UW Research

November 18, 2024

SAGE Features & Prioritized Issues

SAGE releases that require system downtime will take place after business hours, typically at 5:30 p.m. PT. A banner will be posted in SAGE whenever the system will be unavailable. We appreciate your patience.

SAGE Support: Please contact sagehelp@uw.edu if you experience an issue in SAGE. If you have contacted SAGE support about an issue, our agents will respond to your message as soon as possible and let you know once the issue has been resolved.

Updated November 18, 2024

Features Now Available

FY2025 Quarter 2 Updates

Goal: Improve Workflow for OSP and GCA

Auto-Assignment of eGC1s to OSP Staff

  • Released: 11/5/24. In order to expedite OSP’s review and approval of eGC1s, SAGE now auto-assigns the eGC1 to the appropriate OSP staff person and team. This eliminates manual effort by managers and staff, freeing time to contribute to other backlog reduction efforts.

Goal: Add Clarity & Reduce Campus Returns

ASR Validation Requires Sponsor Total and Budget Total Match

  • Released: 11/5/24. To prevent returns related to sponsor and budget total discrepancies on the Award Setup Request (ASR), a new validation has been added. Users will be unable to route their ASR until the Sponsor Total from the General Information Page and Budget Total match.

Goal: Address High Priority Maintenance Needs

Fix: Missing Award List Items for New Contacts

  • Released: 11/5/24. An issue has been resolved where newly added contacts on an eGC1 were unable to see related requests in the award section at times.

Fix: Missing Principal Investigators for Modifications

  • Released: 11/5/24. An issue has been resolved where Modification Requests on the Award Requests List were not displaying the Principal Investigator for the award.

Award Permissions Updates for Broader Read-Only Access

  • Released: 10/9/24. In order to allow department leaders to access Award Setup Requests and Modification Requests for their units, SAGE permissions have been update to allow the SAGE Read-Only and the Dean’s Level ASTRA roles to open any award request within their span of control. Permission to these roles is granted by the department’s ASTRA administrator.Note: Only users listed as a contact on the request or on the award eGC1 will see items on their list and be able to filter their list. Non-contact read-only viewers must use the Search feature to open and view requests for their unit.

New Features Coming Soon

New features and infrastructure improvements are coming to SAGE throughout 2024 and 2025. Updates will be shared here and at MRAM on how the SAGE team is addressing the following priorities:

Improve Workflow for OSP & GCA

  • Modification Request enhancements to add subcategories and modification amount to requests
  • Auto-assignment of ASRs and MODs to OSP staff
  • Subaward request enhancements to identify related Workday grant, ASR, or MOD request links

Address High Priority Maintenance Needs

  • Enhancing award search to return results by Award Application
  • Grant Runner NIH error-checking and FORMS-I
  • Issue: eGC1 reviewers may have difficulty accessing Contacts & Access and Attachments sections
    • Workaround: Add the reviewer as a contact on the eGC1

Previous Releases & Fixed Issues

For a full list of SAGE improvements and fixes released, visit the SAGE Release Calendar.

FY25 Quarter 1 Updates

SAGE-to-Workday Integrations

Award Integration When an Advance Exists

  • Released 8/7/24: When an Award Setup Request (ASR) is routed to GCA and an award in Advance Spend status already exists in Workday, SAGE now sends the remainder of the award setup data to Workday. This integration will reduce manual entry for GCA and expedite processing of new awards from an existing advance.

Allow GCA to Select Award Lines to Integrate to Workday

  • Released 8/7/24: When transitioning from an award in Advance Spent status to a fully setup award in Workday, GCA may now use the associated ASR to select which SAGE Budget worksheets should integrate as award lines in Workday. This prevents duplicate lines from being set up when multiple award lines already exist. When an award in Advance Spend status does not already exist, all award lines will be integrated by default.

Note: This feature is visible within SAGE Central for OSP and GCA only.

Advance Request Updates

Advance Request Layout Changes

  • Updated 8/7/24: The Advance Request function has been updated to align its layout with the Award Setup and Modification Requests to improve the user experience and support future integrations.

Advance Request Miscellaneous Updates

  • Released 8/7/24: Help text has been added to the renewal advance to prompt users to add worktag related information to the request

Award Section Updates

Display Workday Budget Totals by Object Class and Ledger

  • Released 8/7/24: All ASR users can now see the object class, ledger names, and totals within the Budget and Lines section.  This represents the amounts by object class that will be sent to Workday via integration to establish the Workday Award Plan. Users may also customize their display to view or hide the object class/ledger or award line details.

Label change to highlight the Filter by Principal Investigator in the Awards Request List

  • Updated 8/07/24: This filter label has been changed from “By Department/Cost Center” to “By Principal Investigator” since the PI filter is the only one available for this section at this time. Searches can be refined by selecting additional status filters.

Miscellaneous Improvements

Fix: eGC1 Advanced Search – Personnel and Role Type search

  • Released 8/7/24:  Searching by personnel lookup and role type on the eGC1 Advance Search is now functioning as expected

Fix: SAGE Central Application Tasklist Column Sorting

  • Released 8/7/24:  OSP can now perform sorting of their application tasklist columns at the secondary and tertiary levels.

FY24 Updates

SAGE-to-Workday Integrations

ASR and MOD Character Limit Increase for Return Comments

  • Released 4/11/24 – When reviewers return ASRs or MODs to campus, they now may enter up to 1,000 characters when adding comments for return reasons.

Award Email Notification Content Updates

  • Released 4/11/24 – Notification formats for ADVs, ASRs, and MODs have been updated to provide clarity on when action is needed and by whom.

Various Fixes to Sync of Data between SAGE and Workday

  • Released 4/11/24 – The sync of data between SAGE and Workday was updated to capture a more complete set of awards from Workday, and missing PIs and awards.

SAGE Budget to Workday Award Plan

  • Released 2/29/24 – To assist GCA with workflow and backlog reduction, the SAGE Budget data associated with an Award Setup Request now integrates to Workday Award Plans. This saves GCA time spent manually entering these details.

SAGE Budget Updates & Fixes

Budget Navigation & Snapshot Help Text Updates

  • Released 4/11/24 – Within SAGE Budget, the left navigation menu text of an open budget has been updated from “History” to “Snapshots & History.” Once selected, additional help text clarifies the use of snapshots for Award Modifications.

Improved Performance on Large, Complex Budgets

  • Released 4/11/24 – Technical improvements have been made to decrease the time it takes to load and save large, complex SAGE budgets, improving SAGE stability by reducing timeouts experienced by users.

Fix: Worksheet Custom F&A Saving Issue

  • Released 4/11/24 – Users were at times experiencing long wait times when saving custom F&A settings. This issue has been resolved.

Performance Improvements

Subawards

  • Released 4/11/24 – Subaward performance improvements have been implemented to decrease the processing time required to open and submit subawards.

Applications Tasklist

  • Released 3/18/24 – The SAGE Central Applications Tasklist has been updated to improve performance and add to the SAGE stabilization efforts.

Miscellaneous Improvements

PI Escalation Remediated on eGC1

  • Released 4/11/24 – When PI Escalation is selected on an eGC1 Certify & Route page, the reviewer for the Cost Center Receiving Funding is now able to approve the eGC1 on the PI’s behalf in their absence.

Preliminary Benefit Rates Updated

  • Released 3/18/24 – The new preliminary benefit rates are now available in SAGE Budget for use in proposal and award budgeting.

Questions?

  • For questions about SAGE, please contact sagehelp@uw.edu.
  • For questions on award terms and conditions, budget extensions, award changes, subawards, and other sponsor-related questions, reach out to the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) at osp@uw.edu.
  • For questions on award information in Workday or financial terms and conditions, contact Grant & Contract Accounting (GCA) at gcahelp@uw.edu.
  • For full technical release notes, view the SAGE Release Calendar.