Executive Summary

This December 2015 Grants Management Application Suite (GMAS) release will be available to users on Monday, December 14, 2015. This regularly scheduled release is the second official release in support of the GMAS 2.0 project.

Highlighted features of this release:

• Newly designed segment homepage: GMAS is now updated with a redesigned segment homepage. The redesign brings additional information front and center including highlighting dates and dollars, segment actions, and links to existing GMAS screens. The redesign allows for easier navigation, provides fewer clicks to receive information and highlights upcoming and/or outstanding activities.  The new segment homepage redesign represents the top user priority that emerged from the user research in the early phases of the GMAS 2.0 project.
• Converted screens: This release also delivered converted screens including the approval list, view and edit COI approval, view OAR approval, revision detail, edit equipment information, and error pages (GMAS, concurrency and security errors). These converted screens will have the new GMAS 2.0 look-and-feel and the updated technology.
• Changes in response to our user survey: In September 2015, a user survey was conducted to gauge satisfaction of the new GMAS 2.0 designs. As a result of this feedback, GMAS now accommodates narrower browser widths by making the page layout more “fluid” and the spacing across the design will be decreased to reduce vertical scrolling. Users will continue to navigate between old and new screen designs through the end of the project as we redesign and convert the remainder of the system.
  

GMAS will be unavailable to users from 11:00PM EST on Friday, December 12, 2015 through the start of business at 9:00AM EST on Monday, December 14, 2015.
The next GMAS release is tentatively scheduled for the March/April 2016 timeframe. Proposed features for that release includes updating the Grants.gov forms to keep aligned with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) new forms in order to continue to provide support for our system-to-system (S2S) users. The other area of focus is the next major business priority supporting the GMAS 2.0 project: document repositories. Additional enhancements and bug fixes will also be part of the 1_41 release.

Additional Release Details
Details regarding this release were published in the December eNews and to the the Releases section on the GMAS website, which also includes links to job aids. To receive the latest GMAS news, subscribe to our blog. Visit this page to see more information regarding the GMAS 2.0 project.

Please contact the GMAS help desk (email: contactgmas@harvard.edu, phone: 6-2001) with any questions or requests for assistance.

Segment home

 This release introduces a newly designed segment homepage.Please refer to the following job aids for details on the new design. 

• Overview of Segment Homepage
• Understanding the Segment Homepage - Work In Process Section
• Top Segment Homepage Activities
• Edit Equipment Process Overview

Segment homepage highlights:

The Dates and Dollars section has moved and been expanded. In addition to obligated and anticipated dates and dollars, information will also display for at-risk and cost shared expenses. 

Work in process

The work in process section provides one consolidated location for segment to-do’s and alerts.

• Requests not yet submitted
• Submitted requests (not awarded)

Key information

The key information area highlights the following approvals and flags: 

• Animals
• Human subjects
• Special equipment
• ARRA
• Additional staff/space
• Administrative salaries
• Agency fund
• Biohazards/rDNA
• Cost sharing
• Harvard is a subrecipient
• Institutional authorities
• Matching funds
• PI's appointment expire
• SNAP
• Stem cells
• Uniform guidance
• Use of school name
• Foreign currency
• Foreign/Overseas

General

A new error message will appear for all errors (including new and old GMAS pages) that will provide a user-friendly message and the ability to send the message to the GMAS help desk with one click. When someone, without proper security, logs into GMAS he/she is provided a link to their 'GMAS Authorized Requestor' and the Participation Agreement.

On the new GMAS screens, users will now be able to resize their browser window.

Converted screens

A number of screens have been converted to the new GMAS 2.0 look and feel. Below is the full list of converted screens introduced by this release:

• Past action memo (formerly Past revision)  
• Approvals list
• View COI approval
• Edit COI approval
• Login Security error
• Edit sponsor equipment terms
• OAR approval view

Retired Screens / Forms

The following screens have been retired:

• View equipment information
• Segment closeout confirmation
• Segment to-do's
• Segment sponsor contacts

Grants.gov

• Upgraded to use Grants.gov S2S version 2.0 (http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/s2s/applicant/versions-wsdls.html)
• Older Grants.gov forms no longer in use have been retired from GMAS
• Grants.gov/system-to-system submissions now include the new Office for Sponsored Programs office address.
  

Equipment

• The Edit Equipment screen (available from the segment homepage) has been enhanced to include new options for sponsor equipment terms that apply to an award: 
  • Government -titled Equipment (GTE) - property purchased, or fabricated, with federal funds to which the government retains title.
  • Government - furnished Property (GFP) - property in the possession of, or directly acquired by, the government and subsequently furnished to the contractor for performance of a contract.
  • Project specific reporting required to the sponsor.
  • Other (includes a text box to provide other equipment terms that may be unusual)
• Sponsor equipment terms that apply to an award can only be entered/edited by Central users when the special equipment flag is set to yes in a segment revision. 
  • Note that any data entered will be deleted if a subsequent segment revision changes the special equipment flag from yes to no.

Bug Fixes

• Change default fCOI approval status (if it doesn't match any category) to Check Status
• Fixed a bug on Event history for Notice Logged, it now correctly records the name of the person who logged the notice instead of displaying the text "GMAS".
• Fixed a bug on S2S Subagreement R&R Budget preview, the cumulative budget now displays properly in preview instead of displaying line items as blank.
• Fixed a bug on Segments with multiple request versions. When version 2 is closed, awarding version 1 now changes the segment status to "Active".
• Fixed a bug which prevented accounts from being sent to the GL when the 'send account to the GL' box is checked and unchecked in the same revision.
• Fixed system error by preventing the Prime PI person profile from being deleted when they are associated to a request.
• Fixed a bug which prevented the user from uploading grants.gov attachments which were non-PDF documents.
• Fixed a bug which displaying subagreements (on requests in Closed statuses) in revisions.
• When the text entry on the description field for create and edit amendment screens go beyond the 240 character limit a validation message displays on the screen.
• When there is more than one subagreement with the same institution in the same segment and both (or all) do not have a description a validation message displays on the screen.
• Fixed a bug to prevent multiple versions of the same request (version 1 and version 2 for example) from being associated to a notice.
• System was fixed so at-risk accounts can only be associated with the request version that created that request. Where there are multiple requests, only one version can have an at-risk account and only that version can be awarded.
• Fixed bug which appeared when attempting to upload documents using the 'select new file (browse)' feature in the document repository using Internet Explorer 10 and 11. 
• Grants.gov forms now map to Canadian provinces.
• Fixed bug on edit amendment screen to allow parenthesis as negative dollar amounts.
• Fixed bug to allow subagreement descriptions (without spaces and over 24 characters) to display properly on subagreement list screen.
• Fixed bug which auto populated the Uniform guidance flag value to 'No' the first time a revision was created.
• Fixed a bug related to subagreements. When funds are removed from a subagreement budget on the Edit Awarded Dollars by Category screen, and there isn't a subagreement drafted, the status correctly rolls back to "Pending sponsor approval" instead of remaining in the "Sponsor approved, sub pending"

Administrative Module

• Added a page to manage segment work in process
  

Technical

• GMAS Oracle Database 12C upgrade
• JDK 8 upgrade for GMAS servers
• Upgrade GMAS Interface to use JDK 1.8.0_51
• WebLogic 12.1.3 upgrade for GMAS servers

December 21, 2015
Stabilization release 1_40_07 addressed the following bugs:

• Fixed a system error that could occur when starting a new segment revision.
• Notification emails now have the correct subject line.
• Cost share approvals now link to the correct screen.
• Fixed an interface error related to withdrawn OAR COI approvals.

January 14, 2016
Stabilization release 1_40_08 addressed the following bugs:

• Grants.gov opportunity lookup no longer presents an error for lowercase letters.
• Open revisions with carryforward now appear correctly on the segment home.
• Research team page now shows whether the team has been confirmed or not.  

February 17, 2016
Exception release 1_40_09

• COI approvals on PHS projects are now updating to the correct status based on changes in the FCOI system.