GMI Resources: eRA Grants Management System Reference Center

Your organization is registered – you need an account

You cannot create your own eRA Commons account. Your organization’s Signing Official (SO), Administrative Official (AO), or Account Administrator (AA) must create it for you.

1. Contact your SO, AO, or AA. For most universities and research institutions, this person is in the Office of Sponsored Research or similarly named office.
2. Provide your account information: full name, email address, desired username, and the role you need (typically PD/PI).
3. Watch for two emails. Once your account is created, you’ll receive one email with your username and one with a temporary password (valid for 48 hours).
4. Log in and complete your profile. Access eRA Commons at public.era.nih.gov/commonsplus and complete your Personal Profile.

Your organization is not registered, OR you are not affiliated with an organization

Registering a new organization in eRA Commons requires several steps across multiple systems. Plan ahead – this process can take several weeks.

1. Register with SAM.gov to obtain a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) if necessary. Your organization must have a UEI before you can register in eRA Commons. Visit sam.gov to register your organization. If you are not affiliated with an organization, you must register as an organization.
2. Register your organization in eRA Commons. An organizational administrator should submit an eRA Commons registration request at era.nih.gov/register-accounts. This administrator will be designated as the Signing Official (SO). An individual can create their own organization and assign themselves as SO if needed.
3. Create a separate PD/PI account. The organization SO must create an account with the PD/PI role for each potential applicant and senior/key person. The SO cannot submit applications using the SO account. An individual should use their organizational SO account to create a second account for themselves with the PD/PI role to submit the application. 
4. Log in and complete your profile. Access eRA Commons at public.era.nih.gov/commonsplus and complete your personal profile.

Yes. Applicants will continue to submit applications via Grants.gov. Once submitted, the application is routed to eRA Commons, where you can track its status. Post-award activities are also conducted through eRA Commons.

All training recordings, slides, and Q&A reports are posted on the NIFA Grants Modernization Initiative page at https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/grants-modernization-initiative. For broader eRA resources, visit https://era.nih.gov. 

No. You do not need to register again. However, please log in to your Institution Profile and verify that the Opportunity Type Eligibility is up to date under the “About the Institution” section. This ensures your organization is properly configured to receive NIFA awards. 

An individual applicant who is not affiliated with an organization must first register as an organization before submitting. The steps are: 

1. Register with SAM.gov to obtain a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI). The organization must have a UEI before registering in eRA Commons. 
2. Register the organization in eRA Commons by submitting a registration request at era.nih.gov/register-accounts. The person submitting this request becomes the Signing Official (SO). An individual may register their own organization and assign themselves as SO. 
3. Create a separate PD/PI account. The SO must create a separate account with the PD/PI role for the individual applicant. The SO account itself cannot be used to submit applications — a distinct PD/PI account is required. 
4. Log in and complete the personal profile at public.era.nih.gov/commonsplus. 

Contact the eRA Service Desk at 1-866-504-9552 to verify whether your organization is currently registered. 

Accounts are created by the person at your organization with signatory authority — typically the Signing Official (SO) or an Account Administrator (AA). Principal Investigators cannot create their own accounts. 

Before submitting an account creation request, verify the following — small errors at account creation can be difficult or impossible to correct later: 

• First and last name order. Enter the last name in the Last Name field and the first name in the First Name field. Transposing first and last names is a common error, and the name order cannot be corrected after the account is created — you would need to create a new account. 
• Email address. Verify the email address is correct and accessible. Activation and password-related emails will be sent here. 
• Affiliation. Confirm the correct institutional affiliation is selected. 
• Role. Confirm the role (e.g., PD/PI) is appropriate for what the user needs to do. 

If you discover a name-order error after the account has been created, contact the eRA Service Desk at 1-866-504-9552 for guidance before taking further action. 

Yes. Every individual listed on the R&R Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) form must have their own eRA Commons account, including project partners and collaborators. Each person’s eRA Commons Username (Credential ID) must be entered in the PD/PI Credential field on the Senior/Key Person form in Grants.gov before submission. Missing or incorrect Credential IDs will cause submission errors. 

No. Only the Project Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) needs the PD/PI role on their account. Other Key Personnel need an eRA Commons account, but the role assigned to their account depends on their function (e.g., PI role for those who will lead future projects, or a more limited role for collaborators). 

The SO and PD/PI roles cannot be combined into a single account. You will need two separate accounts with different usernames, but they can use the same email address. 

There is no transition step. If you already have an eRA Commons account, you do not need a new one — confirm your organizational affiliation is up to date. If you are joining a new organization that has not previously registered with eRA, make sure the new organization registers first, and then your PD/PI account can be affiliated to it. Signing Officials at a newly registered organization will need to create new accounts. 

The SO at your new organization can search for and add your account to their institution. The SO at your previous organization may unaffiliate your account if needed. When you log in to eRA Commons, you should see an option to switch between institutional profiles. 

No, NIFA will not be using the ASST role. 

A grant identification number is generated automatically once your application is submitted and accepted in eRA. You can view it on the Status Information screen for your application in eRA Commons. 

Yes. You must be registered with eRA Commons and have a valid PD/PI account before you can submit an application. 

Yes. ASSIST (Application Submission System & Interface for Submission Tracking) is a free, web-based tool you can use to prepare your application before submitting it through Grants.gov. ASSIST is optional — applicants can still prepare their application package directly in Grants.gov — but it offers several features that can simplify the process, especially for larger or multi-investigator applications: 

• Log in with your existing eRA Commons credentials 
• Delegate sections of the application to multiple collaborators inside or outside your organization, with controlled access 
• Pre-populate fields from your eRA Commons profile to reduce manual entry 
• Run validations on federal-wide and agency business rules before you submit, so you can catch and fix errors in advance rather than discovering them after the deadline. 
• Preview the assembled application in the same format reviewers will see, including auto-generated table of contents, headers, footers, and page numbers. 
• Applications prepared in ASSIST are still submitted to NIFA through Grants.gov -  ASSIST replaces the preparation step, not the submission step.  

Resources: 

• ASSIST Overview 
• ASSIST User Guide 

No. A submission validation Error (not a Warning) will block the application from reaching NIFA’s Receipt & Referral system. Outcomes by validation type: 

• Errors only → application is NOT available in eRA. 
• Errors and Warnings → application is NOT available in eRA. 
• Warnings only → application IS available in eRA and will move forward. 

After submitting, always confirm that an Accession Number has been generated in eRA Commons. This confirms your application was successfully received. 

A common cause of validation errors: missing or incorrect eRA Commons Credential IDs on the Key Person form. Verify every Key Person’s Credential ID is entered correctly before submission.

An application that passes Grants.gov but fails eRA validation may not generate an obvious error notification on Grants.gov. Do not assume your application was successfully received just because Grants.gov shows no errors – the validation that block eRA applications happens after Grants.gov hands the application off to eRA. 

To confirm your application was successfully received by NIFA, log in to eRA Commons after submitting and check the Status module: 

• Look for your application in recent/pending eSubmissions. 
• If an Accession Number (AN) has been generated and the eSubmission Status shows Pending Verification, your application was received. 
• If the eSubmission Status shows eSubmission Error, your application was NOT received by NIFA. Click Show Prior Errors and Warnings to see what needs to be corrected, fix the issues, and resubmit through Grants.gov. 

We recommend checking eRA Commons within 24 hours of submitting and again before the NOFO deadline closes, so you have time to correct errors and resubmit if needed. If you cannot tell whether your application was received, contact the eRA Service Desk at 1-866-504-9552 or your NIFA program point of contact before the deadline. 

For pilot programs in their first year in eRA, Resubmission applications are handled through a temporary process. Because eRA does not yet have historical NIFA grant data to reference, the standard Federal Field instruction for Resubmissions causes those applications to fail validation. NIFA has worked with eRA and Policy to confirm an interim process so Resubmissions can move forward. 

Steps for applicants: 

1. Submit your Resubmission as a New proposal through Grants.gov. 
2. Include your response to the previous review panel summary in the Narrative document, just as you would for a standard Resubmission. 
3. After submitting, email the Program staff for your NOFO with the following information: application title, new grant number, and previous grant number.  

NIFA Program staff will then locate the Grant Folder for the new application and upload the prior review materials so they are available to reviewers during the review process. 

This interim process applies to currently published and unpublished pilot NOFOs. NOFO language has been updated to reflect this approach in all affected NOFOs. 

Questions? Contact your NIFA program point of contact (listed on your application’s Status Information screen in eRA Commons), or email NIFAGrantsMod@usda.gov. 

Warnings are triggered when any of the following apply to a SciENcv-generated attachment: 

• The attachment contains an invalid, unknown, or expired SciENcv certificate, or is a draft SciENcv attachment. 
• The form version is expired (not the most recent SciENcv form version). 
• The ORCID ID on the attachment does not correspond to an eRA Commons user ORCID. 
• The SciENcv attachment was not downloaded within the past 12 months. 
• The Biographical Sketch or Current/Pending (Other) Support (CPOS) Common Form attachment was not created in SciENcv. 
• The Biographical Sketch or CPOS Common Form attachment has not been signed and dated within the past 12 months. 

Warnings do not block submission to eRA, but you should remediate them before submitting to avoid issues during review. Regenerate SciENcv attachments within the 12-month window before submitting. 

No. eRA does not enforce word count limits programmatically on free-text or attachment fields — the system will not block or reject an application because a section exceeds a stated word limit. Compliance with word limits is the applicant’s responsibility. Exceeding a limit stated in the NOFO may result in NIFA disqualifying the application or instructing reviewers to disregard content beyond the limit, depending on NOFO language. Always follow each NOFO’s specific instructions and use the word count tools in your word processor before uploading attachments. 

The Congressional District field requires a specific format: two-letter state code, a hyphen, and a three-digit district number. For example, Florida’s 3rd district should be entered as FL-003, not FL-3 or fl-3. Using the wrong format will trigger a validation error. 

To find your correct district number, visit https://www.house.gov/ and enter your organization’s ZIP code. Then format the result as XX-### before entering it on the SF-424. 

eRA is a federal shared service originally built for NIH, and some default system notifications carry NIH branding. Applicants and reviewers should expect to receive emails from eRA Commons addresses such as ERAFPCommons@mail.nih.gov. NIFA is working with the eRA team on customization options for NIFA-branded notifications and will share updates as they become available. 

For technical questions about eRA Commons, contact the eRA Service Desk: 

• Phone: 1-866-504-9552 (toll-free) or (301) 402-7469 
• Hours: Monday–Friday, 7 AM – 8 PM Eastern Time (closed on federal holidays) 
• Submit a web ticket: https://www.era.nih.gov/need-help 
• FAQ: https://www.era.nih.gov/faqs.htm 

For NIFA-specific questions about the Grants Modernization Initiative, email NIFAGrantsMod@usda.gov.