By: Amber Schott
EHBs – A Recap
The Electronic Handbooks, commonly referred to as EHBs, are a one-stop online grants management platform administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to manage grant applications, Notices of Awards (NoAs), and post-award reports for FQHCs.
EHBs User Roles
Within the EHBs, users are assigned Organizational Roles and/or Grant Roles. EHBs Organizational Roles (Authorizing Official (AO), Business Official (BO), and Other) refer to positions, responsibilities, and functions that are not specifically tied to a grant or project. EHBs Grant Roles (Project Director (PD), Financial Reporting Administrator, and Other) are individuals involved in the planning, implementation, and management of a specific grant-funded project.
Organizational Roles: The Authorizing Official (AO), commonly assigned to the organization’s Chief Executive Officer, is the individual named by the applicant organization who is authorized to act and assume the obligations imposed by Federal laws, regulations, requirements, and conditions responsible for the day-to-day operations and management of the entire organization. The Business Official (BO), commonly assigned to the organization’s Chief Financial Officer, is the individual named by the applicant organization who is authorized to review and submit the financial status report and interact with the payment management system. The Other organizational role implies all other individuals of an organization who wish to participate in the EHBs process.
Grant Roles: The Project Director (PD) is the individual who is most closely tied to the programmatic aspects of the grant and whose name appears on the NoA. The Financial Reporting Administrator (FRA) is responsible for managing access to financial reports for a grant, and Other Employee refers to all remaining individuals involved in the specific grant process.
Recent EHB Modifications
As of January 26, 2024, HRSA will be enhancing EHBs security by implementing an approval process that will require users with the Primary AO privilege to annually review, approve, and assign user roles for individuals registered to their organization(s), as well as all new organizational requests.
How does this work and what is different?
Registering to an Organization: The current EHBs set up allows users to search, self-register, and assign themselves roles to organizations without organization approval. The new external registration will implement an approval process for External User Registration in which requests will be sent to the organizational user with the Primary AO privilege to approve or reject the request. The external user must wait until their request is approved to access the EHBs.
Changes only apply to future organization registrations - Users who are already registered to an organization do not need to take any action. Click HERE to be directed to a detailed step-by-step guide of registering to a new organization in the EHBs.
The Approval Process: On the anniversary date of a user registration to the organization or when a new user request is initiated, the EHBs will generate a Task to the Primary AO for user role approval. Task alerts can be accessed directly in the EHBs or through an email notification link, and will guide the primary AO to review and ensure registered users are still associated with the organization. Users who are no longer with the organization should be removed by the AO.
The Primary AO must decide on Annual Reviews within 30 days of the created Task, or the user will be automatically removed from the organization. Click HERE for a detailed step-by-step guide of the approval process.
We Are Here to Help
CLC understands that navigating the EHBs can come with unique challenges and circumstances for FQHCs, and we are here to guide you through any questions or concerns. For a more comprehensive understanding of Grants Management, Post Award, Organizational Roles, Tasks, and recent updates within the EHBs, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@communitylinkconsulting.com.