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GMAS Release 1_44

May 19, 2017

Executive Summary

The May 2017 Grants Management Application Suite (GMAS) release will be available to users on Monday, May 22, 2017. This regularly scheduled release is the last official release in support of the GMAS 2.0 project. This release represents significant changes to entry for initial and competing renewal proposals, formerly known as the “Request Guided Steps.” The main objective is to streamline entry so that department administrators can enter core data as efficiently as possible and get their proposal started. In doing so, we are retiring a number of screens.

Highlighted features of this release:

Streamlined Proposal Entry:

Streamlined, efficient proposal entry emerged as a top priority for the GMAS 2.0 project. These enhancements were determined and guided by members of the GMAS 2.0 Business Steering Committee along with the Project Leadership team and many users who participated in numerous user workshops and usability testing.
A new proposal entry screen for initial and competing renewal proposals means that users will use one (1) screen, down from the current twenty-two (22). The screen includes numerous features such as:

  • Budget period auto-calculation with the option for overrides
  • Smarter org and PI look-ups based on user security
  • Included tool tips and help content to aid users in answering questions

New Proposal Homepage:

To go along with the more efficient proposal entry, a new homepage has been developed with the goal of highlighting needed actions. The new proposal homepage (for initial and competing renewals) includes:

  • A status bar indicating status and progress
  • The “date due to central” aligned with the University Area and Longwood proposal deadlines to the submitting sponsored offices
  • Some patterns from the Segment homepage, including key information

The Documents panel now allows users to download and upload right from the page. This feature was introduced for the new proposal homepage, but will be available across all document repositories.
Last, but not least, GMAS will now time out after 60 minutes of inactivity (up from the current 30 minutes).  For full details of this release, please see the full release notes below.

GMAS will be unavailable to users from 7:00PM EST on Friday, May 19, 2017 through the start of business at 9:00AM EST Monday, May 22, 2017.

The next GMAS release is tentatively scheduled for the September 2017 timeframe. Proposed features the migration of GMAS to the HUIT Cloud and enhancements to support the entry and tracking of committed effort. For more information about HUIT’s Cloud Program, visit this website. Additional enhancements and bug fixes will also be part of the September release. More information to come!
 

Additional Release Details

Details regarding this release will be published in eNews; job aids supporting the new screens and features will be posted to theUser Resources section of the GMAS website. 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) with any questions or requests for assistance.

 

New proposal entry screen for Initial and Competing Renewal Proposals

  • New functionality added:
    • Organization look-up field limits based on an individual’s security
    • PI/Mentor look-up field limits based on an individual’s security
    • Sponsor look-up field matches on any part of the full name and/or acronym
    • Prime PI and Prime Sponsor fields only show if Harvard is identified as a subrecipient
    • Budget periods auto-populate in twelve-month increments based on the start date and number of budget periods entered (these can be manually overwritten)

Proposal home

  • Changed name from ‘Request homepage’ to either ‘Initial proposal’ or ‘Competing renewal’ respectively
  • Proposals can be switched from fellowship to other proposal types (and the reverse) 
  • New functionality added:
    • Status bar indicating proposal status
    • Summary section highlighting important dates
    • Add a new Due to Central date
    • Actions required section identifies required fields
    • Primary buttons suggested next actions
    • Key information section
  • Added new approval attribute question, “Is there a foreign/overseas component, including foreign subagreements?”
  • Removed UDO approval question
  • Removed PI Appointment termination question from approvals

Person profile homepage converted

Changes to the screen were as follows:

  • Added fCOI update button in COI disclosure panel
  • Add and Edit screens are now pop-up modals
  • Removal of ‘Human participant training’ from page
  • Removal of ‘Responsible conduct of research’ from page 

Converted Screens

  • Person profile
  • Initial proposal request home
  • Competing renewal request home

Other fixes and improvements

  • Document repository panels now allow for upload and download right from the panel
  • Clicking on panel bar opens the panel on all converted screen (not +/- icon)
  • Increased GMAS time out 30 to 60 minutes
  • On Budget entry screen changed the date/time source for "Last budget submission" to reflect the date the reconciliation job ran
  • Updated Grants.gov Opportunity lookup and submissions to accept https protocol
  • When converted screens time out, a pop-up modal now appears to alert user
  • Moved the ‘log out’ to the bottom of the drop-down (located under user's name in global header) 

Bug Fixes

  • Concurrency errors now correctly display on converted screens
  • Fixed breadcrumb error on segment search
  • Fixed bug which caused cached Admin team from prior revision to display on current notification
  • Fixed bug which caused global search to pre-populated with term user did not enter
  • Fixed bug which duplicates segment number when a previous segment is deleted and another segment is added
  • Fixed bug in global header search which incorrectly searches project/segment number when user enters a title which contains a hyphen
  • Fixed bug on the person profile which results in an unhandled exception error, caused by the value entered in the state address field from the PeopleSoft feed
  • Fixed bug which resulted in unhandled exception errors after committing revisions or drafting subagreement amendments

Retirement

21 screens from Request Guided Steps (RGS)

  • Add research team member (RGS)
  • Request Cancel Confirmation
  • Request Cancel Confirmation
  • Finish RGS
  • Create initial request introduction
  • Enter request identifying information
  • Enter request dates
  • RGS subagreement list
  • RGS subagreement details
  • RGS Interfaculty Involvement
  • RGS Edit approval questions
  • RGS Research team list
  • RGS Admin team list
  • RGS Select Budget Template
  • Enter dates (RGS)
  • Budget approvals RGS
  • Add team member RGS
  • Request submission details
  • Request submission details
  • Edit school specific info
  • Grants.gov opportunity lookup (RGS)

4 screens from Request home

  • Edit request identifying information
  • Edit submission requirements
  • Edit submission requirements
  • Grants.gov budget change confirmation

11 screens from person profile

  • Edit person profile
  • Add/edit person address
  • Add/edit person email
  • Add/edit person phone number
  • Edit human subjects training
  • View human subjects approval
  • Add/edit person degrees
  • Add/edit person credentials
  • Add/edit person job
  • Edit RCR person approval
  • Participation agreement 

Interfaces

  • Fixed “Lazy loading” issue which prevented CSMA Daily recon interface from running
  • Update GMAS URL sent in OAR interface 

Administrative Module

  • ‘Due to OSP’ dates from Initial and Competing renewal home are now configurable from the application front-end 

Technical

  • Converted "Request authorized" event (for Initial Requests)
  • Converted event for foreign/overseas approval
  • Replaced SSL certifications on application servers

 

 

June 2, 2017
Stabilization release 1_44_01 addressed the following bugs:

Bug fixes

  • Fixed bug to clear all budget amounts on a proposal when validating a grants.gov opportunity after a budget has been entered. 
  • Fixed bug which caused the administrative team to reset when editing proposal information.
  • Fixed a security bug that was preventing users from selecting “Revise to resubmit” from a proposal.
  • Fixed global search so that navigation goes directly to a segment homepage when searching for a project id and selecting <Enter>.
  • Fixed an issue where search criteria was not being saved properly when using breadcrumbs to navigate in and out of search results.
  • Removed + signs that were appearing in the budget section of the proposal entry screen. 

 

 

June 8, 2017
Stabilization release 1_44_02 addressed the following bugs:

Bug fixes

  • Fixed bug on the "Edit proposal information" screen that resulted in the COI approval disappearing.
  • Fixed bug which caused the inclusion enrollment form to map incorrect totals to the PDF preview on system to system proposals.
  • Fixed logic on person email addresses to be more flexible (validates that there is an "@" symbol and a ".").

 

July 13, 2017

Stabilization release 1_44_03 addressed the following bugs:

Bug fixes

  • Fixed bug which incorrectly generated approvals for OAR and COI when TBD Investigator is added to research team
  • Fixed additional bugs related to associating a TBD with an 'Investigator flag' to a proposal
  • Fixed bug which prevented people from being added to notifications list when committing a revision
  • Fixed typo on Discipline drop down placeholder text (located on initial request home page and request information edit screens)
  • Fixed bugs caused by changing values on the edit proposal information screen