January 2019 SAGE Budget Rounding
Feature Highlights: Improving SAGE Budget Usability
The SAGE team will be focusing the next six months on expanding and improving SAGE Budget capabilities, and streamlining proposal budgeting processes. This is the initial release in a series of SAGE Budget improvements to come in 2019.
SAGE Budget Rounding Changes
The SAGE Budget approach to rounding has been changed to better match user expectations and needs. These changes will facilitate accurate integration of budget data into sponsor budget forms when using the new Budget Sync feature.
Context:
Historically, SAGE Budget has used display-only rounding for individual expense items, and banker’s rounding for totals.
Display-only rounding is the equivalent of using the decimal display setting in Excel versus the round() formula. With display-only rounding, you may see a $5 on screen, but the stored value may really be $4.60. This can be confusing for users when viewing totals of display-rounded numbers.
For example, you might see:
$5 + $5 = $9 when the underlying values are $4.6 + $4.6 = $9.2 (rounded to $9)
The old display-only approach to rounding also resulted in an inability to fully reconcile SAGE Budget numbers to sponsor budget formats, where sponsor budgets require whole dollar entries.
Key Rounding Changes:
- Display-only rounding of expenses will no longer be used in SAGE Budget. Rounding is now applied to each expense individually, not just to budget sum totals.
- Budget sub-totals and totals now display the sum of the rounded expense totals.
- Banker’s rounding has been replaced by Rounding Up approach on tie break. (Example: When rounding to whole dollars, $2.50 will now round up to $3, instead of down to $2.)
- Users now have the choice to round to whole dollars or to cents (new!) or to not round.
- When Grant Runner Budget Sync feature is used, the rounded values will flow to the RR Detailed Budget with 100% accuracy.
These changes to rounding in SAGE Budget will result in a clearer, more intuitive approach to display of rounded values that accurately matches sponsor budgets that require whole dollars entry.
Important Note for Existing Budgets:
Existing budgets set to whole dollar rounding at time of go-live will be migrated to the following settings:
- Rounding is changed to Do Not Round
- Decimals display is changed to 0
- Banker’s rounding is used on tie
These settings will maintain the integrity of historical budgets and to allow users to make intentional decisions on whether to apply the new rounding methodology to active budgets.
When you Copy a budget with the above legacy settings, the new budget (and any child sub budgets) will automatically convert to the new rounding settings.
Converting Existing Budgets to New Round Approach:
To convert your existing budget to the new rounding approach, go to the Properties tab of your main worksheet, and select the appropriate rounding option.
When you change the rounding settings in the Properties for your parent budget, all sub-budgets will inherit that same rounding setting as well.
SAGE Budget: Period Updates Screen Improvements
Dynamic Update of Expense Totals
Users will no longer need to manually SAVE between changes to expenses to see the sub-total and totals update. Entry of personnel and other expenses will trigger a recalculation and refresh of the expense totals upon navigating away from the field where the entry occurred.
SAGE Budget: Properties and Settings Improvements
To improve the usability of the Properties and Advanced Settings pages, the following adjustments have been made:
Properties Tab Changes
- The Properties page has been streamlined to combine what was formerly the Advanced Properties onto the main Properties page, for added visibility and convenience
- New section headings add clarity to the choices available
- New help text guides users when making selections
- The same above changes have been applied to the Properties portion of the Budget Setup Wizard
- The Properties page now has improved keyboard accessibility
- As mentioned in the Rounding section above, the rounding setting now includes an additional option to round to Cents, in addition to Whole Dollar and No Rounding options.
Targets and Limits Tab Changes
- Users will now enable Targets and Limits from the Targets and Limits tab.
- The Budget Setup Wizard no longer includes the Enable Targets and Limits question, and will instead be enabled from the Targets and Limits tab upon completion of the wizard setup.
General SAGE Suite Maintenance Items
SAGE eGC1
Discontinuation of Human Subjects Just In Time Reminder Email
The email notification sent from SAGE to PIs and Administrators at Just in Time when human subjects is marked as YES on the eGC1, has been discontinued. Campus feedback indicated that this email often caused confusion, since it was not an official notice of action from the sponsor, and that the reminder was not helpful to their processes.
Fix: Display of Activity Locations and Non-Fiscal Compliance Page
The Activity Locations and Non-Fiscal Compliance pages were displaying beyond the right border for Internet Explorer users, causing read-only users in SAGE to be unable to access certain expand/collapse controls on the page. The issue has been resolved.
SAGE Budget
Update to APL Manual Entries in SAGE Budget
SAGE Budget has been updated to clarify to which APL expenses can be manually entered (sub-object codes 19-00 and 19-20) and which are based on the APL setting on the Properties tab (sub-object codes 19-10 and 19-40).
SAGE Grant Runner
Fix: Cognizant Federal Agency POC Field Display – RR Subaward Budget
An issue with display of the Cognizant Federal Agency POC field on the RR Subaward Budget form has been resolved. The saved data is now displaying as expected on the Grant Runner form.
Link to Sponsor Budget Map from RR Detailed Budget
Users will now see a convenient link to the Sponsor Budget Map page from the header of the RR Detailed Budget page, when using Budget Sync. This will serve as a helpful reminder to users that this new page exists and may need actions on their part to fully sync data from SAGE Budget to the RR Detailed Budget.
AUMS
Clearance Email and PDF Attachment Updates
The clearance email, sent from the AUMS system, has been updated to clarify contact and other helpful information for recipients.
FIDS
Fix: Update to Display of SFI Percent Ownership in Reviewer Module
The SFI Percent Ownership has been updated to address a display issue caused by a rounding setting in the FIDS reviewer module.