Big Changes coming to GMAS on May 22, 2017!

GMAS will be unavailable starting at 7pm Friday May 19^th for a new release. It will become available again for the start of business on Monday, May 22, 2017. Changes for the upcoming release include:

• A new proposal entry screen for Initial Proposals and Competing Renewals
  • The initial and competing renewal entry steps will be reduced from 22 screens to 1
  • Benefits of the new entry screen include:
    • Smarter ORG look-up that will limit based on an individual’s security
    • Smarter PI/Mentor look-up that will limit based on an individual’s security
    • New Sponsor look-up which matches on any part of the full name and/or acronym
    • Prime PI and Prime Sponsor fields now only show and are required if the person entering the proposal indicates that Harvard is a subrecipient
    • Budget periods auto populate in twelve month increments based on the start date and number of budget periods entered (twelve month calculations can be manually overwritten)
    • Less data required to get to the proposal homepage
    • Proposals can be switched from fellowship to other proposal types (and the reverse), via the “Edit proposal information” screen, prior to being awarded
    • Help content included to provide guidance and clarity

     *Note that all other request types will still follow the old entry process pending future releases.

• A new proposal homepage screen for Initial Proposals and Competing Renewals
  • Benefits of the new entry screen include:
    • Clear indication of proposal status and step in the submission process
      • Status bar indicating proposal status
      • Due to central and sponsor dates, locked and routed dates, submitted dates, closed and awarded dates all provided in a summary at the top of the proposal
      • Suggested next action in moving the proposal along on the “happy” path, with other options condensed under a secondary action button
      • Ability to see actions even if you cannot perform them (buttons will show disabled and indicate a security restriction)
      • Actions required section identifying fields that must be completed prior to being able to lock and route for signatures
    • Important information about the proposal highlighted
      • Key information section highlighting the yes responses to the approval questions, if Harvard is a subrecipient, and if the proposal has already been submitted to the sponsor (retroactive)
      • If the proposal is Under Review or Authorized, signatures will default towards the top of the proposal in an open state

*Note that all other request types will still have the old request homepage pending future releases. There will also be a back and forth of old and new screens from the new Initial and Competing Renewal homepages.

• A new approval attribute question, “Is there a foreign/overseas component, including foreign subagreements?”, and approval are being added to Initial Proposal and Competing Renewals.
  • This question and approval were historically only available to HKS
  • The approval generates with a status of “notified” and will send a notification to anyone in the “Overseas approver” role
• The document repository panels on all screens will now allow for downloading and uploading right from the panel (ex: Documents can be uploaded from the Initial proposal homepage instead of having to navigate into the document repository)
  • Actions such as editing, deleting, locking, and moving will all still need to be performed from the document repository screen
• A new person homepage screen
  • All edits and adds from the person homepage are now done on the person screen, or in a pop-up (there are no longer additional screens to navigate to for adding and editing person information)

• Ability to open all panels on converted screens by clicking anywhere on the panel (rather than having to click on the +/- icon on the right of the panel)
• Automatic timeout from 30 minutes to 60 minutes!!

For more information on the upcoming release, please visit the GMAS website, sign up for the GMAS Blog or reach out to us by emailing contactgmas@harvard.edu.