In Part 4 we learned how to add a subcontract record to Step 5 of our contract submission form. In Part 5, we'll upload any attachments that we have, and also learn about flagging documents to be sent in the courier.
Attachments Page
There is a single question you must answer on this page. We want to know if you will be sending documents over in the courier service. We would prefer you scan all your documents into PDF format and attach them electronically. However, in the event you don't have access to a scanner, or you have an original contract with signatures on it, you may want so send documents over via courier. You would mark the question "Yes" in that case, and then click on the "Cover sheet" link in the form tips area to print out a special cover to go with your courier documents. This cover lets us know what submission the documents go with when the courier delivers to us. Don't forget to save after you have marked the courier question appropriately.
Example Courier Cover Sheet
As soon as you have completed your contract Submission in Step 8 of the form, you'll want to drop the documents off at the Courier box at CCC-3322 MCN. Even after the PI/Chair have approved your submission, GCM will not electronically accept it as "submitted" until the courier documents arrive. Once received, we will go into PEER and mark your documents received.
OK, we've dealt with the courier issue, now its time to upload any electronic attachments we want to include with our submission. Simply click on the "Add Attachment" button to be presented with the file selection box as seen below.
The File Selection Box
To select a file, click on "Choose File", thought this may be called "browse" on your computer. Clicking on this will open a file open dialog box, just like if you were opening a file in MS Word. Find the file you want on your computer and then click select. The name of the file will then be loaded onto the form. At this time, you may include a description of the file. This is entirely optional, and if you leave the description blank, PEER will use the file name as the description. Files are renamed after upload to prevent conflicts on the system with other files that might have the same name (say, if two users both upload "contract.pdf").
Completed File Upload
Click the upload button and the upload will execute. Once finished the form remains open so that you can upload your next file in the event you have more than one.
Refreshed Attachments View
Once you are done uploading files, click "Close" on the file upload window, or hit the Esc key on your keyboard to close the box. The attachments view on Step 6 will automatically refresh. Note the "share" icon circled in the below image. Clicking on this icon allows you to send an email to anyone with a link to download the attachment. The link is good for 24 hours and does not require PEER log in. This is an easy way to send files to other folks without going through all the steps of logging in and navigating to this page in PEER.
Conclusion
You're now done with adding attachments. We only have two more steps to go and then we'll be ready to submit our contract to GCM. In Part 6 of the tutorial, we'll add comments to our submission.