If an applicant has not reviewed the eligibility criteria and proceeds to submit an application even if they are not a Director (for corporations) or owner (for sole proprietors) of the business, they will receive an email that their application does not meet CDAP eligibility criteria.

Businesses must have between 1 and 499 full-time equivalent employees. A full-time equivalent (FTE) employee is defined as receiving a T4 Statement of Remuneration Paid slip from the applicant. One FTE is defined as at least 30 hours/week of paid labour. Part-time employees must be included as fractions of 1 FTE based on average labour hours compared to typical hours for 1 FTE employee.

To ensure applicants do not submit ineligible applications, applicants are presented with immediate eligibility feedback on the application form based on their selections.

If an applicant selects an ineligible choice, they are blocked from being able to submit the application.

In addition, for all submitted applications, CDAP performs an eligibility check with CRA. If the business’s information does not fit within the prescribed threshold, the applicant will receive an email that their application does not meet CDAP eligibility criteria.

Business must have at least $500,000 of annual revenues but not more than $100,000,000 in one of the previous three tax years from the date of submitting an application.

To ensure applicants do not submit ineligible applications, applicants are presented with immediate eligibility feedback on the application form based on their selections.

If an applicant selects an ineligible choice, they are blocked from being able to submit the application.

In addition, for all submitted applications, CDAP performs an eligibility check with CRA. If the business’s information does not fit within the prescribed threshold, the applicant will receive an email that their application does not meet CDAP eligibility criteria.

GCKey: Applicants are trying to log-in using their Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Log-in information, which used to be called My GCKey.

Note: The GCKey option used for CDAP is unrelated to the CRA Log-in.

Applicants can choose GCKey or use the Trusted Sign-in Partner option. For the Trusted Sign-in Partner options, no banking information is shared with CDAP or ISED.

Applicants can easily and immediately create a new GCKey if they do not already have one.

Incorrect banking info: Some applicants are using their business banking information when they should be using their personal banking information when passing through the automated ID validation system. Business accounts are not eligible for the automated ID verification process.

Note: Applicants are presented within an instructional page, prior to entering the verification system, emphasizing the need to use their personal banking login.

Tip for applicants: To accelerate their application journey, applicants should choose the automated ID validation option through Verify.me by selecting the recommended option to “Verify your identity online”.

If applicants select “Request verification with a CDAP officer”, which is the non-automated ID validation option, it could take up to 10 business days to arrange a video call with a CDAP officer to validate their identity.

Applicants who are not able to use the automated solution may choose the non-automated ID validation option “Request verification with a CDAP officer”. Applicants must then provide information as per the following instructions to help CDAP officers process their request:

"Once we receive your request, you will be contacted to arrange a video call for manual ID verification. ISED is available from Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST. Please indicate in the textbox below your preferred meeting time(s), business number, company legal name, and company postal code."

Spelling: Clients do not spell their legal business name as it appears on their CRA Notice of Assessment (NOA). For example, the client omits the period at the end of “Inc.” or the client spells out “incorporated” when they should write “Inc.”

Uploading the wrong documents: Applicants must upload a copy of the Digital Adoption Plan that they created via an eligible provincial or territorial program. Applicants that upload the results of their Digital Needs Assessment (CDA) or any other unrelated document instead of their Digital Adoption Plan produced by a recognized provincial/territorial program will not be admitted into the Fast Track process.

CDAP recognizes Digital Adoption Plans not older than 1 year from the following programs:

• Programme Audit Industrie 4.0 (in French only)

• Digital Boost 2.0

• Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency: Digital Acceleration Pilot

• BDC Advisory Services

A common question is from approved applicants enquiring what the next steps are or where to find the grant agreement for signature.

The Applicant should log back into the CDAP system. On the landing page, they will find the option to accept the grant agreement (and subsequently provide banking details).

The applicant may then proceed to type in their name, and proceed to indicate, by checking the appropriate checkbox, that they have read and accept the terms of the agreement, then select the “I accept this agreement” button. Note that the button does not become activated until after the checkbox has been checked.