Advance Approval Process
This article describes:
- The Approval Flow
- The SFI & FCOI review
- How to add/remove an ad hoc reviewer
Approval Flow
To approve an advance, log in to SAGE and click on the Approvals tab to view the My Approvals page.
Select the advance to review from the list or use the Advanced Search link to find a specific advance.
When you open an advance, the approval flow displays, as shown in the following image.
The Approvals section of the advance displays this approval flow and can be used to check the approval status.
The approval flow reads from top to bottom. Some approver nodes are grouped and can be approved in any order.
The above image shows the approval flow for an advance in Routing status. The first node lists the Advance Preparer(s), two in this case, and indicates the routing date for the advance. The node is green to show its step is complete.
The grouped nodes are for the Principal Investigator, Organization Reviewer, and the Office of Research (SFI Review):
- The PI node includes the principal investigator’s name and status.
- The organization reviewer node includes the organization’s name, ID, and status.
- The SFI review status is either Ready for review or Review complete.
In the Organization Reviewer node, select the See All Reviewers link to view a list of reviewer names and NetIDs, as shown in the image below.
Next is the GCA Reviewer node with a status of Not yet ready for review. Last is the Processed node, which will turn green when all other nodes are complete. See the example image at the end of this article.
Note: if PI delegation is selected, the Principal Investigator node will not display, and the PI delegate chip will be added to the Organization Reviewer node, as shown in this image.
After reviewing the advance, you can approve it or return it for modification by the PI and/or advance preparer. The following image shows the return and approve buttons.
Approve
When you select Approve Request, a dialog will display with an optional comments box and assurance text. The text varies depending on whether you are the PI or an organization reviewer. The PI’s dialog is shown below.
Check the box to indicate you have read and agree with the certification text. This will enable the Approve Request button, allowing you to complete the process. You also have the option to Cancel.
Your approval will be added to the Comments & History section.
If you are an organization reviewer, you will see similar menus as the PI. The dialog may differ as certain elements like Human Subjects only apply to the PI.
Note: If PI Approval is delegated and the research involves Human Subjects or Animals, the organization reviewer will be providing assurance on behalf of the PI that spending will not occur until an approved IRB or protocol is in place.
Return
If you select the Return Request button, a dialog displays, as shown below.
To complete the process, enter the required return reason and select Return Request. The PI and Advance Preparer will be notified.
SFI & FCOI Review
The Office of Research will approve the SFI status and the approvals section will reflect this update.
NOTE: If an investigator’s disclosure status updates from “Waiting for JIT” to “No Review Required” the investigator’s name will no longer appear on the SFI Review node.
The following describes the possible statuses for the Office of Research approval node, each with an example image.
SFI Review 1: Displays on approvals prior to routing the advance.
SFI Review 2: Displays once advance is routed.
SFI Review 3: Displays after system process runs to update Just-in-Time (JIT) status.
SFI Review 4: Displays after Office of Research reviews disclosures.
SFI Review 5: Displays when system process updates all disclosures to “No Review
Required”.
Add/Remove an Ad Hoc Reviewer
If you can edit the advance, you can add an ad hoc (i.e., for a particular purpose only) reviewer to the approval flow. These manually-added reviewers could be a person that needs to review and approve the advance in addition to the Principal Investigator and Organization Reviewer.
You can add a person by clicking on one of the plus signs (+) that appear on the approval flow. Once you submit the advance, the group nodes will be ready for review, and you will no longer have the option to add someone before the group. Similarly, once the advance is ready for review by GCA, the plus sign before GCA will no longer display.
The following image shows this state of the approval flow.
When you click on the plus sign, an Add Reviewer dialog will display. Enter a comment for this reviewer, which is required. Then search by name or NetID for the person you want to add. The Add Reviewer button will then be enabled for you to select. The approval flow will update to show the added node, and the reviewer will be notified when their node is ready for review, like the other approvers. The following image shows the Add Reviewer dialog.
To delete the added reviewer, click on the 3-dot menu icon in the node and select “Remove reviewer”. A confirmation dialog will display. The following image shows the Remove Reviewer dialog.
Processed Approval Flow Example
The following image shows an example of the approval flow for an advance in processed status.
