Project Initiation Issues and Progress to Date
SPIT's current achievements toward improving project initiation
resources that are available to help sponsored research administration
staff perform their work are listed below. The links provide detailed
information, which is further down on this page.
Issues
- The process of "opening" a new project/grant is poorly
understood and leads to erroneous expectations.
- The distinctions between specialized service procurements and
research collaborations are not consistently defined and understood.
- Long lead times are associated with setting up sub-contracts
which are exacerbated by uncertainty and inconsistency in the
process.
- The time required to prepare, negotiate, and sign research contracts
can delay the start of work, discourage the negotiation of preferred
terms, and strain relationships with contractors.
- The inability of most research administrators to easily access
DRDA databases of proposals and awards leads to the creation of
redundant databases.
- New project/grants may not be set up with the correct budget
lines to accept appropriate and allowable charges.
- Lack of knowledge about how to set up small business plans and
lack of support in doing so has led to delays in setting up the
project/grants that require them.
- DRDA should have a uniform policy for distributing copies of
signed PAFs, PANs, and PACs to project directors, administrative
contacts, and authorized signers.
- When project/grants are not assigned to the correct class, indirect
costs may be charged inappropriately and activity is incorrectly
recorded.
Progress to Date
Coming Soon to the U-M Research Community
- Policy on Distribution of PAFs, PANs, and PACs
- Complete Chartfield on PAN
- PAN to give information on steps that can be taken before Chartfield
active in the system
Progress to Date Details
Project Award Notice (PAN) Changes:
Based on feedback, a note has been added to the PAN near where
the name of the assigned Financial Operations' coordinator name
has always appeared. It states "the Principal Investigator
(PI) is the only person who will receive any M-Pathways generated
documents unless the Financial Operations (FinOps) Project/Grant
(P/G) coordinator is contacted to change the recipient."
The PAN also now contains one of three possible notes, which give
the recipients an idea of when the P/G and ShortCodes will be active
in the system. For grants, it states "This PAN and award notice
have been sent to Financial Operations for processing. If, after
10 days, the ChartField
converter does not display all of the ChartField information
for the ShortCode assigned to your P/G, contact your P/G coordinator."
For contracts which become valid upon University of Michigan signature,
the timeframe is 14 days. For contracts, which become valid when
sponsors sign, the timeframe is 30 days.
Small Business Plan Flow Chart:
The lack of understanding about how to set up small business
plans and the lack of support to get plans developed has led to
delays in setting up Project/Grants (P/Gs) requiring them. Purchasing
has created a flow chart and memo templates to facilitate the creation
of small business plans for departments who must comply with federal
regulation. Another important step taken by Purchasing has been
to purchase access to Austin-Tetra, a database with 2.5 million
diversity vendors that will help the research community to prospect
diversity vendors. If you need to develop a small business plan,
call Purchasing.
Pilot Purchasing Project:
The initial Task Team felt that both the support for complex
or specialized purchase orders and the timeliness of purchase orders
could be improved by a closer working relationship between Purchasing
and research units. Unit administrators need to consider that Purchasing
has to meet the University's legal and audit requirements. However,
when unit staff is involved earlier in the process, they should
be able to offer a higher level of assistance without impacting
the efficiency of the procurement process. To explore this more
closely, Purchasing has been conducting a pilot project with staff
in the Space Physics Research Lab (SPRL), which is now in its third
month. SPRL staff is taking on some responsibilities normally reserved
for Purchasing staff, after going through training similar to that
for a new purchasing agent. Based on findings from the Pilot Program,
Purchasing is developing a Service Level Agreement (SLA). Purchasing
plans to pursue and promote two-way communication that will lead
to process improvements based on end-user feedback.
Project/Grant Establishment
E-Mails:
There was concern related to the timeliness of opening
Project/Grants (P/Gs) in the M-Pathways system. Faculty, research
staff and administrators found it cumbersome to continually track
whether the P/G and the ShortCode for a new research project had
been successfully opened in the system. To ease the burden on administrators
and other research staff, Sponsored Programs Financial Operations
is now sending out e-mails to the P/G Single Administrative Point
of Contacts (SAPOC) as well as the Project Director and contacts
listed on the Project Approval Form (PAF) notifying them that their
new P/G is active and ready to use in the M-Pathways system.
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