Taking Advantage of Grants.gov’s Team-Focused Workspace Features

Grants.gov Workspace allows applicant teams to easily collaborate on federal funding opportunity applications and get their submissions across the finish line.

Since many applicant teams find themselves working remotely these days, we want to highlight Workspace features that, along with the Grants.gov Mobile App, can assist applicant teams and help to streamline collaboration.

HHS to Lead Efforts to Transform the Federal Grants Management Process and Systems

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) officially designated Grants.gov’s managing agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as a Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) for Grants Management.

With this designation, HHS will lead efforts to transform the federal grants management process end-to-end, including the four Grants Management Service Areas: Pre-Award, Award, Post-Award, and Closeout.

Other Quality Service Management Offices designated by OMB cover Cybersecurity Services, Core Financial Management, Compensation Management, Work Schedule and Leave Management Services.

New: Sign in to Grants.gov with Your Login.gov Credentials

Grants.gov is always looking for ways to improve our users’ experience. We recently added an option for users who would like to sign in to Grants.gov with their Login.gov username and password.

Login.gov is used by over 60 applications at 17 federal agencies and allows users to access multiple government websites, including Grants.gov, with a single username and password.

How to Add a New Organization Profile on Grants.gov

Grants.gov user registration is quick, easy, and free of charge.  However, applicant users who are adding a new organization profile to their Grants.gov account must first ensure that they have a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number and that their organization has registered with the System for Award Management (SAM).

What follows is a quick guide to making sure that you have everything you need to add a new organization profile to Grants.gov: a DUNS Number, a SAM registration, and Grants.gov account to which you want to associate the new organization.

3 Tips for Registering as an Organization Applicant on Grants.gov

Editor’s Note: This blog post was first published in 2019 and updated on June 9, 2020.

If you need to register an account with Grants.gov for the first time, you will find the process relatively straightforward. All the standard fields you would expect are there, such as Name, Email Address, Phone Number, Username and Password.

That said, there are a few tips you will want to keep in mind when you arrive at the Registration page.

 

1. You’ll need a strong password containing no dictionary words.

The password requirements for creating a Grants.gov user account are as follows (pay special attention to the last requirement, which we have italicized):

“Your password must contain at least eight characters including: at least one uppercase letter (A-Z); at least one lowercase letter (a-z); at least one number (0-9); and at least one special character (e.g. ! @ # $ % ^ & *). Your password must not contain dictionary words, names, or your Username.”

5 Essential Grants.gov Resources for New Federal Grant Applicants

When you apply for a federal grant on Grants.gov, help is always just a click away – no matter what screen you are on you can click a blue help icon which opens a new window with relevant articles. New applicants have several other help-related resources that they will want to bookmark for quick and easy access.

Video: An Introduction to UEI on the Grants.gov System

You may have noticed that the field previously labeled DUNS within Grants.gov is now labeled UEI.

What is this change all about?

Recently, Grants.gov has published several blog posts about this topic.  You can view those by clicking: What is the Unique Entity Identifier (UEI)? and How Grants.gov Is Preparing for SAM’s Rollout of the Unique Entity Identifier (UEI).

Here’s what’s happening

The General Services Administration (GSA), is in the process of changing the current ID numbers, previously called DUNS Numbers assigned through System for Award Management, to a new Unique Entity Identifier or UEI number.

Online Help: Adding a New Profile to a Grants.gov Applicant Account

Editor’s Note: This blog post was first published in 2019 and updated on April 9, 2020.

If you work for, or consult with, multiple applicant organizations, you can create separate profiles for each organization – all under one account.

Each profile may be assigned different roles, depending on the nature of your work at each organization. And all profiles are accessible under a single Grants.gov account, eliminating the need to maintain separate system accounts.

Release Preview: Unique Entity Identifier, Login.gov Integration & More

This blog post was updated on March 21, 2020, to note that Login.gov integration will be turned on in the coming weeks, following the release.

In mid-March, Grants.gov will roll out its Release 18.1 system enhancements. These enhancements include new integration with Login.gov, the ability to narrow searches via a new category called Opportunity Zone Benefits, and field label changes that will lay the foundation for the planned December rollout of the Unique Entity Identifier by the System for Award Management (SAM.gov).

 

Login.gov Integration

With Release 18.1, applicants will be able to link a Login.gov account to their Grants.gov account. [Editor’s Note: Login.gov integration will be turned on in the coming weeks, following the release.]

The process for doing this will be simple: A user will click the Login.gov button (pictured here) and enter a Login.gov username and password on the next screen.  The user will then be directed back to Grants.gov to log in with their Grants.gov username and password and complete the account linking process.

After linking the two accounts, users will be able to access Grants.gov using their Login.gov credentials, if they choose.

 

User Story Collection: How the Federal Grants Community Uses Grants.gov

Note: This blog post was originally published in 2018 and updated on February 7, 2020.

The characters in our User Story Blog Series may not have super-powers, but – thanks to the ways they use the Grants.gov system – they are able to save time and increase their efficiency.

Here, we collect all of the user story posts we have published in the series.