EGrAMS FAQ

If you represent any agency other than the Department of Labor, Division of Business Partnerships, you will need:

1. a myAlaska account. **IMPORTANT! Each individual in your agency needs to have their own unique myAlaska account - there can be no sharing of logins for EGrAMS. Although you can use your personal myAlaska account to access EGrAMS, you can have more than one myAlaska account - one that you may wish to use as an employee of your agency. However, once you have logged in to myAlaska and then moved on to accessing EGrAMS DO NOT CREATE another myAlaska account for EGrAMS purposes. This will cause you problems in the EGrAMS system.** If you need to retrieve or change your myAlaska password, see the FAQ "I forgot my password or I want to change my password for myAlaska."
2. to view the EGrAMS Tutorial. Please go to the EGrAMS website and watch the Tutorial.
3. to Register your Agency, if someone from your organization has not done so already (see next FAQ). You can verify if your agency has already been registered - after logging in through myAlaska, click Register my Agency. In the upper right-hand corner there is a Lookup button that you can use to search for your agency.
4. to Create a User Profile within EGrAMS.

To register your agency:

1. Click the Register your Agency link from the Left Navigation menu on the Home page.
2. Click the Lookup button, Check the box next to your agency type
3. Click 'OK' button
4. Complete the Grantee Agency Profile Screens
5. Click 'OK' button

You can reset your password by clicking the Forgot Password? link on the myAlaska page, https://myalaska.state.ak.us/home/app. You must correctly answer the security question and select a new password.

Your myAlaska account and your EGrAMS profile are only related in that once you have passed the security protocol in myAlaska, EGrAMS knows that you have done so, but neither your myAlaska nor your EGrAMS profiles have any effect on the other.

Be sure your parent agency is registered BEFORE you create your user profile. When you establish your User Profile, select your organization as your parent agency.

To register your agency, select the “Register Your Agency” menu option from the left-hand menu of the EGrAMS Home page. Then complete the required information (if not previously completed by your organization), including your agency’s federal ID number or Employer Identification Number (EIN).

If you selected the incorrect Parent Agency when you created your User Profile, this can only be changed by the Division of Business Partnerships’ staff. You will need to send an e-mail to EGrAMS Help Desk.

EGrAMS Registration Checklist

• Complete the EGrAMS tutorial on the Division of Business Partnerships home page
• Know your agency’s Federal ID number.
• Know your agency’s State of Alaska business license number and expiration date.
• Create a valid myAlaska Username and Password (if you don't already have one).
• Register your agency with EGrAMS (if it is not already registered).
  
• Create your User Profile in EGrAMS.
  
• Receive your activation notice for EGrAMS.
  
• Complete a Project Director Request for your agency within EGrAMS.

The ability to apply for more than one grant depends upon the grant program. Some grant solicitations allow multiple grant applications and others only allow submission of a single application. The Request for Grant Application document should specify whether multiple grant applications are permitted for that solicitation.

If multiple grant applications are permitted, there are two approaches an organization may take. The first approach is to have two or more individuals submit Project Director requests for the grant solicitation. Each person would then be authorized, when approved, to prepare and submit a grant application.

The other approach would be to have a single Project Director who initiates multiple grant applications. To create a second grant application, the approved Project Director would use the menu picks of Grantee>Administration>Start a New Application. On the resulting screen, select the Add button and the select the Grant Program for which a new grant application is being sought. After clicking OK, the new screen will allow the Project Director to assign a new Project Code and Project Title. The Project Director would then need to click the button for Assign To Users to establish the roles and permissions for the completion of the grant application.

There is a video walkthrough of this process contained within the EGrAMS Tutorial, but here are the basics:
Once signed in to EGrAMS, click on Access EGrAMS then Grantee>Administration>Assign Agency Users

• Choose your Grant Program
• Choose your Agency
• Click Find

To the right of the Title of the grant application you will see a button labeled Assign. Click on it and those EGrAMS users from your agency will be listed.

• Open the Lookup under Perm Code and choose the Title of the user.
  
• Activate the Perm. Status by clicking on the box on the same line.
  
• Click on the box under Appl. That will activate the Category editor function allowing you to designate for the user the specific areas within the grant application and the permissions they will have.
  
• Click OK and receive a message that the Records were successfully updated.

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT CERTIFICATIONS PAGE

Only the Authorized Official should have Write permissions for the Certifications page. The tendency is for the Project Director to go that page, see their name pre-filled, and think that they have made an error. As long as you don't save, have the Authorized Official go to the Certifications page, answer the questions and then Save.

There are a few possibilities:

• The user for whom you are looking has not yet created an EGrAMS account.
  
• The e-mail address that you supplied is not the one that is used in your co-worker’s user profile.
  
• Your co-worker left the parent agency field blank on his/her user profile. For the e-mail search to function properly, the parent agency needs to be selected.

There are people in your agency that the Project Director will assign to work on the grant that will need access to EGrAMS. However, there are others you may designate within the grant application, as contacts, not necessarily needing access to work on the grant, but still may be able to answer questions should a Grants Administrator need to get in touch with someone at your agency.

There may be a necessity to repeat information: The Contact information requires you to enter the information for the person identified in that contact area in the application. For example if you are the person that handles the financials you would enter your name and if another person is the program person, their name would be entered. All the contact information needs to be filled in even if it’s the same person. So, you may need to repeat yourself.

Do not have someone make another Project Director request. That would mean they are attempting to start a different Grant Application and that option is available in certain grant situations.

Prior to leaving, the current Project Director can assign another EGrAMS user in your agency to the role of Project Director. If the current Project Director has left prior to doing so, send an e-mail to the EGrAMS Helpdesk with the following information:

1. Your organization.
   
2. The grant for which you are applying and, if applicable, the project name.
   
3. The name of the Project Director that has left.
   
4. The name of the person you now wish to have Project Director status.

Review mode is the default setting. In this setting, the Grant Program lookup box will only show those programs for which you have submitted an application.

To create a new application (Grantee>Grant Application>Enter Grant Application), click the Add button.

Complete the formatting of your proposal (or other text) in MS Word or other text editing program, then copy and paste this into EGrAMS. Formatting should be copied into and displayed in EGrAMS as per your original document. Adjustments, if necessary, can be made with the formatting toolbar found in EGrAMS.

Tip: Use the Preview toolbar icon in EGrAMS to view your text in a full screen.

Some possible causes for this problem are:

• Uploaded file names should not contain any special characters (e.g. &, #, %, @, [, etc.), except for underscores or hyphens. Special characters can be interpreted incorrectly by the system.
  
• Make sure the file names being uploaded are unique. EGrAMS only stores one copy of each file, based on the name. If the same name is used in more than one place on the application, then delete one of these occurrences. All other occurrences on your application will have lost that file reference. To correct this, delete the attachment reference using the red 'X' and saving, then re-upload the file.

The most common errors during validation of the Budget section are:
“Funds requested or Project cost is zero or not entered”, or “Funds requested 0.00 does not equal budget amount [your budget total]”, or “Project cost 0.00 does not equal budget + match amount [your budget total].”
All of these refer to the same error, which is the amount of funds you are requesting has not been on an earlier page of the application.

To resolve these errors:
Go to the application index by clicking the Index tab on the banner (it is the first tab listed from the left). Click the link under Cover Page entitled “2. Project.” (This will take you to the Project Information screen.) For item “e) Amount of Funds Requested,” enter the total amount of your budget. (It must match the figure listed on the Budget Summary screen.) The Project Cost field will be auto-populated with whatever value you enter in Amount of Funds Requested. Click the Save button to complete the process. Once you've saved this information, go back to the Budget section and click the Validate button again. The error(s) should now be cleared.

Once logged in, Grantee>Administration>Application Status>

In the lower section of the screen you will see the Stage and Status.

For questions concerning administering of your grant program, contact the Program Coordinator for that particular program. Refer to the Contact list on the EGrAMS Home page.

For questions concerning a grant application or financial questions, contact the Grant Administrator for that particular program. Refer to the Contact list on the EGrAMS Home page.

For technical questions on the operation or use of EGrAMS, contact the DOL EGrAMS Help Desk at (907) 465-4893 or EGrAMS Help Desk.

Many questions can be answered using the FAQ on this page, the EGrAMS Tutorial and related training materials. If there is something not answered using those resources, please include the following applicable items in your e-mail request:

1. Subject line of e-mail should contain a brief description of what you are requesting.
   
2. Please include only one type of issue per e-mail. There may be multiple people or places that the resulting information may need to come from and this will make things easier in assisting you with your requests.
   
3. Your complete name as it appears in EGrAMS
   
4. Your organization - full legal name as it will or does appear in EGrAMS.
   
5. The grant for which you are applying and, if applicable, the project name.
   
6. The section in EGrAMS or the specific section of the application you have a question about.
   
7. The wording of error messages, but, screen captures are preferable.