Annual EMSC Grantee Meeting

Electronic Handbook (EHB) and Grants.gov:

How Do I use These Tools?

June 20 – 22, 2006

MARY HOEL: Thank you. As Dan said, my name is Mary Hoel. And I’ve been with the ACSC for quite a while now. And what I’m going to be talking about today is the application and post-award reporting and Grants.gov and HRSA’s Electronic Handbooks. Before I get started, I did bring some handouts and they’re in the back table on the circle there. I wasn’t able to bring 200 because I just couldn’t carry them all but I did bring about one for each program, grant program. So if you want to, while I’m doing my quick introduction here, if somebody wants to go back, I have the program performance information -- program specific information forms for each specific project back there; and also a handout for what you will need to do for your non-competing continuation, a little bit more detail information I’ll be giving you. You are more than welcome to get it now or you can get it at the end of the presentation. And while I’m doing that, I have a couple of quick questions, just to make sure we’re on the same sheet of music so I can understand where you all are if you have questions.

As we’re starting now, who all has already completed their post-award reports? Great. Okay. And I was talking to Dan this morning, it seems like almost every one of you is now registered in the Electronic Handbooks and is going to be able to complete the post-award reports. As you know, the post-award reports is going to be due on July 3rd, which is about a week and a half from now. Okay? All right. So, we’ll go ahead and get started now. This is going to provide a quick overview of what we’re going to be talking about today. I’m going to first talk about the programs specific information, which is essentially maternal and child health bureaus data and performance measure system. I’m then going to introduce where these program specific information forms fall in the life cycle of your MCHB grants. I’ll then talk about post-award reporting and then, followed up on what you’ll be doing on your non-competing continuation, which I believe is Dan going to be fall time about.

DAN: Yes.

MARY HOEL: Yes. Okay, he’ll be the fall time for doing the application for that. And then, at the end, I have some information for you about getting help in Grants.gov and Electronic Handbooks. Okay, so before I begin, before I talk about the post-award reporting and the application system, I want to talk about the program specific information. Now, I’m sure, as you’ve all been going to your guidances, you saw in the appendices the program specific forms. Well, what exactly are these forms? These forms were developed by MCHB to track the status -- to monitor the discretionary grants program. And these forms are used throughout the life of your MCHB grants.

So, you’ll be completing these forms during your non-competing continuations as well as your post-award reports. The data that was collected from these forms are used for grant reviews, for analysis and also for public information. The program-specific information forms collect standard data from all MCHB grant programs. It collects financial data; they collect your project abstracts as well as project summary information. In addition to these standard forms, their programs office sometimes selects additional forms to collect more information about your programs such as performance measures and additional data elements. It’s up to the program office to determine which MCHB program specific information forms are used for each program.

Now, with the three EMSC programs that we have today, each of them have slightly difference forms that you will be completing. And let me just quickly go over what forms each program will be completing. For the state partnership programs, you will be completing the standard forms, which are the three financial forms. You will be doing your two program forms, which are the abstracts, and the project summary forms. In addition, you have the three performance measures, which is PM 66, 67 and 68. And I was looking through the agenda, I can see that you all been already speaking about there in this meeting, which is wonderful so you all know about them.

In addition, you have one additional data element, which is the injury EMS data form, which will need to be completed. All these forms need to be completed for your post-award report. Now, for the EMSC targeted issues, again, you will be doing the standard forms, the three financial forms, the abstract, and the project summary. Your performance measure however is performance measure three, which is essentially a list of your publications that has been published during the previous grant year. And then, for you all, you do not have an additional data element so these are the forms for the targeted issues.

Now, for the resource center, again, the standard forms, financial, abstract, and project summary and there’s also a performance measure for this one, which is performance measure 29. Okay?

Now, where do these fall into the lifecycle of the MCHB grant? And as I mentioned earlier, the program specific information forms are used during the non-competing continuations and during the post-award reporting. So as you can see from this diagram here, I’ve kind of inserted them so you can see where it falls in with the life of the grant.

At the very beginning of your grant cycle, you’ll do a new application. During the new application, you will not be completing the program specific information. You will only be completing the forms in Grants.gov. When you are awarded your funding, you will come in, in about 120 days after you receive your notice of grant award, you will come in to the Electronic Handbooks and complete your post-award report. Here you will provide your information for the program specific information forms. Then, as the year progresses you will go ahead and do your non-competing continuation, as you see that happens at the beginning of the next grant year. So you’ll be in your current grant year applying for a fund for the next year. At that time, you will also come in and complete additional information for your program specific forms and the cycle just repeats. Once you get your funding again, you come back in and you finalized your data from the previous grant year and next year for the non-competing continuation. So it’s a continual cycle, once you complete your non-competing continuation and your post-award your reports.

Okay, so now I’m going to talk about post-award reports. Most of you are in the process of doing that right now. Again, your due date is July 3^rd, which is about a week and a half from now, and as Dan said, I will be here for the rest of the meeting. So if anyone has any questions or have any problems, please feel free to come up and ask me. Hopefully, I can answer the question, if not, lead you to the right direction to answer the question.

So before I start about post-award reporting, let’s just give you a setting about actually where you are. You’ve submitted your application, it’s been reviewed and awarded, you’ve received your NGA and now you have 120 days to do your reports. Okay. So what does that mean? What does mean you have 120 days to come and do your post-award report? Well, what that means is that you’ll need to go into the Electronic Handbooks and complete your program specific information forms. Okay? You’ll just be going into the Electronic Handbooks and the website is at the bottom of the page for you. Okay. Now, while you’re completing your post-award report, there’s two factors that weigh heavily and what needs to be done during your report. It’s the workflow and how you applied for your non-competing continuum or for your application actually, for your grant, either it’s a new or a post-award or non-competing continuation.

First of all, with the workflow, you have different requirements depending upon if you’re new awardee or if you’re a non-competing continuation. Also will depend upon what you need to do is how you applied for your grants. If you’re a new grant, you either applied through Grants.gov or you applied through paper. During that time, you didn’t do your program specific information forms electronically. So, you did not do those, that’s one scenario. Second scenario is you were non-competing continuation and you applied via paper. The third scenario is that you’re non-competing continuation who applied electronically through Electronic Handbooks. These different factors weigh on what needs to be done for your post-award work report and I will quickly summarize these different activities.

Okay. Since I have so many different -- I have new awards, non-competing continuations, I have those that applied via paper or Grants.gov, I’ve provided a summary here and what I’ll do is I’ll just give you a high-level overview but this page here will give you information about -- summarizes what you need to do on each one of different forms depending upon how you applied and what type of awards you are. For the financial forms, if you are a new awardee, you will come into the system and you will complete all your financial forms. Okay? You’ll complete form One, which is your project summary profile and then you’ll do form two and form four by providing your current year and future year budgets. Now, if you’re a non-competing continuation, who applied via paper, you will come into the system, you will complete these forms as well just like the new grantees.

But in addition, you will provide your expenditure data for the previous grant year. Okay? Now, if you’re a non-competing continuation who applied electronically, that data is already there. So, what you’ll need to do is you’ll come in and review the data to make sure that it’s still correct. Make any modifications that are necessary and also at this time, you will also enter your expenditure data for the previous grant year. Okay?

Now, for the form six and seven, form six is your abstract and form seven is your project summary profile. New awardees, again, will come in and complete all the forms. Non-competing continuations as well will do this. They will come in and complete both form six and form seven. Now, if you’re a non-competing who applied during electronically, again, you’ll just come in and review the data to make sure that it’s still correct and make any modifications that are necessary and finalize your data.

Now, for the entry data form, again, new awardees, at this time, will not be completing this form. It’s not applicable for new awardees because it’s asking for information for the previous grant year. And since you’re at the beginning of your project period, you don’t have data for your previous grant year. So, when you first come in, you’ll see the main menu and it will say not applicable. You will not have to complete this form at the time. You can have and click it and look at it just to see what would it be but you do not have to complete it at this time.

Both for the non-competing continuations, you will need to complete it. Those who did it by paper will have to come in and complete the form and finalize it. Those who had submitted their application electronically will come in and finalize their data.

Your performance measures, there are five different performance measures for the EMSC programs. The first one is the performance measure three which is publication. And this one is a little bit different than the other two, so I needed to separate them. For new awards, you will not need to complete this because again, it’s asking data for the previous grant year, so it’s not applicable for you. For those that applied non-competing continuations that applied via paper, you’ll come in and supply the information for this form. For those that submitted electronically, will come in and modify the publications, if you have additional publications from the time you submitted your non-competing continuation, you can add more publications at this time.

Now, for the other performance measures, new awardees will come in and they will supply their current and future year objectives for these various performance measures. That’s all you need to do. You just say, “This is what I’m planning on doing this year and the future years of this grant.” For the non-competing continuations that applied via paper will need to come in and enter their future year objectives and they also will have to come in and report their final year indicator or score for the performance measures for the previous grant year. Now, those non-competing continuations that submitted electronically will come in, review the forms, make sure the information is still correct, and also finalize their indicator for the previous grant year.

We’ve had a couple of hiccups over the past year about submitting the post-award report. I just kind of want to talk real briefly about that. In order to submit your post-award report you need to make sure all your forms are complete. So, every form that you see on your menu should say complete. Once all the forms are complete, a little message will show up and say, “It’s now time to go over to the performance measure page and click the submit report link.” Okay? Once you hit the submit report link, you will receive a confirmation saying that you’re post-award report was successfully submitted. If you don’t receive that confirmation, it means there’s a hiccup and you may want to call the call center to find out what’s going on. But once you hit the submit report link, you should receive a confirmation.

Now, there’s two notes I want to make about this. The submit report link will appear only prior to the deadline. Okay? So, from July 3^rd -- excuse me, at 11:59 you can submit it to them. After July 4th that submit report link will be not there. And you will not be able to submit your report. Okay? And other time when you may not see that submit report link is that you may not be the project director. And if you’re not the project director, you may not have the privileges to submit the post-award report. Okay? So, if you are submitting it and you’re not the project director but your project director wants you to go ahead and submit it, what you’ll need to do is to go to your project director and ask him or her to give you the privileges to submit it. It’s a very easy process. But we just need to make sure that you have the privileges to submit it. Okay? It just needs to be done electronically. Once you receive the privileges then you can go ahead and submit the report. All right?

So, back to the life cycle of the MCHB grants. Talked about post-award reporting and now I’m going to ahead and quickly talk about the non-competing continuation process. I know that you’ll be doing this in the next few months and your focus right now is on the post-award report but I just want to go ahead and give you some information about your non-competing continuation because there has been some changes in the past year with this process.

Starting in January of 2006, all MCHB grants must submit their SF424 electronically through Grants.gov. Okay? This is a departure from the past. Because it used to be you used to submit your non-competing continuations only through the Electronic Handbooks and now you must be submitting both through Grants.gov and Electronic Handbooks. So now you have two systems, two deadlines, two registrations, two business processes, two helpdesks. Okay? It can get a little confusing as who you suppose to call about which question you have. So I have information at the end with the contact information for the Grants.gov call center and the HRSA call center. Okay?

So what is Grants.gov? Grants.gov is a website that the federal government uses to provide information about federal grants and it’s also a portal for submitting federal grant applications. Before you can submit your non-competing continuation, you must be registered in Grants.gov. Now, registration at Grants.gov is by organization. It’s not by grant as it is in the Electronic Handbook. So it’s by organization. So if your organization has different federal grants, it may already be registered in Grants.gov. So you’ll need to check it. Organization only needs to register once in Grants.gov. Now this application, this registration process can take some time. It can take almost a month. In some cases, a little bit more.

So, I highly recommend to go back next week and determine if your organization has been registered in Grants.gov and if it hasn’t been registered, to start the process now because you do have a couple of few months before your non-competing continuation and you just might as well get it done and over with now to make it sure everything’s in place so you could do your non-competing continuation.

Okay. HRSA’s Electronic Handbooks. By now, you all should know what HRSA’s Electronic Handbooks are. Most or all of you should be registered in the Electronic Handbooks. When you come to do your non-competing continuation, you will not need to register again. You only need to register once. To come in for your non-competing continuation, you will use your username and password for your non-competing continuation.

Now, a couple of points about HRSA’s Electronic Handbooks. Each person needs to be registered. Each person who’s going to be working on either the post-award report or the non-competing continuation must be registered on Electronic Handbooks. Okay?

It’s a two-part process. First, they’re going to register themselves then they’re going to link themselves to the organization. And I can’t stress enough, when you’re doing your registration process, to make sure you use your grant number. Because your grant number will link you up with the correct organization. A second point about registration in Electronic Handbooks is that your project director must be registered in the Electronic Handbooks. This person controls the grants and that person has to be registered in the system because the other one that starts the non-competing continuation, this person provides grants access to other participants on the grant to work on this application and the post-award report. If you have any questions at all about this, how to do the registration, please feel free to give me a call or call the HRSA call center and they can walk you through it.

Now, this is the overview of what actually happens now in your application process for your non-competing continuations. Again, this is your non-competing continuation. New applications only go through Grants.gov. Non-competing continuations go through Grants.gov and Electronic Handbooks. So, let’s say were doing a non-competing continuation. We’re going getting ready to start it and we registered in both systems and we’re ready to go. So the project director is going to receive a notice of funding announcement and once they receive this, they will be able to go into Grants.gov and start the application process. They will go in to Grants.gov, complete their SF424 and any other materials that they need to finish up in Grants.gov. Once that is completed in Grants.gov, the authorizing official of you organization will have to submit the application into Grants.gov. Okay? It’s not the project director. It’s going to be the authorizing official that’s going to submit the application in Grants.gov.

Once the data is submitted in Grants.gov before the deadline, the data will then be transferred over to HRSA’s Electronic Handbooks. During the time it could be a day or two at the most for this transfer, the project director and authorizing official will receive emails providing with the status of the transfer. Once the transfer is complete and the grant has been opened up with the electronic handbooks, the project director can go into her HRSA electronic hands books and start the non-competing continuations. Okay? They will then command and complete the application in electronic handbooks by providing the narratives and other information as well as your program specific information.

So, you’re going to electronic handbooks, you complete your supplemental data, and you submit that by the due date. Now, the project director can submit the application in EHP. It has not to be the authorizing official but the project director can submit it here. Once it has been submitted, you’ll need to print out the face sheet, have your authorizing official sign it and then send it in to HRSA grants office, which with your address is in your guides, and then you’re finished. It’s just an easy process? This provides a quick overview of what I just talked about. Also, in the back as I’ve said I have some, it’s called the tech note and that would provide more detailed information as to what you need to do to do your application for the non-competing continuation, and again, if you have any questions, call the call centers.

All right, so I’m going to quickly talk about what you’ll be needing to do for you the program specific information forms during the non-competing continuation. Now, how am talking now, I am assuming that all of you have completed your post-award report electronically by this time, okay? Because that will impact what you’ll need to do with your non-competing continuation. All right, so you’re going to come in to finish up your application by doing your program specific information forms. You come in, you complete your financial forms. Form one, you have to complete in entirety each year, that’s for the detailed budget for that application year. Forms two and forms four, you will come in, and you will just review the forms to make sure the budgets are still correct; there hasn’t been any modification for the post-award reports. If there’s changes make your changes, and go ahead and save the form. Okay? Form six and seven, your program forms, again, you’re going to come in and you’re going to review the forms to make sure all the information’s still correct.

If there’s any minute modifications, go ahead and make it at this time. Form six has one field asking for your experience to date for the previous grant year. Now, during your current year, you’re asking for funds for your next year, so you’re still in recurrent grant year and you’re reporting on that. So, you’re probably going to have provisional data, so go ahead and put that information that you have, and at the bottom of the page, there should be a button for either provisional or final. Okay? So you can go ahead and provide provisional information. As was form seven, form seven is asking for your product and dissemination. Again, you’re in your current year, your reporting year, so you may not have all the information, go ahead and put what you have.

Now, for those doing the additional data element injury EMS form, go ahead and complete that form. Again, you may have to provide provisional information, because you’re still in the year that you’re providing information on. For your performance majors, you will -- for performance major three you’ll add any additional publications since you’re post-award report. For the other performance majors, your review, your current and future objectives, and you will also provide provisional information for your indicator or scores.

All right, so as I have mentioned, we have two calls, we have two systems, and two information call centers. The first one is the grants.gov contact center. You will call these folks during your application period for your non-competing continuation, or new application, okay? You will not need to call them during your post-award reports. So, if you have questions about registering in the grants.gov, or how to complete your SF424, or your checklist in grants.gov, you’ll give this folks a call, or an email. If you have any questions about the supplemental information for your non-competing continuation, such as your budget narratives and your program specific information forms, you’ll give the HRAS call center a call.

And here’s our information, and also, if you have questions about your post-award reports, they’ll be able to give and help you out with any questions that you may have. That’s a quick, quick summary of what’s going to happen for your post-award report and for your non-competing continuation. Does anybody have any questions at this time? Yes.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Are we authorized in the organizational representatives?

MARY HOEL: Typically, each organization is different. Typically the project director, I do not believe is an authorizing official, but if it’s a small renovation, it may be. It’s the authorizing official is the person who officially signs off on grant requests.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Right. Before you are able to submit the grant in the AOR, correct?

MARY HOEL: Are you the project director?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: No.

MARY HOEL: I’m sorry.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: No.

MARY HOEL: No. Okay. In Grants.gov, it’s got to have to be the authorizing official that’s going to submit it. I don’t know if your -- if the project director and is the same person as AOR. Usually it’s not, but in some cases it can be. Okay?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: My other question is, now if we don’t submit the various continuations grant, do that (inaudible) do we actually have to sign before it goes to (inaudible)?

MARY HOEL: For your non-competing continuation? Yes, it’s going to -- your program narrative is going to be in the electronic handbooks.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: So the only thing in Grants.gov is all the standard form?

MARY HOEL: Basically, it’s going to be your SF424, and it’s going to be -- your going to -- there isn’t a- - you do need to do an attachment for your abstract. And that type really -- we’ve handed out -- there's a little note there that says you basically need to do one sentence thing attachment saying, “The abstract for this program can be found in the problem specific information form six”. That’s all you need to do in your attachment. But you will need to upload something because they won’t let you submit without an attachment. You don’t need to send your -- put your attachments at that time, you can just put that in one sentence attachment, and that will be -- and then you’ll do that in an electronic handbook. Okay. Yes?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: What’s the common workbook? How come it’s going to be official, it’s very, it’s usually the university now you’re going to have to do it like everybody to get their permission? I mean, if I had to submit the entire renewal and there's this signing up and before I have to get in, they have to be done there in this process, and it’s not in their process, even that’s actually you’ve done this grant implement.

MARY HOEL: I really don’t know the answer to that question. I mean, I have had this question before, and unfortunately, through the electronic system it’s a process. You can’t get to the electronic handbooks until the grants.gov portion that you have to submit it. So, I don’t know how you are going to be able to do it. You do have all the forms, and well, you don’t have all the forms, and your guidance, you do have all the programs (inaudible) information forms in your guidance, but unfortunately, it’s a step-by-step process that to be able to get that electronic handbooks, you would not be able to get the electronic handbooks until you submit it in Grants.gov. So, unfortunately, it sounds like you’re going to have to work with AOR to figure out how you are going to do this process now. I don’t think I answered your question. I apologize. Dean?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: There are usually the non-applications, what I’ve seen, is that information is doing Grants.gov on let’s say, June 1 electronic handbooks do, it’s due two weeks later -- it’s like--

MARY HOEL: Yes. I’m sorry. And I failed to say that it is correct. You have a -- the two deadlines do typically have a Grants.gov deadline and then two weeks later, you have your electronic handbooks deadline. Okay?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And that’s when the grant is complete once both of them?

MARY HOEL: Exactly. Once both of them has been submitted, one is that final EHB, then your grant has been considered complete. Yes? Yeah, go ahead.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: My question is about the electronic handbook and you have authorizing an official or organizational person who signs up over your agency and then you have a project director for each identified grant. Does the authorizing official for electronic handbooks have to approve each of the project directors for each of the grants? Identify?

MARY HOEL: If within your organization, I’m assuming it’s going to be by your organization. I don’t know how you’re organization works.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: No I mean electronically.

MARY HOEL: Oh, electronically?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Yes.

MARY HOEL: That’s why it’s important, when you register in EHP, that you use your grant number, because even your an authorizing official, when they register, they should use the grant number that you’re on. So that you both would be linked up to the same grant. Okay? Did that –

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: So. Okay. If your organization, let’s say you have signed up, and Person A leaves an agency, and now you need a new person, but in the interim, you got a entered this data by July 3rd. So, if I go ahead and register, is there an approval process that’s necessary for me to be able to get into EHB because my authorizing official is now no longer present?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: No. No.

MARY HOEL: Okay. No.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: That’s it? The second part to that is the project director has to approve another person to go into electronic handbooks, and doesn’t receive -- do they receive an e-mail?

MARY HOEL: Yes. Yes. What they’ll do -- are you finished with the question?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: No, well --

MARY HOEL: Okay.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: -- I’ll finish the last part.

MARY HOEL: Okay. What you’ll do is, as a project director, they’re going to come in, and they’re going to register, and they’re going to put the grants into their portfolio. Okay? It’s a process of doing that. The project director has to start that process. Once the project director has done that -- well, and then at the same time, the other team members on that grant can come in, and to register into electronic handbooks. They will also go through a process of adding the grants to their portfolio, but since they are not the project director -- what basically happens in this process is an e-mail will be sent to the project director saying, “Suzie Smith is asking for permission to work on this grant,” and if you’re a project director, you will receive that e-mail, and then you will go into that electronic handbooks, and grant that person permission to work on the grant.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: So, what happens if that e-mail isn’t received by the project director, but the person has already gone in to register?

MARY HOEL: Well, there’s the two-step process. First, you’re going to register, and then they have to go ahead and ask to add the grant to the portfolio. It’s adding -- it’s two processes. The registration process and then, adding the grant to the portfolio. That’s the second process they need to do, but if you don’t receive an e-mail -- if for some reason, the e-mail -- and the e-mail will be sent to whatever e-mail is on the project director’s portfolio. Okay? So, if that is an incorrect e-mail address, the project director will need to go in and update their profile to make sure they have the correct e-mail, but they should be able to still go in. If the person has gone through the process, and asking for permission electronically, they have to ask for it electronically, and if you -- if for some reason, your e-mail doesn’t come through because of incorrect e-mail address, I believe you can still go in, and go ahead and add that person to the grant, even though -- since they’ve already get, started the process electronically, okay?

If you have any further questions, you’re going to me ask me later on or you can also call the call center about that process. Okay? Somebody had a question, up here, I believe -- yes.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Must each form be completed in a sequential order?

MARY HOEL: No. Well, I stand corrected. For the financial forms, you only need to do form one first, then form two, and then form four. There’s a validation between the forms, so you need to do form one to able to go in to form two. It will not let -- if you go to form four first, it will come up the say, “You need to complete form one first,” so it won’t let you do the incorrect thing, but yes -- but other than that, the performance measures, and the abstracts, and the project specific -- program information, you can go whichever order you want to.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: So, the financial information is not completed if you go to down to the other --

MARY HOEL: Correct. Correct. Yes. Yes.

UNKNWON SPEAKER: Did I understand correctly that they’ll enter their financial information first in grants.gov, and then they have to re-enter again in the electronic handbook, or does it transfer?

MARY HOEL: Yes. It does transfer. The data that’s in the electronic handbooks, the data is transferred over -- from Grants.gov to the electronic handbooks.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Then, what happens to un-obligated -- what happens with un-obligated, carry forward, no cost extension dollars?

MARY HOEL: Are you talking about for a non-competing continuation or post-award report?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Non-competing continuation.

MARY HOEL: Non-competing continuation. You will -- in form one of the problem specific information, there’ll be a -- actually, that’s being pulled over from the electronic handbooks -- yes, so that information that you put -- entered will be brought into form one, and where you’ve entered it -- you don’t have to enter it several times. Once you’ve entered it, you’ve entered it. Okay? So, you only have to enter it the one time. So, if you enter it in Grants.gov -- I’m sorry. I’m not an expert in Grants.gov. I know the problem specific forms specifically but the data will be brought -- will transferred over correct to the specific forms, so if you do have un-obligated funds that you’re requesting, you do need to add that into your application process.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: But if I understand correctly, typically the carry forward dollars would not -- you would not be entering that in grants.gov. No.

MARY HOEL: As I say, you’re not -- do that in SF424. No. Okay. So, you’ll be doing that in the electronic handbooks. Okay? You’ll be a -- you’ll be doing your not – un-obligated funding in the electronic handbooks. There’ll be a place to enter that in there, and then when you come to do your problem specific information forms, the data that you’ve entered in one of those forms will be brought over to the financial forms in the problem specific information forms. Okay?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: So, that would be a new data entry for the grantee if they have carried forward this.

MARY HOEL: Yes.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Right?

MARY HOEL: Yes.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Just using the state partnership for example, like, I would say a state comes in November with their non-competing continuation and it’s for the $115,000.00 is what they’re requesting. Their request for carry over is separate from that, and that carryover, that un-obligated balance, you only need to enter in an electronic handbook.

MARY HOEL: But they can’t enter that until they’ve gotten notification from grants management if that’s been approved.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: That’s been approved. Correct.

MARY HOEL: Oh, well, okay. That’s separate. I was thinking that was more for the post-award report. For the application period, you can say I have 100 dollars of carryover funds, and that’s why I’m going to be requesting for un-obligated balance. Is that correct?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Sure, you could. Yeah, you could do that, but sometimes, that process doesn’t happen at the same time as when people are putting in their applications.

MARY HOEL: Okay, so that’s the way the system was built. That was our understanding of the system, so if you knew that you were going to have some un-obligated funds after non-competing continuation, that’s when you would ask for it. And then when you do your post-award report, hopefully by that time, you will have received a new NGA with the un-obligated balance at that point in time. Okay? That’s how the system was built.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And then when you have that new NGA, then you can enter. Let’s say 115,000 is what you’re getting for year two and then 20,000 is your carryover, and then you can take your NGA and then enter that information in the electronic handbook.

MARY HOEL: Okay. Are there any questions? Yes.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: There’re some of us, I think there are nine of us that are in the final year for our grant, and so we’ll be submitting a new grant this year.

MARY HOEL: Okay.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Now as I understand it, we’ll submit the new grant through grants.gov.

MARY HOEL: Correct.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: You said that in the continuation grant, the information automatically goes over the electronic handbooks. If you’re in a situation where you’re submitting new, does it automatically go over?

MARY HOEL: No. You will not be. For your grants to -- I’m sorry, I have to do this. I can’t see you.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: It’s fortunate for me that you can’t.

MARY HOEL: I’m being videotaped, so I want to make sure that -- for the new applications, you do not need to -- you will not be doing your electronic handbooks, so you will only do the information in Grants.gov. You will not be doing your program-specific information for a new application. When you receive funding, once you receive your award --

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Then you’ll have to add the grant to your portfolio and --

MARY HOEL: And then you will go in and you will supply your program data at the time. So basically, four months after you -- your NGA, you’ll come in and provide that information. Now, the thing is, once you first go into electronic handbooks, it may take you a little bit of time, probably not a lot of time, but some time to complete your forms. But once you’ve got that data in, you’re set. You just going to have to basically update and modify and provide your expenditure data and stuff. So the first time’s a little longer, but in future times, doing your postal report and your non-competing continuations it’ll be much less time because your data’s already there.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: So new grants, Grant’s.gov. You don’t need to worry about it. For non-competing continuations, you need to worry about grants.gov and electronic handbooks.

MARY HOEL: Correct, correct. And I can’t urge enough right now for you folks to go back and check to make sure that your organization is registered in grants.gov. There have been some hiccups, like they don’t have Dan’s number. There’re some hiccups and it can take some time. All right? So I would highly recommend going back and checking to make sure your organization is registered. If not, get your organization registered. Yes, there’s a question at the back.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: First, it used to have to be signed for guarantee of non-construction, guarantee of non-smoking environment. Are those now electronically signed or do we need to print, have those signed and send them with the face sheet?

MARY HOEL: Yes, you’re going to have to. Yes, you will need to print out the face sheet and have it authorized, an official sign the form, and then hardcopy mail that in into the grants management office.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And is that done through grants.gov for the initial application, or do those forms need to be signed annually with each non-competitive?

MARY HOEL: Yes, the second one.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Okay.

MARY HOEL: With each non-competitive, you’re going to print out the face sheet from the electronic handbooks and then sign it.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: When you say face sheet, you mean those seven or eight pages with the four different places for signature?

MARY HOEL: I believe so. Is that correct, Dan? Okay.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Thank you.

MARY HOEL: I know what is the face sheet, so any other questions? Yes.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: (Inaudible).

MARY HOEL: Congratulations.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I want to look back about a week later and use what I have put in.

MARY HOEL: Right.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: (Inaudible)

MARY HOEL: You should be able to. There should be a link at the bottom. Let’s say View Report. It wouldn’t let you do that. Okay. Well once it’s submitted, you should be able to come back and view it. I will check with our technical folks when I get back today to make sure that link is working. But you should have at the bottom, I think there should be a link that says View Report.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: It let me for like a day.

MARY HOEL: It let you for a day.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And then I went back a week later. I don’t know. I don’t want to go print that.

MARY HOEL: Right.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And it wouldn’t let me.

MARY HOEL: Okay, let me. If I can talk to you afterwards, I can check and get your contact information, and I can look into it and let you know. Because I believe you should be able to view it after you submitted it, even though after a week or more later. Okay, I’ll let you know. One more question?

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Yeah, (Inaudible) continuation is not as bad as a deal, but when it is a competing, a lot of us have our internal peer review process that we have to. How soon before that grant announcement comes out can individuals go into grants.gov, get our budget sheets done on that because a budget has to go to your fiscal people to get approval, the grant itself has to go through other people for peer review. What is the time frame? Because for some of us, our states says we have to have that a month in advance. I want to know, do I need to start priming the pump and say, “Hey, that isn’t going to happen with these grants.”

MARY HOEL: You won’t be able to get into if you’re talking about a new application. Correct? Okay. You will not be able to get in electronically until the funding announcement has been released. And that means that’s when the guidance has been released. If you do, you should. I mean we refer to Dan on this one. If you know that it’s coming up and you may have the information, you could probably go ahead and start the process, but you can’t do it electronically.

Now, however, you typically have at least a month once you receive your funding announcement to have your grants.gov due date. And that’s typically a non-competing continuation. With new rewards, it’s usually much longer, isn’t it? It’s usually 60 days. So that’s quite some time. Does that answer your question? Okay. All right. Well, I thank you for your time, and as I say, I’ll be here. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask me and I’ll be around. Okay? Have a good day.