SPAERC & SERA
Updates to Post-Award Change (PAC)
In order to improve the data quality, reporting, and analytics around award data, the following changes have been made to the Post-Award Change in SPAERC and SERA:
- Addition of Revised Start Date field, displayed for the PAC Requested Change type “Start Date Change”
- Addition of Revised End Date field, displayed for PAC Requested Change types “Extension”, “Early Termination”, or “Relinquishment”
- Addition of Temporary End Date field, displayed for PAC Requested Change type “Temporary Budget Extension” (formerly called “Advanced Extension”)
- Addition of Modification Number field
- Addition of Originating Sponsor Award Number field, which will pre-populate from the parent FA data, when present.
Updates to PAC Notification PDF
The above new PAC fields will also be displayed on the PDF attachment that is sent to campus when a PAC has been processed.
Updates to Pending Actions Report
The above new PAC fields are also included on the GCA Pending Actions Report
PAC Requested Change Type Updates
The following changes have been made to existing PAC types:
- “Advanced Extension” is now relabeled as “Temporary Budget Extension”
- “Significant Financial Interest” has been removed
- “Create Program Income” has been removed
- “Change of Award” has been removed
- “Change in Authorized Action” has been removed
The removed PAC Requested Change types will continue to display on historical PACs.
Update to Cycle View of PAC Data
When in the SPAERC or SERA Cycle view, the PAC row will now display the new Revised Start Date, Revised End Date, and Temporary End Date fields when populated.
Intellectual Property Provisions validation message update
The validation message that appears when the Intellectual Property Provisions question is not answered will now match the current question label, for added clarity.
SERA only: Future budget biennium selection removed
The Budget Biennium field, updated by GCA in many of the items in SERA, will no longer show future biennium dates for selection. This change will help prevent erroneous biennium selections.
What is a cycle?
A Cycle is an electronic file that contains all the items relating to a specific Sponsored Project during a specific competing segment. Cycles are a convenient mechanism for tracking the progression of a competing segment and the relationship of the items created within that segment.
Here’s an example of what a Cycle might contain:
You can relate a cycle to another cycle. For example, you might want to relate cycles for a project with multiple competing segments.
How is the cycle organized?
We often refer to the relationship of two items as “parent” and “child.” A “parent” item might be the cycle, an application, or an action and its “child” might be an application or another action.
The Cycle is the top of the hierarchy and so it has no parent. Cycles contain three possible child items: NAA, PAN, and eGC1.
Some parent-child relationships are specifically defined, while others are more general. The following table indicates the typical relationships between items.
| Item Type |
Parent |
Children |
| Cycle |
(none) |
NAA, PAN, eGC1 |
| eGC1 |
Cycle [1] |
FA, NAA, CO, AA, ADV |
| PAN |
Cycle [2] |
(none) |
| FA |
eGC1 [3] |
PAC, SC |
| PAC |
FA |
(none) |
| NAA |
Cycle, eGC1, or FA |
(none) |
| CO |
eGC15 |
(none) |
| AA |
Cycle, eGC1, or FA |
(none) |
| SC (subcontract) |
FA |
(none) |
| ADV (advance budget number request) |
eGC1 |
(none) |
Table Notes: Currently, the system also allows
- An eGC1 to be the child of another eGC1.
- A PAN to be the child of an eGC1 or an FA.
- A CO to be the child of a Cycle, eGC1, or an FA.
Applications (eGC1s) within the cycle display from newest to oldest. Child items under eGC1s display oldest to newest.
Tips:
- When you click “Back to My Team” from the Cycle Details page, the Cycle Details window will close, and the window you last had open will revert to the My Team tasklist. If you wish to keep your previous item open, close the browser tab containing the Cycle Details (rather than clicking the “Back to My Team” link).
- You can only use the Cycle Details tab or “fly-out menu” to open one other item at a time. If you want to open multiple cycle items at a time, then do so from the Cycle Details page.
Note: There is a brief overview of Cycles in a separate article.
Cycle Details Tab
The Cycle Details tab appears on Funding Actions and Post-Award Changes. It works a bit differently from the other tabs. Instead of clicking on it, you hover your mouse over the Cycle Details tab to see the “fly-out” menu. From that menu, you can see all of the items that are accessible from SERA and that are in the same cycle as the item you’re currently viewing.
Note: Items will not display in the fly-out menu if they are not accessible from SERA (either because they haven’t reached GCA, or, because they’re an item type not accessible in SERA).
From the Cycle fly-out menu, you can either click on a specific item to open it or click the “View Cycle Details” link at the top to see the Cycle Details page. If you click on an application, you will see the “printable eGC1” PDF version of it.
Cycle Details Page
The SERA view of the Cycle Details page is a simpler version of the SPAERC Cycle Details page. The Basic Cycle Data section is the same, but in SERA you only see the Hierarchical View.
Basic Cycle Data
On the Cycle Details page, you can see basic details about all of the items contained within the cycle. You can click on the help link (question mark) next to Hierarchy View for a description of the columns displayed.
The Basic Cycle Data includes information common to the competing segment or project: the PI, Sponsor, the Short Title, and the Organization receiving funding. All of this information populates in the Cycle from the first item added to the Cycle.
Basic Cycle Data also includes:
| Field |
Description |
| Cycle ID |
System assigned, unique to each Cycle. |
| PI |
The name of the PI responsible for this Cycle of research. Populates from the first item added to this cycle. |
| Sponsor |
The name of the funding sponsor for this Cycle of research. Populates from the first item added to this cycle. |
| Description |
A brief description of the Cycle that is more detailed than the Short Title. |
| File Location |
As of November 2013, this is always File.
- Cycles created prior to January 2009 may have assignments other than File. Once assigned to File, however, they may not be reassigned. (Cycles created between January 2009 and November 2013 were automatically assigned to e-Shelf. In November 2013, any Cycle assigned to e-Shelf was changed to File via a data clean-up process.)
|
| Related Cycles |
If the Cycle you are viewing has one or more related cycles, a drop-down appears that allows you to change which cycle you’re viewing. |
| Total Awarded |
This displays the total Awarded amount from the Funding Actions in this Cycle with a status of Processed. |
| Total All Related Cycles (Awarded) |
This displays the total awarded amount from all Funding Actions in this and Related Cycles (if any) with a status of Processed. |
| Are all eGC1s or funding actions related to this cycle currently in SPAERC? |
If there are paper documents associated with this cycle that pre-date eGC1s and funding actions, the answer to this question is “No.” |
If there are any related cycles, they’ll be linked to in the Basic Cycle Data section.
Hierarchy View
You can customize the columns you see in this view by checking or un-checking the boxes. You can click on the help link (question mark) next to Hierarchy View for a description of the columns displayed.
Note: Only items that you can access from SERA will display an “Open” link.
In the Hierarchically view, the display column may represent something different based on the Item type. For example, the “Admin Action Types/App Types” column will display the Application type for Application Items, but will display the Requested Change type for a PAC.
The following table summarizes the information that displays for each Column based on the type of item.
| View Column |
| Item Type |
Sponsor/
Subcontractor |
Start Date,
End Date |
Processing
Date |
Amount |
Sponsor Award/UW PO Number |
Admin Action/
App Types |
| Applications |
Sponsor |
Proposed
Dates |
Approved
Date |
Requested Amount |
Sponsor Award Number |
App Types |
Funding
Actions |
Sponsor |
Actual
Dates |
FA in GCA Date |
FA Current Amount |
Sponsor Award Number |
N/A |
| Subcontracts |
Subcontractor |
Period
Dates |
Received Date |
SA Amount |
UW PO Number |
N/A |
Other Admin
Actions |
Sponsor |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
Action-specific Admin Action Type (see below) |
Advance
Requests |
Sponsor |
Actual Dates |
Request Date |
Requested Amount |
N/A |
Adv Types |
Each admin action type (PAC, PAN, etc.) defines actions specific to the type. The Admin Action Types column displays this type for each Admin Action Item in the cycle. The table below describes the column meaning for each specific Admin Action type.
| Admin Action Type |
Admin Action Types Column Info |
| PAC |
Requested Change |
| PAN |
Content of Notification |
| NAA |
Agreement Type |
| CO |
Close Out Action |
For all types, multiple selections may be made. When this occurs, the Hierarchically view displays “Multiple Types.”
Features
Expose Cycle Details tab in SERA
GCA can now view cycle details from SERA. This provides GCA staff with greater visibility to the relationship between items, and makes it easier to quickly research the chronology of an award.
Subcontracts open in a new browser window in SERA
Subcontracts in SERA will now always open in a new browser window and will include navigation to related cycle items.
