SAMHSA Amendments Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is NOT a certified transcript, and thus is not a legal document and is not for 

use in a court of law. The information contained within this document is for general information 

purposes only.

Welcome to this video tutorial on how to access and initiate a Post Award Amendment within 

eRA Commons and ASSIST. 

SAMHSA anticipates that the grant recipient may need to modify its award budget or other 

aspects of its approved application to accomplish the award’s programmatic objectives. 

Generally, recipients are allowed a certain degree of latitude to make changes to meet 

unanticipated needs and to make other types of post-award changes. Refer to SAMHSA’s post 

award amendment website for the specific requirements on the types of post award changes 

that require SAMHSA’s approval before implementation of the change. Please note that a noncompeting continuation is not a post award amendment. Post award amendment types that 

require SAMHSA’s approval include: 

• Budget Revision

• Carryover

• Change in Scope

• Change in Key Personnel

• Merger, Successor-in-Interest, Transfer

• No-Cost Extension

• Organization Change

You can click on each type of amendment to access more information. This is a quick preview of 

the SAMHSA post award amendments website. 

This recording will walk you through how to: 

• Initiate

• Fill out and save

• Access an in-progress

• Submit

• And Track a submitted Post-Award Amendment

Initiating a Post-Award Amendment Application
In order to initiate post-award amendments via eRA Commons, grantees need to be the project 

director of a grant with the Principal Investigator (PI) role, or a Signing Official (SO) of the 

Grantee organization with the SO role.

To log into eRA Commons, go to public.era.nih.gov/commons. This will bring you to the eRA 

Commons login screen. 

• Enter your credentials and click login on the left-hand side of the screen. 

• Access the SAMHSA section located at the bottom of the eRA Commons homepage, 

select Amendments, then click Go to navigate to the Non-Research Manage Post 

Award Amendments tab; or

• Select Non-Research from the apps icon in the upper left corner of the screen.

• From there, select Manage Post Award Amendments to be taken to the Search screen. 

The Manage Post Award Amendment Search screen will be different depending on the role 

used to access that page. Project Directors will see a pre-populated list with a row for each 

grant that the PD/PI is assigned. Signing Officials can set search criteria to find a specific grant, 

or merely select “Search” to produce a hitlist that contains every active grant at the SO’s 

organization. 

The default search results will only include active grants unless the “Include Expired Segments” 

checkbox is checked. When that checkbox is selected, grants with expired project periods will 

also be displayed in the search results.

After you have located the grant, click the Initiate drop down box to select an amendment type. 

This will open a new application for you in ASSIST. 

How to fill out a post award amendment application 

Once the amendment application opens in ASSIST, take note of the Application Identifier on the 

Summary tab, as this is a unique identification that can be used to access work in progress 

applications. 

All of the required forms will be populated in ASSIST for the amendment type that was 

selected. Click the Edit button to fill in the application forms. Each form contains fields with 

asterisks that are required fields, but some of those will be pre-populated using the information 

from the existing award. As you complete the required forms, verify pre-populated fields to

ensure that the information is accurate and up to date. 

Click the Add Optional Form button to add optional forms manually. To remove an optional 

form added in error, Click Edit, then click the Remove Form button to remove the optional form 

from the amendment application. 

How to access an in-progress Post-Award Amendment Application
To access in-progress amendment applications in ASSIST, log in to eRA Commons, then click the ASSIST 

tile to search for applications. On the Welcome to ASSIST screen click the Search Applications button.

Enter the Application Identifier as the search criteria, then click Search. Alternatively, you can use any

of the other search criteria to locate your initiated post award amendment application. After verifying 

the search result, click the Select button to access the in-progress application in ASSIST. 

Submitting a Post-Award Amendment Application

Upon completing the required fields of your post-award amendment application, Click the 

“Update Submission Status” button in the left menu. Using the drop-down menu, select Ready 

for Submission, add comments if you wish, then select the Add Comment button to proceed, 

or you can proceed by clicking the continue without adding a comment hyperlink. 

An application must be error-free before the user can set the status to “Ready for Submission.”

Errors prevent the application from being submitted. Warnings do not prevent the application 

from being submitted. However, you should review warnings and correct them as indicated if 

possible and be sure to review the budget to ensure the totals match. 

If you receive the Federal Identifier warning, it can be ignored, and it won't stop you from 

submitting the application.

Once an application has passed the validations and has been marked Ready for Submission, to 

submit the application, you need to be logged into an eRA Commons account with the SO role 

and submit using the Grants.gov AOR credentials. 

Click the Submit Application button on the summary tab, then click Submit to enter the 

Grants.gov AOR credentials. After typing the Username and password, click Enter to submit.

Upon successful submission, a confirmation email will be sent to you.

How to track a submitted Post-Award Amendment Application

After you have successfully submitted your post award amendment application via ASSIST, you 

can access eRA Commons Manage Post Award Amendments to track the status of your 

application. Project Directors will see a pre-populated list with a row for each grant that the PD/PI is

assigned. Signing Officials can set search criteria to find a specific grant, or merely select “Search” to 

produce a hitlist that contains every active grant at the SO’s organization. After you have located the 

grant record, click the View button to view a list of submitted post award amendments. The following 

statuses can be referred to when tracking your application: 

• Submitted: SAMHSA has successfully received your amendment application 

• In Review: SAMHSA staff have started to review your amendment application

• Disapproved: SAMHSA staff have completed the review of your amendment application and 

disapproved it

• Awarded: SAMHSA has completed the review of your amendment application and a revised 

notice of award has been issued
If you need additional assistance, you can contact your assigned Grants Management Specialist (GMS) 

for budget and grant-specific questions. You can contact your assigned Grants Project Officer (GPO) for 

program-related questions. And for technical questions, contact the eRA Service Desk.

• Budget and grant-specific questions: contact your assigned Grants Management Specialist 

(GMS)

• Program- related questions: contact your assigned Grants Project Officer (GPO)

• Technical questions: contact the eRA Service Desk

Web: https://grants.nih.gov/support

Toll-free: 1-866-504-9552, option 6 for SAMHSA queue

Phone: 301-402-7469, option 6 for SAMHSA queue

Hours: Mon-Fri, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time, closed federal holidays

This concludes this video on showing SAMHSA Grantees how to access and initiate a Post Award 

Amendment within eRA Commons and ASSIST. Thank you for watching.