July 15, 2026

MRAM: July 2026 Q&A

Meeting materials (UW Net ID required) are available for your review along with a list of links shared during the session. These include a link to the recording along with a copy of the transcript of the meeting. Q&A from our session are included here for reference and are available in the MRAM announcements.

Within a week or so following every MRAM, an email like this one typically goes out with Q&A from the session and a link to the meeting materials.

Topics with questions from July’s MRAM:

PAFC: Effort Reporting Recerts, 100% Sponsored Faculty

Q1: How does the recert justification differ from the audit questions asked for the PAA itself, this seems duplicative. Can the notes be copied from the PAA’s from workday?
A1: The justifications entered for a PAA can be used as the recertification justification in ECC. That justification can be copied into ECC from Workday. Documenting the reason on the statement itself allows for an easier post-certification review during an audit.

Q2: Have the ECC notes section been fixed so the notes can consistently viewed by both pre reviewers and certifiers at all steps of the process?
A2: Yes, that issue was corrected by Huron and the notes should be viewable during all steps. If you encounter issues, please reach out effortreporting@uw.edu and the effort team can investigate.

Q3: We have some staff that are PIs on awards and had some questions raised on audit regarding 100% sponsor funding. Does the report mentioned here allow for tracking non-faculty PIs?
A3: The 100% Sponsor-Funded Faculty report does not include non-faculty PIs. If you have an audit scenario and need additional assistance or data, please reach out to gcafco@uw.edu and we can attempt to work through the issue.

Q4: What if a faculty member is not 100% FTE or splits effort with another institution?
A4: Effort is measured as a percentage of the individual’s UW time, regardless of their FTE. The purpose of the 100% Sponsor-Funded Faculty report is to help identify scenarios where faculty (regardless of their FTE) certified 100% of their time as dedicated to sponsored awards. If faculty have a quantifiable (1% or more) amount of their UW time spent on non-sponsored activities, that must be reflected on their applicable Effort Statement.

Q5: Previously there was discussion about spending restrictions on awards with statements over 60 days past due. Are those restrictions going into place?
A5: Yes, PAFC escalates over-due statements to the applicable Deans for statements 30, 45, and 60 days past due. For statements which are created after the reporting period or period due dates (either due to Retro Pay or PAAs), PAFC will follow up with units to facilitate completion of those statements. ECC System Notifications.

Human Subjects Division: Single IRB Review Fee

Q1: Will industry studies with UW PI which need HSD reliance on an external IRB incur these costs?
A1: No, these fees are specific to studies for which the UW is serving as the single IRB/reviewing on behalf of non-UW institutions. Industry initiated studies are already charged a different administrative fee. That fee will not change. Review information about that fee.

Q2: I assume that the billing for this will go to the subawards. However often subawards take months longer to set up than the prime UW award. How will the billing work in this case?
A2: The billing will be processed through UW Workday and will be charged to whatever worktag is provided by the UW PI/study team to HSD. HSD will not invoice subawardees/non-UW institutions. The UW PI should plan for these fees in whatever budget is at UW.

Q3: I still don’t quite understand how this IRB billing will work. It sounds like the fees will be charged for each non-UW reliant site, but UW will then be responsible for paying these fees, if the charges are not going to the subawards but we are supplying a worktag. Is this correct?
A3: Yes, the UW study team is responsible for covering the cost of these fees. The UW study team must provide a billable UW Workday worktag for these fees. UW is typically the prime awardee for studies in which the UW IRB will serve as the single IRB, so these single IRB fees should be accounted for in that budget. In rare circumstances in which the UW IRB agrees to serve as the single IRB when UW is the subawardee, the costs of single IRB should be in the subaward budget that UW receives. Review more detailed information about how NIH envisions this to work. UW operating as a single IRB would most typically fall under scenarios 1, 2 when UW is the prime awardee, and scenario 4 when UW is a subawardee. Note that in these scenarios, the new UW sIRB fees are described as “secondary activities” that may be charged as direct costs.

Modernizing Reporting: Transition to Power BI

Q1: What implication does this have for the EDW if any?
A1: There is no impact to the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) or other data sources used by these reports. The reports will continue to use the same institutional data sources that are used today.

Q2: Will all reports display or only the reports that the user has proper authorization/security roles?
A2: The BI Portal will continue to function as it does today by providing access to the full report catalog and security information, regardless of role. While users may discover any report in the catalog, their security roles determine which reports they can run and what data they can access.

Q3: In current state, Cubes is essentially a pivot table which allows you to double click and entry to see the transactions that make up the calculated value. Will we still have this option in the new state with power BI?
A3: Cubes will not be impacted by Phase 1 of this project. Stay tuned for updates on Phase 2, which will involve cube modernization.

Q4: Will UW ever allow users to schedule their reports to run automatically? Several universities using Workday have configured the system to allow users to schedule their reports. This would save so much time for users.
A4: While the Power BI and Workday platforms both include subscription/scheduling features, they are not broadly adopted at the UW. Please consider the following for our implementations:

  • Power BI: A Subscribe to Report button appears for all Power BI reports, but report subscriptions are not currently supported for BI Portal reports. This setting is controlled at the UW level and cannot be turned off for individual reports. You are welcome to try the feature, but it is not supported by the Reporting & Analytics team at this time. For more information, refer to Email subscriptions for reports and dashboards in the Power BI service.
  • Workday: WD Reporting avoids scheduling reports or alerts in Workday with a few exceptions. While automating such work increases departmental efficiencies, it shifts workload to limited WD Reporting resources.

Q5: Can we see the reports that we don’t have access to so that we understand what reports we can’t use currently?
A5: The BI Portal will continue to function as it does today by providing access to the full report catalog and security information, regardless of role. While users may discover any report in the catalog, their security roles determine which reports they can run and what data they can access.

Validating Research Security Training Completion

OSP validates training completion within the UW’s My Research Training Transcript (MRTT) at the appropriate point in the project lifecycle to ensure compliance with sponsor requirements. For training completion to appear in MRTT:

  • UW Covered Individuals must provide their UW NetID in the NetID field in their CITI profile and must also complete the training in CITI.
    • NetID is not the same as @UW email address.
  • Without the NetID in your CITI profile, the training record in UW’s My Research Training Transcript is incomplete and OSP cannot provide approval of completion.

We encourage everyone to take the training early and check your training transcript before deadlines. For detailed instructions review How do I add a NetID to my CITI profile?

Q1: Do staff taking FTE on grants need to take this training? I thought this was only for PIs.
A1: Right now, we are following sponsor requirements for Covered Individuals to complete the training. For most sponsors, “Covered Individuals” is equivalent to “Senior/Key Personnel”. However, sponsors can designate additional project personnel as “Covered Individuals.” Also, the USDA defines “Covered Individuals” to include all persons paid on an award. So: this can (will) vary across awards and sponsors.

Q2: If a PI’s RST is unexpired at time of award but expires after the start date (e.g., 2 months after start date), then they don’t have to retake it before the award is setup, correct?
A2: That is correct. However, there are various points across the project lifecycle when OSP will need to validate completion, and Covered Individuals should keep their training current to avoid delays and ensure timely submissions.

Q3: Will PIs get notification when their Security Training certification is about to expire?
A3: We have worked with CITI to begin sending reminders. If a Covered Individual doesn’t receive a reminder before their training expires and (1) it’s not in a spam folder and (2) the email address in their CITI profile is correct, please reach out to rso-help@uw.edu so that we can follow up with CITI.

Q4: The CITI program shows that the research security training is valid for 4 years once taken, is that the same for UW’s requirement, or does this need to be renewed annually to meet UW requirement?
A4: The four year renewal is incorrect. Federal sponsors have stated that they do not require an annual renewal: they require that training be complete within 12 months prior to proposal submission or some other designated time(s) across the research lifecycle. Each “Covered Individual” and OSP will certify completion at those checkpoints.