Personal profiles: not just for online dating

Save yourself – and those with whom you collaborate – some valuable time: update your personal profile in eRA Commons.  When you’re submitting an application through ASSIST, your senior/key personnel fields can autopopulate from your profile, as your Commons ID is linked. Keeping your personal profile updated ensures that the contact and personal information sent with any application has already been sanctioned by you.  So where do you go to ensure you are up-to-date?  First, log in to eRA Commons, and find the “Personal Profile” link in the blue menu bar:

 

This will take you to a menu that allows you to update all of your personal information.  Some of this populates to ASSIST, some of it does not:

* note: “REVIEWER INFORMATION” is one place to find your Continuous Submission status 🙂 

 

Here are some key points to keep in mind as you consider your personal profile:

• The “EMPLOYMENT” section populates your contact address, and NIH wants three years of history for PIs, and at least one entry for trainees and admins.  NIH states, “this information is vital to NIH and its SROs for determining any conflicts of interest with applications.”
• Be sure your institutional affiliation is correct! Did you bring your Commons ID with you to Wayne State from a former institution?  You may have to change your affiliation. Go to the “Home” screen and check out your name and affiliation in the top right corner.  If the institution listed under your ID is static (no link), call SPA to have your affiliation switched. If your institution is incorrect and it is linked (blue underline), you may be able to change it yourself by clicking on it:

 

As an aside, when filling out your ASSIST applications: two fields that will NOT autopopulate from your profile are “Division” and “Department.”  To be sure that you get proper credit for each:

• Division field: Be sure that you’re using an acceptable major component code (“School of Medicine” or “School of Public Health,” for instance).  Not sure where your categorized?  Check out the “NIH Acceptable Major Component Code and Major Component Combining Names.”
• Department field: This is where you use “NIH Acceptable Combining Code & Department Combining Names” (such as “Neurology” or “Microbiology/Immun/Virology”).

 

Confused by what you need to include?  Never fear, RAS is here to help walk you through the steps!

Well, That Was Unexpected: PD/PI Credential Error

Federal government systems are constantly evolving, and sometimes what was fine yesterday is an error today.  During the submission process for an SF424 on Monday, we received the following error, even though the PD/PI eRA Commons ID was very clearly and correctly present in the proper field:

 

NIH has received the electronic grant application Grants.gov Tracking # GRANT00000000 / PI XXXXXXX. NIH was unable to process your application because it was missing critical information required by NIH. NIH requires that the PD/PI’s correct eRA Commons User ID be entered in the ‘Credential’ field for the PD/PI on the R&R Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) component of the application.

Because the Credential field was not completed accurately, your application was considered incomplete; therefore the eRA Commons could not fully check the application against the instructions in the application guide and the funding opportunity announcement. You may receive new error and/or warning messages once you submit a changed/corrected application to Grants.gov.

 

After some trial and error, and intrepid GCO found that re-entering the eRA Commons ID in all capital letters (‘GSMITH’ instead of ‘gsmith’) allowed the application to go through.  As a precautionary measure, you may wish to use all caps on your PD/PI credentials going forward!

Something You Can Identify With

Ah, the “Credential” field in the SF424.  This little line has sent many an administrator scrambling at the last second, calling for hasty assigning of eRA Commons log-ins for unregistered key personnel:

 

Not including the credential/login for Senior/Key Personnel is, after all one of the most generated sources of error in electronic submission.  In fact, it is so prevalent that NIH lists it as #3 on their “Ten Checks to Help Avoid Common Errors.”   And when a subawardee is also a key person and doesn’t have a login, we set outside instutions to scrambling for IDs as well. But here’s a little secret: your suncontract key person doesn’t necessarily have to have an eRA Commons login to include him/her as a “Senior/Key Person.”

 

Shock!  Scandal!  No really, it’s true.  On the “Frequently Asked Questions” page for Applying Electronically, NIH states in section I.C.6:

 

6. For consortium/subawards, do the sub-awardees need to be registered with eRA Commons and Grants.gov?
Sub-awardees are not required to register. However, we do encourage them to be proactive and register to be ready to serve as primary awardees in the future.

 

That said, you can’t leave the “Credential” field blank if your subaward key person doesn’t have a login; you will still trigger the error and this could prevent your application from being submitted by the deadline.  If you find yourself with a subaward key person with no login, the easiest workaround is to enter the person’s first initial and last name in the “Credential” field, so the system does not trigger an error for a blank requirement.  If, for instance, you have a subaward to Dr. Sam Samson from the University of Madagascar (many investigators from Madagascar, we have found, do not have eRA Commons log-ins), in his credential field you can enter “SSAMSON”:

 

Please note that this only applies to subcontracts/subawards; signing officials and the PD/PI(s) must be registered in the NIH eRA Commons in order to submit. And, in the case of multi-project applications, the component leads must also be registered.  Give us a shout if you are unclear as to whether you can submit without an agency credential on a certain person; we’re happy to help you troubleshoot!