Contract support staff

People contributing to the writing of contract reports, who are not named investigators or research office staff, can now be granted special access to help edit reports.

Comments on contract reports change

The report question for 'additional comments' will no longer be prepopulated with the previous report's comments.

Adding researchers to applications change

When adding researchers to applications you can now only search for researchers by name and email address.

ANZCTR clinical trials update

For identified clinical trials that have not provided their ANZCTR details, we ask for updated details with progress and end of contract reports.

New 'My Contracts' section

The new My contracts section replaces the old 'My contract reports' and provides more contract related details for approved and contracted grants, as well as complete contract reporting.

Local time in emails

When providing dates & times in emails, both NZ time and local time is provided for people who do not live in New Zealand.

Security update

• Smarter filtering and checks on supplied information will now result in less false positive checks of technically written statements.
• Email notification of self-service password changes will provide extra assurance that people know when password changes happen.
• Gateway users who have not used their HRC Gateway account for a considerable period will be asked to sign in and check & update their details, or their access will expire.

Departments update

When selecting your organisation, you can now just specify your department, if applicable, in an open text box. Previously you were limited to selecting your department from a list of known departments for that organisation.

Research office update

The way that research office staff add & remove other research office staff has been updated. It is now easier for research office staff to maintain the list of people with elevated access to applictions and contract reports.

Application editing

Redundant line breaks in Lay Summaries caused by copying and pasting from emails are now automatically removed.

Applications may now not be submitted with the Proposal Title or Lay Summary is all CAPITALs.

Bug Fixes

Bug fixes to sign-up processing of ORCID information.

New support role for applications

People contributing to the writing of applications, who are not named investigators or research office staff, can now be granted special access to help edit applications.

Changes to profile information collection

All telephone numbers are now automatically checked for validity, with only valid phone numbers being accepted. Residence location is also now being asked for the purposes of potential funding eligibility and the future personalisation of services.

New branding

The styling of HRC Gateway has been updated to match our new public website.

Post-contract reporting

New post-contract reporting is now available to help the HRC better evaluate the impact of our health research investment.

Sign-up & annual updates

Small changes have been made to both the sign-up form and the annual update form to make it easier to provide updated information and more difficult to forget to provide information for specific fields accidentally.

Contract reports

Show all personnel

All personnel associated with the contract now shown onscreen. Previously, only named investigators were shown.

Improved display of milestones

Milestones are now shown onscreen as checklists, so it is easier to see which milestones have been marked as completed.

Reset milestone values

Milestones that are not currently required to be answered can now be reset and completed at a later date. Previously, if you had entered stated the milestone was complete or incomplete, there was no way to remove it.

Application - bug fixes

• Always ensure the current 1st NI has edit rights when the 1st NI is changed
• Changed rebuttal template page size from Letter to A4 - fixed 4/06
• Email sending to named investigators not applying annual update filter information - fixed 13/06
• Extra validation of research office and research office contact when saving
• Fixed spelling error - fixed 19/07
• Removed outdated host change option at registration time

New email template system

The new email template system will enable more effective automated notifications and communication between all people associated with applications, peer reviews, assessing committees, and contract reporting. Emails can also be sent now to more than one person and have reply addresses set which are appropriate for the email being sent.

New API

A new API is now available for sharing information from Gateway with other applications. Currently, in the initial release, it is limited to providing select details, but it will be expanded upon in future releases.

Rebuttal dates

Rebuttal dates can now be shown under the funding information pages if the found round has a rebuttal submission period.

Applications

Reference numbers now assigned when applications are created

Previously the reference number was not assigned until after the registration was submitted to HRC. Consistent referencing is now available from the very beginning of the application process.

More robust application withdrawal process

When applicants and research offices withdraw an application, a withdrawal reason must be provided.

File delete confirmations

When deleting an uploaded file from an application, there is now a confirmation dialog to ensure that was the desired action.

FTE Bands (EOI only)

Some applications may now collect an FTE range, rather than a fixed value at Expressions of Interest stage. When FTE bands are used at EOI a fixed value is then gathered at Full stage which must be within the FTE band range.

Additional EOI field collection

Previously ANZSRC fields and keywords were only collected at Full stage. Now they may be collected at Expression of Interest stage.

Custom health issues

Custom health issues will no longer be collected. The list of provided options has now been adjusted.

For research office staff

Multiple research office contacts

All applications and contracts still require a principal contact, but now you can specify additional contacts who will also receive notifications and communications as the principle contact does.

Easier updating of research office contacts

It is now easier to update the research office contacts for both applications and contracts. Updates can be made to either single or multiple applications/contracts at once.

Contract report edit rights

Research office staff have edit rights by default to all contract reports for their host organisation.

Creating applications

Research office staff can now create applications on behalf of first named investigators.

Recent contract reports list

Previously the list of contract reports contained both recently completed contract reports and contract reports due. We have now separated these into 2 separate lists for easier access.

Removed redundant functions

Removed the ability for research office staff to change passwords and change investigator details as these functions are well served by the self-service features of Gateway.

Applications

Letters of collaboration/support

The maximum number of documents that can now be uploaded has been increased from 10 to 15. The wording onscreen makes the maximum number of uploads clearer. There are also bug fixes for this listed below.

Bug fixes

Fixed bug preventing removal of letters of support from applications

Under certain conditions removal of letters of suuport from applications failed to remove the document.

Fixed display bug for letters of support

When the maximum number of letters of suport have been uploaded the upload option is now not visible, and the onscreen message clearly states that the limit has been reached.

Fixed bug for documents with non alphanumeric characters in the filename of letters of support

When letters of support have non alphanumeric characters in the filename are uploaded the additional special characters are removed as they prevented the document from being viewed or downloaded.

Signup

Email address check during signup process

When signing up to HRC Gateway there is now a check that your email address is not already associated with an account, and an email is sent to your email address to check it is accurate. The email sent to your email address contains a link to allow you to continue with the sign-up.

New data fields

The new fields of information requested during the sign-up process gather select clinical training backgrounds, select current specialist roles, and your current level of postgraduate study or attainment. If you have a masters degree, or higher, then you are asked how long you been active as a researcher. If you have a PhD you are asked for the year of attainment. If you have received clinical training in select fields then you are asked if you are still practising in those fields.

Annual profile check & update

New annual update of personal details

Researchers are now asked to check that their profile information is current and correct annually. After signing in to HRC Gateway researchers are automatically presented with the check & update page which shows all their details, any incorrect details can be updated.

Applications

Researcher profiles used

Less information is now required when researchers are added to applications, as some details are automatically obtained from researchers' current profiles.

Ordering objectives & milestones

Objectives & milestones can now be ordered as you would like them, instead of the order they were added.

Letters of collaboration/support

Letters of collaboration/support can now be uploaded as PDF documents during the full application stage. Previously, letters of collaboration/support could only be attached to hard copies when posted to the HRC.

Profile

New data fields

The new fields of information requested during the sign-up process gather select clinical training backgrounds, select current specialist roles, and your current level of postgraduate study or attainment. If you have a masters degree, or higher, then you are asked how long you have been active as a researcher. If you have a PhD you are asked for the year of attainment. If you have received clinical training in select fields then you are asked if you are still practising in those fields.

Organisation changes

Changes to your organisation can now be made in HRC Gateway. If your new organisation and/or department is known to us then it can be selected from a list. If your organisation is not known to us then there is space provided for the details.

For research office staff

New options for managing researchers & RO admins

Research office administrators can now change the HRC Gateway role of people associated with their organisation. Research office administrators can now change their HRC Gateway-defined 'researchers' to 'research office administrators'.

Changing research office contacts

Research office administrators can now change the research office contact for each of their applications and contracts.

Bug fixes

Fixed bug in RO application export

Fixed bug that prevented the spreadsheet export from consistently working correctly.

Fixed bug in My tasks

Fixed bug that prevented contract reports due soon from displaying in the 'My tasks' section of the home page.

Layout

New look

The new Gateway logo, navigation menu, header and footer mirrors styles that will soon be coming to the HRC public website.

Mobile device support

All device types are now supported in Gateway including mobile phones, tablets, and large screen desktops. All tasks in Gateway can now be reasonably performed using your device of choice.

Funding information

All funding information, including application guides and forms, are now on gateway. Now researchers only have to go to one site for all funding information and applications. Previously all this information was on the HRC public website whilst applications were created and submitted on HRC Gateway.

Sign in anywhere

Now you can sign in from any page. Previously sign in could only happen on the home page, meaning that if you clicked on a link to a Gateway page and you were not signed in, you were re-directed to the home page.

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Signup

Fields of research improvement

Instead of showing an empty list (blank space) if your field of research does not exist in our list it now shows a message. Some people were interpreting the empty list as a system error after copying and pasting text into the search box.

Ethnicity & iwi

Both ethnicity & iwi are now requested during signup. Our ethnicity & iwi list uses definitions created by Statistics NZ and used by many government agencies.

Gender diversity

Gateway now supports gender diverse options for gender & title fields.

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Applications

New host organisation checkbox

If your host organisation is not in the list of pre-approved hosts there is now a checkbox to indicate this.

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Profile

Ethnicity & iwi

Both ethnicity & iwi can now be updated with your profile details. Our ethnicity & iwi list uses definitions created by Statistics NZ and used by many government agencies.

Gender diversity

Gateway now supports gender diverse options for gender & title profile fields.

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Documentation

New user guides

The old user manual has been replaced with a series of task specific user guides. The link to the user guides page is located in the footer of every Gateway page.

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Bug fixes

Rebuttal opening error

In certain cases when the rebuttal opening period was delayed due to late peer reviews rebuttals would not open correctly if the actual opening was later than the original close date.

Upload only contract reports

In select contract there are only uploadable reports, no progress or End of contract reports. In these cases there was a small bug that prevent the right tab selection when the contract report is opened.

XML encoding error in rebuttal templates

A small encoding error prevented rebuttal templates from generating correctly when certain special characters were used in the research title.

Incorrect web browser identification

Microsoft Edge under Windows 10 was being incorrectly identified as Google Chrome.

On-screen formatting error in peer reviews

On the review and submit tab for peer reviews a small layout bug prevented the correct text from always being displayed for review.

Applications

Primary contact person

When creating an application, the primary contact person at your research office for this application must be selected from the list if your supporting organisation has a research office with more than one staff member.

Late contract report checking

Applications cannot be submitted to either the research office or HRC if the 1st NI has late contract reports. A banner message on the application states clearly that the 1st NI has late reports that must be submitted to HRC first.

Delete documents

Documents can be removed from applications if you have uploaded the wrong document and don't have the right document to replace it. You can only remove documents if you can currently upload documents.

Add named investigators

When adding named investigators, we have made a small wording adjustment to the dialog screen to help remove any confusion that some people encountered. After searching for the named investigator some people did not realise they needed to click on the investigator's name in the table if it showed only one investigator.

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Research office

Spreadsheet exports of people from your organisation now show whether they would like to be nominated for assessing committees.

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Bug fixes & minor adjustments

Importing PubMed journal articles

Importing PubMed journal articles with speech marks in the article name would cause only part of the details to be imported.

Displaying contract outputs after deleting an output

After deleting a single output in a contract report the display sometimes would show no outputs for that output type until the entire page was refreshed.

Department on signup page

The signup page would always force people to select a department, if the organisation has departments, even when if no department is relevant. Now the department is optional.

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Layout design changes

Dynamically increase page width

The width of Gateway pages has increased by 25% if you have a larger screen. From statistical data recently collected we discovered that 95% of people were using a larger screen display. For people using a medium size screen the display size will remain as it has always been.

Dynamically set height for modal dialogs

The maximum height of all the modal dialog boxes is dynamically set according to your screen display. For people viewing with larger screen displays this will mean less scrolling is required.

Increase table pagination links to 10

When viewing information in tables only 15 rows are shown at any given time. To navigate between pages of 15 rows pagination page links are provided. the maximum number of pagination page links provided has increased from 5 to 10.

Do not remove spinner when page will be refreshed

Spinning 'save' icons will now continue to spin whilst page reloads happen. After a 'save' button is clicked and the information saved, often the web page will need reloaded to display the changes that have been saved. Previously we turned off the spinning 'save' icon before the page reload commenced, but during busy times or across slower internet connections there might be a delay before the page reload happens. This delay could lead people to believe that no reload was happening or the information hadn't been saved.

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Updates page & announcement

Updates page

A new updates page is now available to show all the recent updates to HRC Gateway. There is a link to the updates page in the footer area of every page.

Show recent updates upon sign-in

If there have been any updates since you last signed-in the list of updates will be displayed after you sign-in before allowing you to proceed to the home page.

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Bug Fixes

RO staff can submit contract reports if edit rights granted

research office staff can now submit completed draft contract reports if they have been granted edit rights.

Better copy and paste support for applications, peer reviews, and contract reports

When copying and pasting from documents some special characters need to be removed. Tab characters are replaced with a space and line ending are now consistent across all computing platforms.

Spreadsheet exports have better UTF8 support if opening in MS Excel

MS Excel will now recognise all the spreadsheet downloads as containing UTF8 formatted text. Previously it recognised them as Latin text which lead to characters with macrons not being displayed correctly.

Some email notifications not always showing first name

Some email notifications sent back to researchers from the research office were missing the investigator's name.

Progress comments on contract reports formatted too small

The progress comments for contract reports are now displayed on screen in a larger font size.

Peer review (and pre-score review) layout error when viewing with Firefox

The completed 'ticks' where out of alignment when viewed on Mozilla Firefox.

Research office 'right click' links were incorrectly formatted

There were additional characters formatted into the link which lead to the links not working as intended.

Research office outcomes export had incorrect column heading display

The spreadsheet export had column headings out of alignment.

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