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December 2, 2002

Several new features have been implemented.

1. A new section at the bottom of the opening Status Screen in Administrative functions shows you all pending and deferred projects for your site with the time since processing. This is intended to alert you when a project approval is delayed for some reason. You should follow up on these by clicking on the link to the CRIS pending projects for formula-funded projects. For grants, contact CRIS directly or the grant program office if approval documentation appears to be delayed.

2. You can now re-submit a project that has been deferred once you find out why it was deferred and what needs to be changed. You will see a new green toolbar at the top of the screen in Display / Edit AD-416. This allows you to add new projects, initiate revisions, or recall and then edit a previously submitted project that has been deferred (using the same project number).

   The same toolbar is available at the top of the AD-416 work table after you have selected the projects you wish to work with, but on this screen, since you have already selected projects (for example one department) the scope is limited to the selection criteria that you specified, for example that one department. However, this is not true for deferred projects -- you will always see the entire list of deferred projects.

   Once you have recalled the deferred project, you or the PI can edit the information and then submit it just like any other project. You will need to access each form (AD-417 and CSREES-2008) in order to check and save them even if you do not change anything.

   If a new project outline is also required, you can submit that electronically or on paper as for any orginal submission.

3. There is a new user type called Data Manager. This is intended for personnel at your site that may be authorized to export data from the Web Forms for use in other in-house programs. Unlike data on the CRIS web site which is public information and has no password required, the Web forms site may include information that is in-progress, incomplete and not yet approved, and is not yet public. The administrative site contact is the only one who can authorize this type of user by assigning a password.

   As the Administrative site contact, you can select Data Manager and use your regular administrative password to see exactly what this user type can do. It is entirely up to you whether you want to assign a password to anyone at your site to use this function, most sites will never use it. However, if you do have personnel at your site who are allowed to access your data for in-house reporting systems, this may be better than you having to be the one to export data for them or giving them your administrative password (which you should not do!). If you have already given your administrative password to anyone for the purpose of exporting data, you should change your administrative password and assign a password to the data manager user type instead.

4. For sites that report on the federal fiscal year basis, a bright yellow "NEW" symbol will appear next to projects that are too new to report -- projects that began after the end of the FY 02 reporting period. Projects with start dates of October 1, 2002 or later will have this symbol. The symbol links to more information about new projects and when reports are or are not due. If new projects are added to the checklist later in the year for sites reporting on the calendar year basis, this symbol will appear for projects with start dates on or after January 1, 2003.

October 2, 2002

The AD-421/419 request letter being mailed to all Directors is available as a WordPerfect file. For all AD-419s and AD-421s reported on the federal fiscal year, the due date is February 1, 2003. The due date is April 1, 2003 for calendar year reporting.

October 1, 2002

2002 Checklists

CRIS is about to begin generating the 2002 AD-421/419 Checklists. This process creates a new Project List (seen from "Display / Edit Project List") in addition to the 2002 AD-421/419 Reporting Checklist.

You may request the timing of your 2002 list by sending email to Pat Downer (pdowner@zoo.uvm.edu), otherwise all 2002 lists will be generated over the next week.

To prepare for the 2002 checklist, make sure you have taken the last step to submit any changes you may have made to project information using "Display / Edit Project List" and that you have checked to be sure you don't have any AD-421 reports entered but not yet submitted to CRIS (sometimes the PIs go in there and enter them without you knowing about it). The new Status Screen shows you this.

If you specifically do not want your checklist yet, let us know immediately. Otherwise, we will begin generating checklists for those sites that appear to be ready (no unsubmitted changes or 421s) beginning October 2.

If you still have delinquent reports from 2001, don't worry about those, you can still submit late 2001 progress reports even when your 2002 checklist is there. You DO have to submit the 2001 report before you submit a 2002 report, however.

To submit a 2001 progress report after you have received your 2002 checklist, you need to edit the reporting period on the AD-421 input form to show the correct report year for the 2001 report. Then after you have submitted the report, go into "Display / Edit AD-421" and select only the project you are working on. The resulting table will include a "Clear" button which will then clear out the 2001 report and put the project back onto the visible 2002 checklist.

August 26, 2002

Two new features have been implemented:

• Using Display / Edit Project List you can now select projects with termination dates on or before a given date (in addition to on or after a given date).

• You can now display a message to site users on the page where they select your institution. You can enter up to 60 characters to be displayed in bold italics directly under your institution name for both the AD-416/417 form and/or the AD-421 form. Enter this message using the new section in Edit Site information called "Optional Messages to investigators". An example is used by Michigan State for the AD-416s, saying "All MAES grantees must use this option!" -- this is for the purpose of guiding investigators to use the MICL institution option rather than NSCG (Non-State Cooperator Grantee) for any grants.

July 23, 2002

Memos from Colien Hefferan requesting the 2003 Program of Research have been sent to all sites with Animal Health or McIntire-Stennis projects. A new link on the home page (bright green) will allow you to review, print and submit your program if one is required for your site.

In addition to that, some minor changes have been implemented:

• the Status Screen counts for AD-421s have been corrected to accurately match the text describing them (additional reports for mid-year terminations were not counted where needed (thanks Wendy Michel at OHO for finding this)

• there is a new option for a User Type, which defaults to Administrative Contact; if someone else at your site uses this program for the AD-419s, they must now select Financial Manager and enter the AD-419 password which you assign using Edit Site information

July 19, 2002

CRIS has sent out requests for Delinquent 2001 AD-421 Reports. This is a reminder that mid-year termination reports can be submitted from the Web forms for any project on the AD-421 checklist. Refer to the Admin help if you need assistance using the "clear" function to put projects back on the reporting list.

June 25, 2002

All old bookmarks to Administrative functions will no longer work now that the new process is in place. That is why we have always asked that you bookmark only the home page and always start there. That way you see the message board which is the best way we have of letting you know about changes like this.

June 24, 2002

At last, what you have all been asking for! You now select your site and enter the password only once, and all admin functions are available. In addition you will see some new things:

• You can either type in your agency code or select from the list

• Manage Project Info has been changed to Display / Edit Project List with a separate function bar for Submit Changes and these appear at the top in yellow.

• When you first select your site a Status Screen appears in the function execution frame. Click on the help link for an explanation of what you are seeing there.

• If you are accustomed to using the "Reload" or "Refresh" button in your browser, instead, you need to right-click in the specific frame that you want to reload or refresh, and select the option from the frame options list. Using the browser's toolbar button for Reload or Refresh will cause the program to return to the starting point displaying the Status Screen.

Otherwise, everything should work the same as always. If not, please let us know immediately... whenever something new is implemented, there can be unanticipated downstream effects.

March 15, 2002

Some minor changes have been made to the CSREES-2008 Assurance Statements form in section C, Protection of Human Subjects.

1. Single Project Assurances (SPAs) are no longer accepted for projects. See: http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/humansubjects/assurance/refinfo.htm#EXIST

The changes are:
• a) the notation about SPAs in Form-2008 has been removed
• b) the section in the Instructions is flagged as 'no longer valid'

2. SAESs were submitting IRB approval dates as certification without providing a Federal Wide Assurance (FWA) number. Every 'engaged' institution must have a FWA # up to Dec 2003 http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/irbasur.htm. The input form checking now now displays an error message if the first option is selected, and both data elements are not provided.

3. In the second option, there is now a link to the explanation regarding exemption eligibility, and only 1 thru 6 can be selected from the select box provided.

February 22, 2002

A new feature allows you to select AD-419 reports by GPRA goal. These GPRA goals are based on the RPA(s) identified on the AD-417 classification. Because projects may have more than one RPA that falls within more than one GPRA goal, the AD-419 work table displays the % of this project identified in each applicable GPRA goal. The table DOES NOT display that % of funds, however, but still shows the total funds for the project.

If you find that you would use this feature and would like to see the funding amounts calculated based on the GPRA goal percents when a project is not 100% in the selected goal, please contact Pat Downer.

January 29, 2002

A new feature has just been added to Manage Project info. You can now view complete project information for any project displayed on the table by clicking on the Accession number which is now displayed as a link.

This is a shortcut to a CRIS search... you can do the same thing by going to the CRIS search site, entering a project identifier such as CRIS Accession number or Project number, and then selecting the full project history option, but this shortcut is much more convenient.

The CRIS search site is only updated once a week, however, so you may not be seeing the up-to-the-minute information; it may be as much as a week old, as with any CRIS search of the public database.

Also recognize that pending grants are NOT public information and are not available for display in CRIS. You will get an error message if you try to display full project history for a pending Competitive or Special Grant, Cooperative Agreement, or Other CSREES Grant. For pending grants you can only access and display whatever information you have entered in the Web forms system.

January 10, 2002 The 2002 CSREES Administrative Officer's Conference will be held in Kansas City, MO, April 7-11. This is a helpful opportunity to meet some of the CRIS staff and those in other states who are responsible for CRIS reporting, to exchange ideas and learn how other sites handle these responsibilities. There will be a CRIS roundtable on Wednesday, April 10 for informal discussion about issues, ideas, problems, solutions -- and we would like to know if you have specific topics we should plan to address at that time. While you can bring up anything you like at the roundtable, we can be better prepared to address your issues if we know about them ahead of time. Contact Pat Downer or Carolyn Deckers if you have specific topics that you would like us to address.