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SYSTEM-TO-SYSTEM WORKSHOP MEETING MINUTES

**February 9, 2004**

1.  Rebecca Spitzgo, Grants.gov Deputy Program Manager, welcomed the
    audience and announced the presentation agenda for the workshop. She
    introduced the first speaker, William Kenney from the U.S.
    Department of Agriculture (USDA), to present the lessons learned
    from interfacing directly with Grants.gov

2.  Mr. Kenney discussed the strategy and direction set by the USDA. He
    said that the focus of their grants system was on business process
    improvements coupled with technological solutions to improve the
    grant-making process. The implementation of an electronic system
    followed this set of criteria:

    a.  Integrate with, and support, the Presidential Grants.gov
        Initiative

    b.  One-stop shopping "Grants.gov" for USDA customers.

    c.  Automated data download from Grants.gov "Storefront" to USDA

    d.  Comply with PL 106-107 and GPEA.

    e.  Reduce burden on USDA customers and USDA administrative and
        program staff

A USDA team was formed in June of 2003 and testing of the basic web
services was conducted in December 2003. By the end of January 2004,
USDA had posted 25 programs in Find. Five of those programs are also in
the Apply feature of Grants.gov.

> USDA named the system they created the Grants.gov Interface Module
> (GIM). GIM was developed to provide a single point of contact for USDA
> to Grants.gov, accommodate agencies with automated application
> processing systems, as well as agencies that have paper-based systems.

GIM has a 3-phase rollout schedule. Phase 1 will provide basic
functionality to accept electronic proposals, screen for program
acceptability, and transfer to agency. This spring phase2 will begin,
which will embed business logic to screen for specific business logic
within the proposal. Finally, in the fall of 2004 they intend to
incorporate lessons learned and requirements not achievable by Phase 2.

> On a more technical note, Don Preuss discussed the tools & utilities
> used in GIM. These include:

a.  LApplication Server: Tomcat 4.1 on Red Hat Linux 7.1

b.  RDBMS: DB2 UDB 8.1

c.  IBM MQSeries

d.  IDE: JBuilder 9, Eclipse

e.  Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) v1.0 (Sun's WSDP1.1)

f.  Java API for XML Messaging (JAXM) v1.1.1 (Sun's WSDP1.1)

g.  Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) v1.2.2 (Sun's WSDP1.1)

h.  JDK 1.4

i.  Web Browser: MS Internet Explorer

j.  Other: Acrobat Reader & WinZip

k.  SSL -- Server Certificate

In conclusion, Mr. Preuss gave a brief listing of lessons learned. He
emphasized reading the directions for system configuration.
Communication -- take advantage of the daily conference calls. It is
helpful, particularly when there have been changes made to the system.
Finally, think about how you want to handle the massive file sizes so it
will not be an issue.\
\
Q: How do you handle USDA agencies that are paper-based? Have you
established mailboxes to send these applications?\
A: No, we allow them to log in and download the applications

Q: Are you scanning for viruses?

A: Grants.gov scans for viruses before it reaches us.\
\
Q: Directed to Grants.gov: What happens when an application is not
accepted?\
A: Response from Ms. Spitzgo: We send an email notification to the
applicant telling them the application was not accepted, why it was not
accepted and ask them to resubmit to Grants.gov.

3.  The second presenter was Diana King, from the Administration for
    Children and Families (ACF). The system-to-system back office grants
    system ACF developed was named GATES. ACF observed USDA in November
    and December 2003 and recommend that any agency preparing to for
    system-to-system interface with Grants.gov do the same. Listening to
    the developments and problem/solutions prepared ACF and made for a
    smoother transition. Once they got started they studied the WSDL and
    Reference Implementation documents, developed Web Services, coded
    internal display mechanisms and data bases, obtained a server
    certificate for secure transmission, tested XML data load & zip
    files with PDF, and adjusted schema to match application packages.
    They plan to have about 50 programs up and running by May 2004.\
    \
    The lessons learned and the suggestions ACF presented are as
    follows:

    a.  **Create your own Meta Grant Application Schema that matches the
        Application Package**

    b.  **Processing Grant Application Data** -- Initially the WS Client
        was designed to get the input from the SOAP Message Nodes (Since
        the individual nodes representing the Grant Forms in the Grant
        Application are not standalone).  We had to redesign the
        application to handle the whole Grant Application.

    c.  **Make sure proper roles are assigned to S2S user** -- The
        System to System interface using SSL authentication will be tied
        to an Agency User and that User should have roles assigned to
        retrieve the Application Package. In the Agency Profile screen,
        the option for Application Download Format in the Grants.gov
        preferences should have appropriate selection to receive the
        XML, PDF & Attachments.

Q: Who issued your Certificate?\
A: ACF is still working on production; we plan to get it from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. Note that for testing,
Grants.gov gave us a certificate.

Q: How are you handling the different attachment formats?\
A: We are taking them in native format.

4.  Tom O'Rourke, IBM Business Consulting Services, discussed the
    interface set up between Grants.gov and the U.S. Department of
    Education. He displayed the technical architecture in a diagram and
    then listed the technical environment as follows:

    a.  Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

        1.  ADO.net

        2.  XSD

        3.  OLEDB Drivers

        4.  C# language

    b.  MS XML Parser

    c.  Oracle 8i

    d.  XML Spy

    e.  SOAP Scope

> Mr. O'Rourke shared lessons learned and some tips for other agencies
> looking to interface with Grants.gov:

a.  Start Development only after getting Reference Implementation
    running.

    1.  Do not rely on Reference Implementation for Integration testing.

    2.  To get Reference Implementation running the assistance from the
        Grants.gov team is essential.

b.  Flexibility vs. Development time.

    1.  ED Grants.gov interface will allow support of new forms without
        the need of code changes in most cases. Requires longer
        development time. Long term this approach will be more
        efficient.

c.  Microsoft's XSD currently has significant limitations.

d.  Microsoft's SOAP with Attachments class only supports DIME Types.

    1.  MIME implementation has to be developed

e.  Using proxy classes generated from the Grants.gov WSLD can
    significantly simplify the implementation but limit the flexibility
    of the interface.

> Q: Can agencies see who has been rejected?\
> A: The Retrieve Applications function will give you all non-viewed
> applications. The View All function will show you who was validated,
> rejected, and so on. You can see it all.\
> \
> Q: How long will that information stay on Grants.gov?\
> A: About 90 days. Grants.gov will keep some of the information for
> reporting, but wont hold the applications beyond 90 days.
>
> Q: Are you maintaining current status only or history too?\
> A: You only see current, but we will capture both.\
> \
> Q: What file formats will Grants.gov change?\
> A: Grants.gov will not change file formats. It will be sent in native
> form with the exception of the PureEdge form, which will come across
> in a PDF format.

5.  The final presenter of the day was Mike Atassi from Northrop Grumman
    Information Technology. Mr. Atassi introduced Vince McCullough who
    presented a flow chart depicting the flow of information for the
    submission status and notification. There was an also an update on
    recent improvements to Grants.gov Web Services. They are as follows:

    a.  Implemented Mutual Authentication

    b.  GetApplicationZip Web Service now available along with
        GetApplicationList, GetApplication, AssignAgencyTrackingNumber,
        and ConfirmApplicationDelivery Web Services

    c.  Completed testing with USDA, ACF, and Dept. of Education

    d.  Updated WSDL, Reference Implementation now Available

> Mr. Atassi then listed the system-to-system lessons learned from their
> perspective, including:

a.  Web Services is a relatively new technology that requires extensive,
    repeated testing. We had to iteratively change our software based on
    testing.

b.  Implementing the Reference Implementation with our direct help can
    drastically speed testing

c.  The WSDL is a great way to concisely describe Web Services, but
    API's that bind to it dynamically don't always work as expected. A
    customized approach is often necessary

d.  Implementing Mutual authentication is not as difficult as
    anticipated -- once we configured it. Grants.gov can provide sample
    certificates and lessons learned.

Mr. Atassi and Mr. McCullough then walked the group through a live
demonstration of the reference implementation and answered questions.
The updated reference implementation has been posted on the website:

http://grants.gov/assets/WebServicesRefImplInstructions_040210.doc

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