May 15, 2025
MRAM Q&A May 2025
Meeting materials are available for your review along with a list of links shared during the session. Q&A from our session are included here for reference and will be available with the other meeting materials shortly.
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.
- PAFC Hot Topic: New IBS Definition & Cost Share Tips
- Marathon, with Intermittent Sprint: Federal Policy Changes impacting Awards
- AIDE Initiative Update
- PI & Grant Manager Dashboard Demo
- Grant Security Hierarchies & Eligible Investigators
PAFC Hot Topic: New IBS Definition & Cost Share Tips
Q1: Will the change in UW’s definition of IBS apply retroactively to existing, multiyear grants that would have included ADS/ENS in salary calculations?
Should those of us writing budgets *now* for proposals due *before* July 1 (but projects beginning *after* July 1) eliminate ADS/ENS from our salary calculations?
A1: 1) Yes, for all salary for pay periods beginning 7/1/25 and going forward, Workday will exclude ADS and ENS from the IBS when calculating the salary cap. 2) Yes, proposals for future awards should begin to use the IBS definition which excludes ADS and ENS from the calculation.
Q2: What about Indirect Cost (IDC) cost-sharing?
A2:Calculation of Unrecovered Indirect Costs (UIDC) to meet a cost share commitment is done by GCA on a quarterly basis. GCA webpage on cost share contributions.
Q3: For Cost Share: is there an ETA for a report like pre-WD that can be pulled for all of the cost share commitments by Cost Center? Is it possible for campus to be given the same view in Award Portal when pulling reports that include the same datasets that GCA can see?
A3: There is a current request to add cost share data to the cost center reports in Award Portal but we do not have an ETA at this time.
Marathon, with Intermittent Sprint: Federal Policy Changes impacting Awards
Q1 : Can these instructions related to responding to POs with short turnaround be added to the resources on the Guidance on Federal Administration Research Policy , so we can point PIs to this information?
A1: Please review recent updates to the Guidance on Federal Administration Research Policy.
Q2: Since NOAA also uses eRA Commons, should NOAA follow this same new NIH process for NCEs?
A2: As far as OSP is aware, a NOAA Revision Request for a “No Cost Extension – Prior Approval Waived (Research Terms and Conditions)” remains available and has not been disabled.
Q3: What type pf progress report is needed to request a no-cost extension (NCE) from NIH; RPPR or other?
A3: The progress report needed for the NCE request is a narrative that covers the project activities for the period since the last RPPR. It is not prepared on RPPR forms.
Q4: For an NSF funding opportunity that was posted before May 5 and which has a set submission deadline (in this case June 20), will PIs be given approval to apply?
A4: Please review these NSF FAQs.
Q5: My PIs don’t understand the “long game” with the UW’s stance on the NSF 15% cap. If the government succeeds, is the UW simply going to stop performing new research for NSF (and any other agency that successfully implements the 15% cap)?
A5: Please see UW leadership addressing these issues in the 5/6 Provost Blog and the 5/7 Budget Town Hall, beginning at 52:23.
Q6: If an award was terminated right before the end of the pay period and the award had active personnel, does that pay need to be moved off the award?
A6: The portion of the pay that represents effort after the termination date would need to be moved off the award. For example, if an award has a termination date of April 25th, salary for the period of April 15-April 25 would be allowable on the award, but the portion of pay post 4/25 would be unallowable. This may require a PAA to adjust the amount of salary on the award. However, if an award is terminated with an end date of April 30th, the full 4/15-4/30 pay period would be allowable on the award, even though payroll won’t post until early May, because the salary was incurred prior to the termination date.
Q7:Will NSF awards coming after May 5 with no F&A (such as conference proposals), will there be a way to request processing?
A7: If the terms and conditions do not require acknowledgement of the IDC cap policy, then a program that would not carry F&A, in any case, can be processed.
Q8: For an NSF award, if the PI receives an amendment with additional funding, will OSP put on hold as well or is this for new awards only?
A8: Award supplements made via amendments to awards in existence prior to May 5, 2025, are not subject to the NSF IDC cap policy.
Q9: Are you seeing federal sponsors generally approve costs post award termination that are associated with participant safety (e.g., safely transition participants off study medication, remove devices, complete follow-up lab work, etc.)?
A9: Termination terms and sponsor policies recognize these are allowable costs. Individual approval of costs during closeout may vary.
Q10: Re closeout: How will UW honor commitments to subawards on projects with an immediate termination when we must give the sub 30 days notice?
A10: We are terminating subawards as of the revised end date from the sponsor.
Q11: Has there been any changes related DOD associated with NCE’s or Foreign Subaward changes?
A11: As of 5/14, no.
For the following questions Please review these NIH FAQs on the Office of Research website.
- If we received the NOA on April 27 but the award begins May 1, does the new foreign subaward guideline apply? The foreign subrecipient is still listed in the NOA.
- How are foreign consultants impacted by this guidance?
- What is the perceived benefit, from the NIH perspective, of eliminating the parent to child relationship of foreign subawards?
- Will we be able to provide a NCE to existing subawards to foreign awardees (for both SNAP and non-SNAP)? If not, do we need to issue deobligations?
- For projects renewing May-Sept that aren’t viable without the international collaborator – could we potentially rebudget all funding to the UW prime, and then enter into a set of smaller, short-term procurement-only contracts for specific functions e.g. in-country data collection?
- Where are the items indicated on the slide for updated NIH process for NCE? The steps are not in the NIH NOT-OD-25-110.
AIDE Initiative Update
Q1: Can we have more transparency about 1) who exactly from campus / departments research administrators was approached and invited to be a participating part of AIDE and 2) what AIDE is doing to invite and hear issues that research administrators in “campus partners” / departments are seeing in research management at UW?
A1: The AIDE cross-functional project team that requires a large time commitment weekly includes research administrators from the School of Medicine, School of Public Health, and College of Education, and the AIDE advisory group currently includes additional representatives from School of Medicine, Applied Physics Lab, and College of Arts & Sciences. During AIDE’s assessment/design/planning phase, the research administration leadership from following schools/colleges were invited to provide pain point information and recommendations for improvements for AIDE: School of Public Health, School of Medicine, College of Arts & Sciences, College of Engineering, College of the Environment, School of Social Work, UW Bothell, UW Tacoma, School of Pharmacy, Applied Physics Lab, College of Education, Information School, School of Nursing, School of Dentistry, and College of Built Environment.
Q2: It seems that campus voices aren’t being included in AIDE. It seems changes being announced/made made are not considering campus input and that is a huge issue.
A2: Now that we are moving into the next phase where the ~100 individual improvement recommendations need to be specified, we will rely on the schools/colleges to involve their research administrators to define the details for AIDE improvements to be realized. We recommend reaching out to your school/college research administration leadership if you would like to be involved in this part of the process. It is absolutely critical to involve campus representatives in this work.
PI & Grant Manager Dashboard Demo
Please note, the recording of this demo was redacted for sensitive information.
Q1: Is there column filter functionality on these dashboard reports?
A1: unfortunately the types of report we used on dashboards don’t allow column filters.
Q2: For the first row the percent spend is 63%, is that taking into account the encumbrance?
A2: The calculation is dynamic. if you include encumbrance % Spent accounts the encumbrance, if you exclude it then the calculation doesn’t account for encumbrance.
Q3: Is there a way for grant managers to log into PI dashboard as if we are PIs; so we can see how they are seeing things?
A3: Unfortunately, there is not. You can’t proxy in Prod and the dashboard is tied to the person’s role.
Q4: On the R1230 could you add 1) grant line budget (not full award budget), 2) grant line expenditures, 3) grant line draws/invoices and 4) grant line cash received? We are trying to get a single picture of the award/grant status in one report. This info is only available in Award Portal Award by Award.
A4: That would be a different data source, so we can’t add that to R1230. We can build a new composite report that combines both data sources. Please send an email request to datagrp@uw.edu and this will generate a Connect ticket for us.
Q5: As a grant specialist I do not have access to the grant manager dashboard either. 3 out of 4 members of my team don’t have access to the grant manager dashboard that would really help our work.
A5: You can always run the base reports directly – search in Workday for R1564.1 or R1564.5
Q6: For the Programs tab, I am getting an error that says there are too many instances but I don’t have the gear button to edit it.
A6: Could you please send a connect ticket with screenshots?
Q7: Regarding PI and grant manager dashboard: is it possible to see total project budget? At this time I can only see budget for year one for grants issued this year and not total project budget…
A7: On the Awards tab, you should see the total budget for the award. The Budget column will always match award plan (what’s entered on the award, on the Plan tab). If the budget is not in Workday yet, it will not be reflected on the dashboards.
Q8: RE: PI Dashboard – is this only available to PIs with grants. What about non-PI faculty that have stand alone grants and program worktags. Is there a similar report that they can have access to provide the same sort of info for what they may have?
A8: They can still utilize the dashboard – but since there is no Principal Investigator role associated with Program worktag and Stand Alone grants, they have to do a one time set up of the tabs “Stand Alone Grants” and “Programs” to pull in their desired worktags. Once it’s set up, it will stay there even if the PI logs out and logs back in.
Q9: To see the total project budget use the award tab, rather than the grant tab?
A9: The Awards tab has total award budget and total award spend. You can click on the carrot and open grant level detail on the Awards tab. You can also navigate to the Award in Workday, click on the Additional Reports tab, and see the grant budget to actuals report for the whole award and individual grants.
Q10: Is the exclude F&A encumbrance still in production? (I’m not seeing it in my worklet settings.) If so, when does that functionality roll out?
A10: It is in Production on R1234, R1209, and R1202. It should be coming to all the dashboards today or on Monday.
Q11: Would the PI assignment be the reason that a PI doesn’t have one of their active grants showing up in their PI dashboard? If so, is there a way to update this now or do we need to wait for this to roll out?
A11: Yes that’s most likely the reason a grant would be missing from a PI’s dashboard. For that case, you can send an award portal ticket to GCA and have them update the PI on the grant.
Q12: Can someone explain pre-encumbrance in Workday and what falls in that bucket?
A12: This is defined in knowledge navigator as “Accounting that reflects an organization’s desire to acquire something, and flags the budget early in the process to make other internal stakeholders aware of the intention to spend.” If further definition is needed, please contact central financial accounting.
Q13: Bilguun are the reports on the Financial Desktop the best practice reports to use? Or just any report that folks recommended…
A13: These are reports that were recommended to be put on the Finance Desktop. The AIDE project is working on a curated list of recommended reports. This will likely be published this summer.
Q14: Regarding grant dashboards: for subawards that were converted from Ariba to Workday and continue to receive supplements each year, I don’t think the amounts are correct in the budget total column nor the remaining budget total column. Is that intentional? Is there a way to fix this?
A14: For subawards with this issue, For converted awards with errors in the PO dates or dollars, send an email to ospsubs@uw.edu including:
- Subject: PO Conversion Error
- UWSC#
- Workday PO Number
- PO Start and End date
- Advance Payment – Yes or No
- Main PO Amount (less Advance, if applicable)
- Advance Amount
- PO Grand Total
- Campus point of contact
Grant Security Hierarchies & Eligible Investigators
Q: Can we utilize the grant security hierarchy to give permissions in SAGE for grant managers too. Current state we need to go into each eGC1 and manually add a grant manager which becomes inefficient especially with new hires?
A: SAGE has specific roles which can be assigned in ASTRA. The SAGE roles do not currently connect with Workday grant manager roles. This is a possible future enhancement but we are currently working in SAGE and in Workday on higher priority enhancements. Review more information about SAGE roles.