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.
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.
FIX: Unprocessing of FAs/PACs/ADVs Can Cause Errors
Periodically GCA staff need to “unprocess” an item previously completed. When new fields are added to SPAERC and SERA, it would at times cause validation messages at time of unprocessing of an item, that were not able to be corrected by GCA. The system has been updated to suppress validations during unprocessing, to alleviate this problem. The validations will again run when the item is re-processed.
You can return an action to OSP for changes as long as its status is other than Processed.
Clicking the Return to OSP link on the left navigation menu opens a pop-up window. The read-only section provides information about the action you are working on:
Admin Action Number or Funding Action Number
Current Status
Short Title
Principal Investigator
Sponsor
Budget Number
Budget Biennium
Current Location
The following image shows this dialog.
You must include comments when returning an action. They will display on the History & Comments page in SERA, and on the OSP Notes page in SPAERC.
Below the Comments field, the “Item will be assigned to” field displays the OSP person assigned.
When you click the Return to OSP button, the action will close and your tasklist will display. You can click the Cancel link to return to the action without making any changes.
If you answered “No” to the “Is Data Entry Complete” question during the Campus Notify step, then you need to do this step to fully process the action.
When you click on the Complete link in the left navigation menu, a dialog window displays with some basic information about the action, as shown in the image below.
Admin Action or Funding Action Number
Current Status
Short Title
Principal Investigator
Sponsor
Budget Number
Budget Biennium
The system marks the data entry question “No” by default. You will need to mark it as “Yes”.
You must include comments. Your comments will display in the action’s history (and in the OSP Notes when viewed from SPAERC).
You are required to select an assignment field from the drop-down menu.
Click the Complete button to move the action to Processed status. The Last Action Taken will also change to Processed. Use the Cancel link to return to the action without making any changes.
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.”
OSP staff create Funding Actions (FA) and Post-Award Changes (PAC) using SPAERC. Once OSP completes the actions, they send them electronically to GCA for final processing.
You can return an FA or PAC to OSP for any needed changes by clicking the Return to OSP link on the left navigation menu. Once OSP makes the changes, they would resend the action for processing. The following images shows the link.
Status
Last Action Taken
Process Stage
In GCA
Received in GCA
OSP completed the action and sent to GCA
Returned by GCA
Returned by GCA
GCA can return an action to OSP for any needed changes
Re-Sent by OSP
Re-Sent by OSP
OSP has made the requested changes and re-sent the action back to GCA
In GCA or Re-Sent by OSP
Budget # Assigned/Confirmed
GCA has added a new budget number to the action, or confirmed an existing one
In GCA
Campus Notified
GCA has notified campus that they completed the budget number set-up. The system sends the email to the PI, the eGC1 Administrative Contact and Pre-Award Budget Contact, the eGC1 Preparer, and the first level reviewers for the organization code receiving funding.
Processed
Processed
This indicates that all steps, including data entry, have been completed.
You will see the Assign/Confirm Budget Number link on the left navigation menu. This step allows you to either assign a new budget number to the action, or confirm the budget number automatically assumed by SAGE, based on related items.
When you click the link, a pop-up window displays. The set of read-only fields provides information about the action you are working on.
Admin Action or Funding Action Number
Current Status
Short Title
Principal Investigator
Sponsor
Budget Number
Budget Biennium
The following image shows this dialog.
The editable fields are:
Field
Description
Type of Budget
Select the appropriate budget category from the drop-down menu. Even if the action already has a Budget Number, the type will not display.
Budget Number
When you select the Type of Budget, the system will automatically populate the Budget Number field with the next available budget number of that type. If the action already has a Budget Number, it will display.
Budget Biennium
Once the Budget Number is populated, the system will display the Biennium value. If the action already has a Budget Biennium, it will display.
Click the Save button to complete the process, or the Cancel link to return to the action without making any changes.
After you add a budget number, the Notify Campus link will appear on the left navigation menu, and the system will set the Last Action Taken to “Budget # Assigned/Confirmed.”
Note: When an item is returned to OSP after the Budget Number Assign/Confirmed step, you will have to repeat this step once OSP re-sends it.
After you have assigned and/or confirmed the budget number for an action, you will see the Notify Campus link on the left navigation menu. This link allows you to notify the PI, the eGC1 Administrative and Pre-Award Budget Contacts, the eGC1 Preparer, and the first-level reviewers for the organization code receiving funding, that you have set up the action’s budget.
Clicking the link opens a pop-up window. The Notify Campus section is read-only and provides information about the action you are working on. The following image shows this section.
The data displayed are:
Admin Action or Funding Action Number
Current Status
Short Title
Principal Investigator
Sponsor
Budget Number
Budget Biennium
The following image shows the Confirm Data Entry section.
The editable fields are:
Field
Description
Is Data Entry Complete?
This is “No” by default.
Comments
Enter any appropriate comments. These comments will display in the History for the action, and will be visible to OSP on the OSP Notes page.
Assign Item…to Location
This is a required field.
Attach…to the email
You can use the checkboxes to include additional attachments to the notification email. The file name, description, version and file type display for each attachment.
Recipient List
The recipient list includes the Principal Investigator (eGC1’s PI), the Application Principal Investigator (eGC1’s Application PI), the eGC1 Preparer, Administrative Contact, Pre-Award Budget Contact, and the reviewers for the organization code receiving funding.
The reviewers may be division, department/center, or dean’s level depending on the unit’s routing rules. You can modify the campus notification recipient list if needed, as described below.
Click Notify Campus to complete the process or Cancel to return to the action.
The status of the action will vary depending on how you answered the Data Entry question.
If Yes, the action will change to Processed status.
If No, the action will remain in Campus Notified status. A new Complete link will appear on the left navigation menu. Use this to indicate that you have completed the data entry and to change the action to Processed status.
Examples of the FA and PAC notifications are in the SERA Notifications article.
Modifying the Recipients List
This list displays the name, email address, and relationship for each person included. Examples of the relationship would include Division Reviewer, Application eGC1 Preparer, Budget Contact. Each person’s entry also includes Update and Delete links. The following image shows an abbreviated example list.
Clicking Update allows you to change the email address of that person. An editable text box with the current email address appears, followed by a Save button and a Cancel link. You can change the address, and then click Save.
Clicking Delete for a person’s entry will display a confirmation pop-up that asks “Are you sure you want to delete this recipient?” You can click OK to confirm the deletion and remove that recipient, or Cancel to return to the list with no changes.
Below the recipients list is an Add Recipient link. This allows you to send the campus notification to additional people. Clicking the link will add another row to the list with a box to enter the person’s name, and another box for the email address. You can click Save to add the new recipient, or Cancel to return to the list with no changes.
