Proposal - Attachments

Overview

The attachments screen is where narratives and other files for the proposal are uploaded to be a part of the submission.  The Attachment Types available from the drop-down list will depend on the type of submission. If a S2S opportunity has been linked to the proposal, the list of Attachment Types will include those types that map to the S2S form in the attached opportunity. Please see the System-2-System (S2S) knowledge base section for form specific instructions and the associated attachment types.  If no S2S opportunity is linked, a shorter list of attachment types is displayed. Any type of file may be uploaded, saved, and transmitted; but please refer to sponsor instructions for the specific file type required.  

NOTE: the file size allowed by the system is limited by parameter

Attachments

There are five (5) Attachment type tabs for different aspects of the proposal and the parenthesis contains the count of narrative attachments uploaded on this tab:

• Proposal:  For the narrative attachments that comprise the text of the proposal. For s2s submissions narrative types are mapped to specific forms.
• Personnel:  These attachments are specific to the proposal personnel – examples include biosketch and current & pending support
• Abstracts:  These text block entries are used in some sponsor forms.
• Internal:  Files uploaded in this section are meant to supply information for internal use and are never submitted to external sponsors.
• Notes:  Users can enter a text note in this section. System generated notes will be logged in this section.

Add Attachment

There are two methods to add attachments:  

• One attachment at a time (+Add) - Use this option when you only have one narrative attachment to upload and complete all the input selections during the upload process.
• Bulk uploads of multiple attachments (Upload & Add) - Use this option when you have several attachments ready to upload. While you may complete the file search and selection process in one step, you must finalize the details of each upload (select the narrative type & status) to successfully save the proposal document.

Add a single attachment (clicking +Add):

• Attachment Type:  Select the desired type from the dropdown list - if S2S make sure to select the corresponding narrative type to map accordingly to the form.
• Status:  Complete/Incomplete) - depending on your configuration all narratives must be marked as Complete prior to submission or final approval.

If desired, you can also maintain the other fields in the attachment box, but these are not required (other than Description if the attachment allows multiple):

• Contact Name: person who should be contacted for questions about this file
• Email Address: email for the person to be contacted
• Phone Number: of the person to be contacted
• Comments: use this field to put some reference note about the file or the contact person.
• Description: may be used to describe the uploaded file - if the attachment type allows multiples then the Description will be required to distinguish between files.
• File:  Click the [Choose File] button to open your computer’s browse window and select a file to attach. 

Add multiple attachments (clicking Upload & Add) will open your computer's browse window to select multiple attachments to add.  Use the appropriate multi-click option for your computer to select more than one file and then open to begin upload process.  The files are added to the Attachments tab and the Type and Status selections (and Description if needed) must be made.  If you want to add more information to each attachment you can click the 'Detail' button.

Reorder Attachments

You can re-ordered the attachments in the Attachments section of an in progress proposal so that they will appear in the required order on specific grants.gov forms depending on Sponsor guidelines. Once you add more than one attachment you will see down arrows and if clicked it will move the attachment and then up/down arrows will be available on all attachments to move to the desired order.

For S2S forms the order in the Attachments tab of the proposal will mimic the order mapped to the form. The only exception to that is for the Attachments form - it currently maps the opposite order of how it displays in the Kuali proposal.

Maintain Proposal Attachments

The added attachments can be updated, deleted, or the user view/edit rights changed.  The following action buttons are offered.

Details

Click on the Details button in the Action column to open the Details window. All of the fields in the Details window can be edited within this window.  You can also click the 'Choose File' button in the File field to open the browse/search window and select another file to replace the existing one.  Once all desired edits are made click the save button to update with changes.

View/Edit Rights

Click the view/edit rights button to open the Rights window where you can add users with different view/modify rights to the given attachment.  Aggregators will always default to “Modify”.  Other users with access to the proposal can be granted the rights of Read, Modify, or None.

Delete

In order to remove the attachment you can click on the trashcan icon on the right in the Actions column.  The system will prompt you whether you want to confirm the delete; select 'Yes' if you want to continue with the delete action.

Set All Statuses

Set All Statuses allows you to set the status for all listed attachments at once.  Once the status Complete/Incomplete is selected from the dropdown you can then click the 'Set All Statuses'.

Download All

The Download All option allows you to download all the proposal attachments in a zip file.

Proposal Hierarchy and Personnel Attachments

When creating and maintaining Proposal Hierarchies, the personnel attachments are handled in the following manner: 

• If a proposal person appears in multiple child proposals, their personal attachments must be maintained in the PARENT proposal. 
• If a proposal person appears in only one child proposal, their personnel attachments must be maintained in that child proposal and sync’d to the parent.

Tips for managing proposal personnel in hierarchies:

• Do not maintain the personnel attachments at the Parent proposal until all the child proposal personnel are finalized and stable. If you add an attachment at the parent and then unlink the duplicate appearance(s) for that person, you cannot delete the attachment in the parent. (When the child duplicating the person’s role is linked again, the file is editable in the parent. The other alternative is to delete the person from the child proposal, or unlink the proposal from the hierarchy.
• Personnel appearing in multiple child proposals with different proposal roles will appear multiple times in the parent proposal, once for EACH ROLE. E.G. Co-Investigator in one child, Key Person in another child. This may cause problems with s2s submissions if multiple Biosketches are uploaded, so the Principal Investigator should determine which proposal role should be used to represent this person in the proposal and remove that person from Key Personnel in the other child proposals. (The person can be added as a budget person for budgeting purposes.)
• If the person is not on the list in the child proposal Attachments > Personnel…open the Parent proposal. When a person is added to a proposal that is already linked to a hierarchy where they are already present from another child proposal, their name will not appear in Add Personnel Attachments list in the child proposal. Maintain their biosketch and other required personnel attachments in the parent proposal.

Abstracts

The abstracts tab allows you to add text rather than attachments to a proposal.  When you click on +Add Attachment the below window will open.

The Abstract Type will give further description of the context of the text and the text can then be added to the Abstract Detail.  Click Add to add the abstract line to the proposal or Cancel if you do not want to add and return to the page.  Once added it will show the abstract Author and timestamp of the person who last added/edited the row.  You can delete an abstract via the trashcan icon.

Internal

Another section where you can add attachments to a proposal but used for internal attachments not being transmitted to the sponsor (i.e. F&A waiver, Cost Share commitment letters, etc.).  Same logic/functionality as the Proposal attachments tab. 

Notes

This section may be used to insert text notes on a proposal. It is also used by the system to record some notifications.