Ability to test search and submission for new alpha ALNs?

General
1

With the ALN format changing to include alpha characters in the 5-digit ALN code, we are trying to test and confirm the ability to support system-to-system submission and search. However, I am unable to locate any opportunities in the simpler.grants.gov Training environment that have such an ALN. Are there or will there be test opportunities made available to test this change?

My searching has been frustrated by the fact that the new Simpler search capabilities don’t make the ALN easily visible or accessible until you click to get into the details for each opportunity. In my experience, users most frequently use the funding opportunity code to search but sometimes want to search and see ALN as well to confirm the opportunity is correct.

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Thank you for your question regarding the updated Assistance Listing Number (ALN) format and testing availability.

You are correct that the Training environment does not yet contain opportunities with the new ALN format that includes alpha characters in the 5-digit code.

We want to share two updates related to this work:

  • Format support: We have implemented updates to support the new ALN format. You can review the technical details in Pull Request #7877.

  • Test data: We are tracking the availability of test opportunities with the updated ALN format as a follow-on item. You can monitor progress on that work in Issue #9078.

We recommend following that issue for updates on when the Training environment will include the data you need to validate your system-to-system workflows.

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Thanks very much, I will follow the issue for updates!

4

I actually had time to do this today. It will go into production tomorrow and the job to populate the fields with ALN format opportunities should be live by Thursday.

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