Applicant S2S Growing as Grants.gov Transitions to Adobe

By Jen Flach

While many in the grants community are in a holding pattern as Grants.gov transitions from PureEdge to Adobe, system-to-system (S2S) implementations for submitting applications to Grants.gov continue to grow.  Around 300 applicant S2S organizations are now registered in the Grants.gov production system, an increase of about 200 since mid-December 2006.  Grants.gov estimates that an additional 50 have accounts in the Grants.gov test environment.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that nearly 18 percent of applications were submitted using S2S solutions for the July 5 submission deadline of NIH’s largest grant program. The comparable figure was 10 percent for the February 5 submission deadline. To date, more than 100 organizations have submitted applications to NIH using S2S solutions, NIH reports.

For those new to Grants.gov:  There are two main types of interfaces provided by Grants.gov for accepting applications from grant seekers.  Abode and Pure Edge are examples of just one type -- namely the person-to-system interface.  In this scenario, Grants.gov provides downloadable software for the end user to install and then use to prepare and transmit applications directly to Grants.gov. The second type of interface is system-to-system (S2S) in which Grants.gov provides a web services interface for automated submission. This option enables grantee organizations to use in-house or third-party software for grant application submission to Grants.gov.  It removes the applicants’ dependence on Grants.gov’s choice of forms software.  See http://www.grants.gov/applicant_s2s/applicant_system_to_system.jsp for background on the Grants.gov S2S program.

It is not surprising that Grants.gov and Adobe are still ironing out the timing and specifics involved of the PureEdge to Adobe transition.  This is a major undertaking and the devil is in the details, as is often the case with any large change in technology used in an enterprise system like Grants.gov.  This leaves many in the grantee community still asking questions like: What version of Adobe will applicants need to use?  How different is the look and feel of Adobe compared to PureEdge?  When will all the form sets be available in Adobe? When will agencies stop accepting PureEdge applications?

Unlike their counterparts who have been relying on Pure Edge, applicants using S2S solutions are not stressing over these uncertainties.  Grants.gov summed it up in the July 19, 2007, Grants.gov Stakeholder Webcast Questions/Comments (http://www.grants.gov/assets/WebcastQ&A071907.pdf):

“Question 39. What effect will the Adobe forms have on system to system submissions between applicants and grants.gov?

None, please refer to the applicant release notes for more information http://grants.gov/assets/ApplicantReleaseNotes070207.pdf.”

Applicant S2S developers may not be entirely immune to changes in the migration to the Grants.gov 2007 system.  For instance, some skepticism lingers as whether Grants.gov can replace the PureEdge “form within a form” functionality without a schema change or otherwise affecting the applicant S2S interface; however, Grants.gov and Adobe appear dedicated to tackling this problem despite the challenges.  In any case, the transition to Grants.gov 2007 will be relatively smoother and largely transparent to applicant S2S end users who will not need to adjust to new forms software.

One of the biggest benefits of Grants.gov’s person-to-system interface is it’s free; however, the investment in a system-to-system approach can justify the cost, by affording greater control over the grant applicant’s submission experience, especially for those submitting applications regularly to Grants.gov. 

Stay tuned for more blog postings on applicant and agency S2S topics…