RAMP Grants is almost finalized and is scheduled to go-live on July 1, 2020. We are excited to launch the fourth module within RAMP as we continue to establish a comprehensive and integrated research system. As a reminder, RAMP Grants provides electronic grants management and system-to-system proposal submission capability that interfaces with Grants.gov. The Grants module will integrate with the Agreements and IRB modules, as well as OMNI. More detailed information can be accessed by viewing the significant changes webpage.

RAMP Grants will be available on July 1 and we strongly encourage researchers and administrators to use the new system at this time. A two-week grace period will be offered for large proposal deadlines in early July to allow researchers the flexibility to use RAMP Grants or submit the Proposal Transmittal Form (PTF) to the respective central office. Beginning July 15, the PTF will no longer be accepted and RAMP Grants will be required for all proposal submissions and award modification requests to Sponsored Research Administration and the FSU Research Foundation.

Training will continue this month and well beyond system deployment. All individuals involved in the research administration process are strongly encouraged to participate in training to ensure they are well prepared for the transition to RAMP Grants. Following is a list of training resources and what you need to know to prepare for go-live:

• Online training course schedule can be found here
• Course recordings and presentations continue to be added to the project website and can be found here
• How-to guides are available and more resources will be posted throughout June to the RAMP project website
• Frequently asked questions are available by topic and will be updated periodically
• Virtual “Office Hours” will be scheduled after go-live for direct assistance with RAMP Grants using Zoom screen share functionality
• Help Center within RAMP Grants will also contain training videos and resources beginning July 1^st

Additionally, we have organized RAMP Grants practice sessions in response to requests from training participants. These sessions will involve a training script where attendees can try out the system functionality on their own with assistance from our training team prior to system go-live. Registration is required and following is the schedule:

The RAMP Grants support email is active now and it serves as the best communication tool to reach the Grants training team at ramp-grants@fsu.edu for any questions or concerns. Please continue to provide us with your feedback as our team works to continually improve the training curriculum. We remain committed to providing you with timely information and helpful support for a successful transition to the new system!

Also occurring this past month, three RAMP modules were successfully updated or upgraded. These include the IRB, ACUC and Agreements modules. The changes included a new dashboard for the staff of the Office of Human Subjects Protection, improved functionality for ACUC reviewers and other minor changes including some in preparation for the grants module implementation on July 1. A “Special Thanks” goes out to everyone involved with the testing and implementation of these upgrades/updates. Everyone did great work together and the changes were handled well with very minimal impact on RAMP users.

Angie Rowe, RAMP Project Manager, at arrowe@fsu.edu
Pam Ray, Senior Director of SRA, at pray2@fsu.edu
Dan Mullins, RAMP Support Director, at dmullins2@fsu.edu
Kerry Peluso, Associate Vice President for Research Administration & Finance, at kpeluso@fsu.edu