will discontinue faxing the AD-416, AD-417 and CSREES-2008 pages beginning March 1. This new feature will give you the ability to view and print the post-approval forms if you wish.
To try out the new feature, select the Display/Edit Projects
Administrative function. Choose the new item identified with
In order to be sure that all reviewer edits have been made in CRIS, you should wait until you have received the faxed reviewer comment sheet before you print the AD-416/417/CSREES-2008 forms for your files. The actual approval date is on the reviewer comment sheet. After you have printed the forms, you may want to remove the green highlight; otherwise all of the green highlights will remain in the file until your next checklist is created. January 14, 2008 Here a Word document of the AD-421 and AD-419 request letter sent via email to all CSREES partner institutions in case you need to refer to it for any reason. October 25, 2007 The new transition AD-416 form was implemented today. There are very minor changes to the content of this form, however, the look and feel is quite different:
We are in the process of changing all the forms and screens to the new style, but not all are complete yet. The AD-417 and Assurance forms have the new font, but not the new "Check and Save" feature. These forms will be completed over the next few weeks. We hope you will agree that these changes are great improvements. We would like to thank Jan Iron at Colorado State for designing the new look (colors and fonts) and navigation style. The web forms team has worked especially hard to make this happen as quickly and seamlessly as possible. As always, please let us know if you encounter any problems. October 18, 2007 Changes have been made to the table used for viewing AD-421s in the Administrative function Display/Edit AD-421. A new column called "Report History" tells you:
Other changes:
Very soon, there will also be a new button that is a shortcut to submit an individual report if marked complete. October 2, 2007 The new transition standard report was implemented at noon October 1, 2007. This effects only the AD-421 web reporting form. If you had reports in progress using the previous form, they will still be acceptable and can be submitted to CRIS as is.We are also in the process of changing some terminology on the Accomplishments Report (AD-421). What used to be called a "Progress Report" will now be called an "Annual Report", and a "Termination Report" will now be called a "Final Report". It may take some time to find all references to these, so please bear with us, the function remains the same, only the wording has changed. The new transition standard AD-416 will be implemented prior to November 1. Only the wording and layout of the AD-416 will change, so again, any forms already in progress prior to implementation can still be submitted to CRIS as is. August 28, 2007 Changes to CRIS forms will be implemented by October 1, 2007 prior to the 2007 checklists. Because of these changes, we will not be able to provide checklists early this year. All CRIS site contacts listed in our database received email with instructions for viewing and testing the new forms. Today we have added the ability to generate and view instructions to match the new forms, however the new AD-416 is not available for viewing and testing yet. <<< This is available now, September 6. These are the changes that you will see:
Both forms will have 2 screens with the check and save processes combined in one step. You will no longer be able to create a duplicate by using your back button to make changes to a new AD-416, and both the single and double quotes can now be used in the narrative. You still cannot use symbols, only keyboard characters. These changes are a transition toward a standard report that is anticipated to be required in the future for all federal grants. July 30, 2007 Michigan State University has developed a new system to manage AD-419 data and generate reports based on CSREES funding. The new system was demonstrated to the CRIS staff on July 24, and CRIS has recommended a demonstration of the system at the CSREES Administrative Officers Meeting in Savannah, Georgia (early May 2008). CRIS has also recommended that Michigan State share the knowledge and expertise for developing this type of system with other State partners. If you are interested in learning more about the new Michigan State University AD-419 management system, please contact Brian Day: daybr@anr.msu.edu June 21, 2007
Minor changes implemented today
Did you know that...?
For all CSREES grants and cooperative agreements, a no-cost extension of up to one year is allowed with only institutional approval, but you must notify CSREES. The following exerpt from the CSREES
web site states:
If this is a first-time request for an extension lasting up to 12-months, the grant has not expired, and you are under General Terms and Conditions A or Federal Demonstration Partnership, your authorized organizational representative (AOR) may approve a one-time no-cost extension of time. The AOR must provide a written notification of this action to CSREES-AMB. So even though your institution has the authority to approve a no-cost extension, CSREES-AMB must be notified. This is important in order to get the termination date updated in CRIS and on your web forms. We are currently not authorized to extend the termination date for any grant or cooperative agreement using a web change process. The whole thing gets much more complicated if you have already applied a no-cost extension to a grant and then you need to extend that further, or if you need more than a 12 month extension:
If you require more than one no-cost extension of time or an extension of more than 12 months, the extension(s) must be approved by CSREES. An AOR of your institution must prepare and submit a written request to CSREES. This request may be faxed to the Awards Management Branch (AMB) of the Office of Extramural Programs at 202-401-3237 or 202-401-6271. The request must be received by AMB at least 30 days prior to the expiration date of the award and must contain:
One little bugaboo here was that we were not allowed to submit an AD-421 for a grant more than 30 days prior to the termination date, but we can now submit reports to CRIS within 60 days prior to the anniversary or termination date. For more information, visit the CSREES information on the web at: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/home/faq_grant_management.html#nocost
May 16, 2007 If the project was entered into CRIS as a new project since October, 2006, (or whenever your 2006 checklist was created), the project will not appear on the checklist, but you can add it to the checklist; here's how: Use the Administrative function Display/Edit Project List (Note the "Help About" icon at the top -- this information is in there!)
December 18, 2006
Did you know that ... ?
It is easy to resubmit a deferred project... Go into Display/Edit AD-416 and click the "Recall Deferred" button on the upper right. This will show a list of deferred projects that you can select for resubmitting. Once you select a project to be resubmitted and click the proceed button, the AD-416/417 that you originally submitted will be added to the AD-416 work table so that you can edit it. A checkmark in front of the project instead of a radio button indicates that the project has already been selected and added to the AD-416 work table (in which case you just need to click "Display/Edit AD-416" and select that project to work on). When you edit the AD-416 form, it will contain all of the information originally submitted. Make the necessary changes as requested, check, and save the form. You must verify, check, and save the AD-417 form (and assurance form if required) as well, even if the other forms don't require any changes. Now you can mark the forms "ready" and submit to CRIS as usual. November 28, 2006 Note the expanded wording on the "Enter Forms" menu... not to confuse anyone, but just to make it more obvious for new users which form(s) they need to complete. November 9, 2006 Minor features were added today:
October 12, 2006 New features were added today:
October 11, 2006 If you still don't have your 2006 Checklist, it's because you have text entered in one or more AD-421s and/or made changes that are not yet submitted to CRIS (or you have requested a delay). Some of these may be reports for grants that fall under anniversary reporting, so PIs are getting progress report requests all year long. Remember that you can disable access to AD-421s by anyone using the site password...just go into Edit Site Information and click the "Not Active" option. Once your new checklist is in place, then go back and make it "Active" again. A new feature added today is the date/time that the AD-421 form was saved, so in Display/Edit AD-421 you will see last edit: 10/11/2006 11:34:34 AM in the narrative column. If it was edited and saved by the Admin user, then "Adm" will appear after the time. (Of course only reports edited after implementation on October 11 will have a "last edit" display.) September 22, 2006 The 2006 CRIS reporting checklists will be posted beginning Monday, October 2. Your checklist will automatically be posted unless one of the following occurs:
August 22, 2006 Changes have been made that might effect your bookmarks if you have bookmarked anything other than the homepage. Please bookmark only the homepage. May 31, 2006 RREA Extension documentation in CRIS Beginning with FY 2007 RREA allocations, CSREES will require documentation for these in CRIS by October 1, 2006. A complete packet of information about this requirement is available. March 22, 2006 Some Extension funded activities may be required to be documented in CRIS. Grant award "Terms and Conditions" will include any requirements for CRIS forms and reports. For activities funded by the Smith-Lever 3D grant programs, award letters will instruct recipients when CRIS forms are required. Smith-Lever 3D Extension grant recipients will be required to complete CRIS forms AD-416/417. Grantees and recipients will be directed to contact their institution's CRIS site administrator for assistance when completing CRIS forms. As a CRIS administrative site contact currently using the web forms to submit AES documentation to CRIS, if it is appropriate for you to also submit Extension documention to CRIS for your state, that may be the simplest approach since you are already familiar with the processes while Extension personnel are not familiar with either CRIS or the web forms system. To include Extension activities for your state, go into "Edit Site Information," scroll down to the section called "Allowable Funding Sources," and select the new source(s). All your currently allowable funding sources should already be selected in this list, so you should add only those that you will need. If your administrative organization cannot accommodate assisting Extension grantees or recipients, please contact the CRIS office so that alternative arrangements can be made. The alternative is to add a new site for your state's Extension activities that would place Extension CRIS documentation in a separate database from your state's research projects. It would be handled exactly like all other sites, with one administrative password and one general site password. Some states have elected to add the new site even though the same person will be handling both the AES site and the new Extension site, at least until an Extension administrative site contact can be identified. These guidelines may help you decide which approach is better for your state: 1) If Extension administrative personnel (other than you) will need to use Administrative functions, then it would be best to have a separate site so that you do not have to share your administrative password (it is never recommended that you share the administrative password with anyone else). 2) If Extension grants are signed by a different person than AES grants at your institution, you may want a separate site in order to have different AD-416 signature information automatically selected and printed on the forms. Similarly, if the institutional address is different for Extension, you may want a separate site. 3) If you rely on being able to generate reports from CRIS or the web forms that include only research activity, the criteria for those reports will need to be adjusted to allow you to exclude the Extension funding types... some functions may not currently allow you to do that easily. Please contact the CRIS office for more information about setting up a separate site if it seems more appropriate for your state. March 21, 2006 A new feature was implemented today: You can now revise and re-submit the CSREES-2008 Assurance Statements for formula funded projects (Hatch, Evans-Allen, McIntire-Stennis, Animal Health, and Smith-Lever Extension projects). This can be done for approved or pending projects, but not for deferred projects (for deferred projects, you must still use the "Recall Deferred" button in Display/Edit AD-416 to submit the complete AD-416/417/2008 packet). To use this new feature, select the Administrative function Display / Edit Project List and choose the Change option and the project(s) requiring revised assurance forms. From the table, click the Change button and underneath the identifying information you will see a new Revise 2008 button. This button will not appear for any grants or state projects because the 2008 is not submitted via the web for them. When you click this button the CSREES-2008 form will appear. The form should contain the information from the original CSREES-2008 (or previously submitted 2008). However, if the project number was changed at some point after the original 2008 was submitted, the form may not contain the 2008 information. Checking and saving the form are identical to the AD-416/417/2008 process, but at the top of the confirmation screen is a button to print the final copy for signatures and filing, and a button to submit the form to CRIS. Clicking the Submit to CRIS button immediately submits only the CSREES-2008 data to CRIS (the Submit Changes Admin function does not submit any revised 2008s). This new process replaces the Edit 2008 button which was previously available using Display / Edit AD-416 for submitted projects. While you can still print a 2008 that was entered at submit time, you can no longer edit the 2008 form from this screen. January 30, 2006 Minor changes implemented today:
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