MAIS Home

Projects

Sponsored Programs Implementation Team

Summary of Recommendations - SPIT II [Final Report]

Overview

Items that state IN PROCESS are items that may require further discussion in specific Central Units, may be items that will continue to cycle regularly, or may be processes/procedures under development, but not quite ready for campus use. As these items change, the research community will receive updated communications. Items stated as COMPLETED have met the expectation of the original recommendation.

*Dedicated to the resolution, communication, and evaluation of issues affecting the research community.

Contract Administration

Note: A sub-team is currently reviewing the Office of Contract Administration. We expect a final report of recommendations to be available by the end of May 2004.

DRDA

Actions completed or in process

• Add statements to the Project Award Notice (PAN) to explain the time required to activate a project/grant number.
  • COMPLETED.
• Consistently note project director's contractual special reporting requirements on the PAN.
  • IN PROCESS. Some areas are very consistent in this and other areas are not. The consistency issue is something DRDA continues to review/discuss during regular staff meetings. A question raised by the SPIT III team was whether a PDF file could be created when the file is being initially copied so it could be sent to units. We understand DRDA is working on something now that may be available in early 2004.
• Include the full ChartField combination in a single location on the PAN.
  • IN PROCESS. It was agreed that all the information appears on the PAN now in different areas except for the Program code designation. SPIT III felt that many unit team members would benefit from having the entire ChartField listed in one area on the PAN. We believe this would be good PR for DRDA. This is still in discussion.
• Notify project director and chairs designate (as indicated in DRDA's Blue Pages) by e-mail that a PAN is being sent; include a checklist of steps that research administrators can take before the project/grant is activated.
  • IN PROCESS. The original thought was that a list of items that could be initiated before the p/g was opened could be attached to the PAN when it was sent to units. DRDA did not want to add additional paper to the already sometimes lengthy PAN. There is still discussion about whether this could be incorporated on the back of one of the PAN documents, listed on the DRDA Web site somewhere, and also including it in RAIN training materials.
• Add information about changing the administrative point of contact to the PAN.
  • COMPLETED.
• Follow consistent policies for distribution of Proposal Approval Forms (PAF), Project Award Notices (PAN), and Project Award Change (PAC).
  • IN PROCESS. Some areas are very consistent in this and other areas are not. The consistency issue is something DRDA continues to review/discuss during regular staff meetings. A question raised by the SPIT III team was whether a PDF file could be created when the file is being initially copied so it could be sent to units. We understand DRDA is working on something that may be available in early 2004.
• Copy the appropriate financial operations coordinator on no-cost time extension requests to sponsors.
  • COMPLETED. This process change is continuously getting better as DRDA works consistently to include Financial Operations coordinators as no-cost extension are being requested. Unit administrators are also working consistently to include Financial Operations coordinators in their correspondence to DRDA about extension requests.
• Consistently attach the sub-contracting memo to PANs when a sub-contract is part of the awarded project.
  • COMPLETED. Several SPIT III team members felt that the units they specifically represented were not getting this information consistently. Some sponsor areas in DRDA are much better about making sure the correct documentation is attached to the PAN while others are not consistent in including it. It was decided that SPIT III team members would go back to their represented units to get more information about how often this occurred, which DRDA sponsor areas seemed to be inconsistent, and bring examples back to the team for review.
• Notify project directors and administrative point of contact on the PAF of proposal receipt, and assigned project representative.
  • COMPLETED.
• Involve project director and administrative point of contact at an earlier stage if there are problems with contract negotiations.
  • COMPLETED. SPIT III team members representing LSA reported that DRDA often worked through a contact in the Dean's office, rather than calling units directly, which can impact efficiency and communication. The Financial Operations representative said they also tend to work through the LSA Dean's office because many times they have no idea which individuals are in specific LSA areas and believe this to be more efficient for them to use that contact. It was recommended that administrators in LSA units bring this point up at one of the regularly scheduled LSA Research Administrators meetings.
• Notify Purchasing Services and project director/administrative point of contact about all "small business" requirements (i.e., those on federal contracts along with other "special" requirements).
  • COMPLETED. The process requirements for large federal grants/contracts of $500,000 and over has worked well, but problems still exist with the management of "special" requirements on smaller contracts. Pass-through obligations on smaller sub-contracts from other than federal direct sponsors create unique problems for both DRDA and Purchasing. DRDA has created a pop-up menu to include these obligations on the PAN of sub-contracts that have these pass-through obligations, but the process by which units get reports from Purchasing is still pending a process development.
• Review the awarded projects to ensure the appropriate Class code has been indicated on the PAF before the project/grant number is assigned.
  • COMPLETED. DRDA has implemented a much more careful review of Class assignments. Unit administrators should review the information on the PAN and if there are questions about the Class assignment, call DRDA as soon as possible. The Cost Reimbursement Office also does a careful review of the Class assignment. DRDA believes that only 1% or less of the projects get incorrect Class assignments.
• Develop a comprehensive list of training opportunities for research administrators.
  • COMPLETED. There is now a training link on the DRDA Web site and it is being updated regularly.

Further recommendations to the unit:

• Develop procedures to include all signing departments on PAN distribution so that units expecting a sub-project/grant will be aware an award had been made.
  • IN PROCESS. This is not consistently handled the same by all DRDA areas. Some areas are diligent in making sure that all areas receive the PAN while other areas are not. It has been recommended by SPIT II and SPIT III that the imaged PAN is made available to all area units involved in the project. This would save time and resources. A quick email notification could be sent to administrative points of contact when a project was awarded to let individuals know they could view the details. DRDA is planning to implement an email notification very soon. This may help to resolve many of these issues.
• Make the file of imaged PAFs, PANs, and PACs available to research administrators.
  • IN PROCESS. As mentioned in the comments above, this is something that units believe would be the most helpful. It is understood that this is not a straightforward procedure, but recommend that central administration work towards this goal in the relatively near future.
• Monitor turnaround times and other performance standards cited in SPIT's process outlines (Unit Roles Survey).
  • IN PROCESS. Most unit representatives felt this was still a problem in certain areas of DRDA. SPIT III will work to fine tune the Unit Roles Survey and submit the final draft to the SPIT Steering Committee shortly. The goal is to distribute the process flow widely across campus. This may help to define central office and unit roles.
• Create a work group of DRDA staff, MAIS staff, and end users to improve the functionality of PRISM for non-DRDA users.o
  • COMPLETED. DRDA has agreed to help facilitate a user group of individual unit users, DRDA staff working with PRISM, and MAIS staff. The goal of this sub-group is help unit users understand how to extract accurate and reliable data in the PRISM Business Objects universe and to evaluate whether system tweaks are necessary. MAIS specialists will be available to help with process. The PRISM subgroup has been established and is meeting regularly.
         A survey is under development for the research community. A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Web site will be established and communicated to the research community through a DRDA email. In addition, a brief presentation is planned for a future RAN meeting.
         It is clear that we need to clean up old and inaccurate data in the PRISM database. DRDA is considering a process to meet this need. Many Research Administrators fill in the Notes section of the PAF with additional participating Co-Investigator information, assuming the data is captured for PRISM. Unit users discovered this information is not currently captured. Discussions are continuing about how to capture additional co-investigator information listed in the Notes section of the PAF.
• Prepare a workshop on the processing of proposals involving contracts.
  • COMPLETED. DRDA piloted a new training session on Contracts 101. The new course has been reworked and is now offered to the greater campus community.
• Continue to include staff from both research units and central units in the development of training programs.
  • IN PROCESS. DRDA is working with units to help develop courses that would be beneficial to team members in units. Keep watch for an entry level Budgeting 101 pilot in mid 2004. DRDA delivered a pilot on 4/7/04 that helped identify areas needing refinement. Before going live, DRDA will hold another pilot session.
• Solicit "customer" feedback from appropriate constituencies to build and maintain a positive service climate.
  • IN PROCESS. This is not being done currently. DRDA usually solicits "customer" feedback as it readies itself for a regular five-year internal review. The next cycle for an internal DRDA review is a little over a year from now. It has been recently brought up, by some of the smaller schools and colleges, that their service from DRDA is less than desirable and they are requesting a venue to resolve these issues. SPIT III will work to help bring these issues to the surface and to help to resolve them.
• Make the DRDA "Blue Pages" easier to find on the Web site to encourage their use.
• COMPLETED. DRDA has tried to make the "Blue Pages" more visible. Research Administrators had hoped to have a link from the front page of the DRDA Web site, but DRDA did not want to add more links on their front page. Some team members recommended a name change for this listing because the name related to when it was originally distributed to units on blue paper. It was mentioned that new campus community members did not quickly connect to this listings name. At a recent RAN meeting, DRDA provided a quick overview about using the index to find information more quickly on their Web site.
• IN PROCESS. The development of a research administrator's page that will provide important links that these individual staff members use and need regularly. A committee was formed and has met twice. Stay tuned for more progress on this development.

MAIS

Actions completed or in process

• Implement significant changes in PBSR and statement of activity for improvements, as generally outlined in SPIT's "other initiatives" meetings.
  • COMPLETED. MAIS held several meetings with unit representatives to better understand what they needed for report information. Several examples were provided and the 80/20 rule was administered to come up with report improvements. The overall agreement was that no one report would be able to provide specific information the way each individual unit may want to have it provided.
• Provide mechanisms for encumbering expenses in the M-Pathways system.
  • COMPLETED. MAIS modified the system to allow units to include commitments, at any ChartField combination, in the financial reports. Commitments might be payroll projections or other expenses as well as anticipated revenues that you would normally include on an excel spreadsheet in anticipation of the actual transaction occurring. The commitments can be entered with beginning and ending dates so that once the end date has passed the commitment is automatically relieved. This process may eliminate the need for a separate spreadsheet unless units have specific individual needs. MAIS provides a user guide and will provide individual training for units who wish to use this functionality. There are currently over 7,000 lines of commitments in the data base.
• Work with units to ensure appropriate use of ChartFields on service unit billings.
  • COMPLETE. MAIS continues to work with service unit billing areas to help define upload information and provide the best detail to campus units for reconciliation purposes. Since November, MAIS has been working with service units to implement SUB enhancements. Service units started loading information during February business using the new file format. One enhancement is to allow service units to provide either ShortCode or ChartField formats to M-Pathways for processing (previously they could only provide ChartFields).
• Enhance reference information for service unit billings on the voucher detail report.
  • IN PROCESS. MAIS continues to work with service unit billing areas. [See above explanation]

Further recommendations to the unit

• Re-define and re-formalize the role of the unit liaisons as a source of information for their units; SPIT found that unit liaisons are inconsistent in their understanding of their role.
  • IN PROCESS. There have not been many recent meetings of the financial unit liaisons, but many more for the human resources and student administration liaisons due to the Web upgrade of those systems. It is important that unit liaison roles be reiterated so units relying on these individuals get updated and pertinent information in a timely way. A SPIT III recommendation is to have these roles and individuals who have them reviewed to see if the role is in fact matched correctly.
• Solicit "customer" feedback from appropriate constituencies to build and maintain a positive service climate.
  • COMPLETED. MAIS uses many ways to solicit feedback, such as the zoomerang survey after changes were made to the SOA last year. MAIS has also worked with the School of Information using students to interview users periodically to get feedback (annually they focus on various units within MAIS).

Purchasing Services

Actions completed or in process

• Develop a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for partnership with units that have specialized purchasing needs.
  • COMPLETED. An early pilot test with a unit having specialized purchasing needs worked very well. Purchasing will continue to further develop agreements with units with special needs in the future. A new research purchasing position will be posted soon and expected to help with many of these research specific needs.
• Prepare a job aid to describe payment processes.
  • COMPLETED. Purchasing has added many items to their Web site that the greater community was not aware of. A demonstration of navigation to this area was reviewed at a recent RAN meeting. Recently, units have brought up the process of contract purchase orders when they cross academic years. There is some confusion about how these actually transfer into the next academic year when vendors submit invoices, what does purchasing show as an end date, and who should be doing what? Some staff heard that no one does anything about these problems until a vendor calls upset!
• Prepare a job aid for identifying cash terms and their proper use.
  • IN PROCESS.
• Prepare a job aid for identifying freight terms and their proper use.
  • IN PROCESS.
• Develop an overview and improve procedures for small business plans.
  • COMPLETED.
• Set up procedures for special "small business sub-contracting plan" projects (i.e., those not on federal contracts) that mirror the process for federal contracts.
  • COMPLETED.
• Continue to solicit "customer" feedback from appropriate constituencies to build and maintain a positive service climate.
  • COMPLETED. End users can fill out an anonymous form on the Purchasing Web site to submit concerns and/or appreciation notes.

Further recommendation to the unit

• Share the reasons for failed invoices in appropriate training venues.
  • COMPLETED. Information now available on the purchasing Web site.
• Review process for handling failed invoices to avoid lost discounts.
  • COMPLETED. Information now available on the purchasing Web site.
• Stabilize staffing for small business sub-contracting plans.
  • COMPLETED. Purchasing is in the process of hiring an individual to work in this area with research units.

Sponsored Financial Operations

Actions completed or in process

• Develop a checklist for project closeout.
  • COMPLETED. This is available on the Financial Operations Web site.
• Consistently send the "90-day" memo to project directors and administrative points of contact.
  • COMPLETED. The "90-day" memo is being consistently routed to research units.
• Send the 90-day memo electronically.
  • COMPLETED. This has just recently been completed.
• Check project file for no-cost time extensions before initiating project closeout.
  • COMPLETED. DRDA is carbon copying Financial Operations on requests for no-cost time extensions.
• Make report tracking module available to research administrators.
  • COMPLETED.
• Make imaged file of submitted financial reports available to research administrators.
  • IN PROCESS. Much is dependent upon the new system adopted for campus imaging.
• Create job aid for tracking unpaid invoices (include information about all three steps in training information).
  • IN PROCESS. The Accounts Receivable team is revising collection procedures due to implementation of the new Billing & Collections system. A job aid will be completed once the procedures have been updated.
• Ensure that billing schedule matches contract or award notice.
  • COMPLETED. Financial Operations customer service representatives will review these conditions while the project is being setup in the system. They will contact the research units to work out special circumstances right from the start. Research units will continue to monitor this situation.
• Initiate discussion with the post-award administrative contact when the project is set up if the project director must contribute to special billing requirements.
  • COMPLETED. Financial Operations customer service representatives will review these conditions while the project is being setup in the system. They will contact the research units to work out special circumstances right from the start. Research units will continue to monitor this situation.
• Send financial reports to post-award administrative contact for review electronically.
  • IN PROCESS. Financial Operations has identified an approach that would allow these reports to be sent electronically as MS Excel documents via e-mail attachments. Staff in Financial Operations are currently developing this process, which includes building automated macros that will create the departmental Excel report files from the existing Financial Operations working file templates. The current estimated timeline is to have a draft prototype completed in May, and to finalize and to begin using in June 2004.
• Prepare a "best practices guide" for A-21 reporting.
  • COMPLETED. Financial Operations is conducting classes and providing job aides on their Web site.
• Send A-21 reports to post award administrative points of contact in an electronic worksheet.
  • IN PROCESS. Financial Operations has identified an approach that would allow these reports to be sent electronically as MS Excel documents via e-mail attachments. Staff in Financial Operations are currently developing this process, which includes building automated macros that will create the departmental Excel report files from the existing Financial Operations working file templates. The current estimated timeline is to have a draft prototype completed in May, and to finalize and to begin using in June 2004.
• Prepare a "best practices guide" for cost sharing.
  • COMPLETED. Can be found on the Financial Operations Web site.
• Prepare a job aid for interpreting and using the accounts receivable system.
  • COMPLETED. Documentation that describes how to interpret the reports that are created by the new AR system was distributed to the University community with the "go live" of the new system on.
• Notify post-award administrative points of contact when project/grant number is activated.
  • COMPLETED. This process has been very successful and well received by the greater campus community.
• Train new staff to set up budget lines in accordance with sponsor's approved budget.
  • COMPLETED. Financial Operations customer service representatives will verify that the correct budget lines are properly opened in the system.

Further recommendations to the unit

• Monitor all turnaround times and procedures cited in the process outlines to ensure consistency.
  • COMPLETED. This continues on a regular basis in Financial Operations as they continue to measure these procedures.
• Introduce the permanent solution of the new M-Pathways accounts receivable module with examples for research administrators.
  • COMPLETED.
• Solicit "customer" feed back from appropriate constituencies to build and maintain a positive service climate.
  • IN PROCESS. A customer service survey is currently under development by Financial Operations.