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December 7, 2004

New minor features for Display/Edit Project List implemented today are:

1. added the link to change the department assignment on a group of projects all at once on the first page viewed (so you don't have to select any projects first)

2. added Multistate projects to the select by funding type list

3. added ability to select by accession number (or sequence of numbers in the accession number)

July 29, 2004

In order to be more consistent and avoid confusion, CRIS staff have decided to allow up to 1600 characters for the non-technical summary required on the AD-416 for all project funding types. Previoulsy, formula-funded projects were limited to a 400 character narrative, while grants were limited to 1600. This is now also consistent with the impact summary required on the AD-421, where all project types are allowed up to 1600 characters.

Since the primary audience for both of these narratives is intended to be legislators and the general public, remember that these narratives are not useful if they are too long or include too much detail. If your institution wants to impose stricter length limitations, you will need to do so in your own instructions to PIs.

May 5, 2004

As always, the annual CSREES Administrative Officers' Conference this year in Newport, RI was great fun! It is always a pleasure to have the opportunity to chat with you in person! Several people made requests for small changes and those have now been implemented (adding the grant/contract # to the ID column of the Project List, visually disassociating from the individual investigator's list of projects from the AD-421 yellow sticky that explains the symbols, and closing up space on the AD-416 printout so that it can more easily fit on one page). You will also see the new "Insider Information" item on the Administrative Functions menu. This includes the information covered in the CRIS 101 presentation at the conference, which was a demo of the answers to our most frequently asked questions.

January 21, 2004

A new feature was implemented today which was requested by Rachel Unger at PEN. Starting now, whenever an AD-416, 417, or 2008 form is edited, the file date field will be updated with the current date. On the work table, you will see a new "last edit:" item showing the file date field which is the date the form was last saved using the "Save information" button at the bottom of the Check data page (even though it may not have actually been changed in any way). The confirmation screen will therefore always show the current date in the File Date field as result of the "Save information" action. The PI will also see a "last edit:" date on his list of forms in progress.

When you use the Print button on the AD-416 work table, it will still show the current date no matter what the last edit date was. This is so that if you print a copy for signing and filing, it will show the date you printed it and not the date it was last edited by anyone.

When the form is submitted to CRIS, the file date field (which previously contained the last edit date) will be overwritten with the submit to CRIS date. When you view or print AD-416s that have been submitted to CRIS, the File Date will always show the submit date.

The "last edit:" feature will only display for new edits beginning today (if a form was edited previous to now, it will not yet have a last edit date to be displayed).