There are eGC1 approval rules for each unit on campus, based on Cost Center. The schools and departments determine what rules they need which are then coded into SAGE.
There is a rule for each of the following:
- Cost Center Receiving Funding (CCRF)
- Personnel Selected Department (PSD) – now Selected Unit
- Personnel Academic/Admin Home (PAH) – now Primary Position Unit
- Cost Sharing (CS)
- Joint Appointment Unit (Joint), To Be Assigned (TBA) Personnel Unit (TBA), Space and/or Resources (Space), Other. These are organizations which need to review the application not otherwise identified. They are added in the Additional Organizational Unit Reviewers section of the PI, Personnel, & Organizations page.
For each of these rules there may be 1) no action, 2) approval required, or 3) watcher access. If rules are not defined for a specific Cost Center ID, then it inherits the rules from its parent organization.
Seattle Campus
Each unit on the Seattle campus has three possible levels of review – Division, Department, and Dean. These levels correspond to the SAGE ASTRA roles of Division Reviewer, Department or Center Reviewer ,and Chair or Director Reviewer.
For example, the routing rules for Approvers (A) and Watchers (W) for the Applied Physics Lab (a department) and Health Metrics (a division) are:
| Unit |
Applied Physics Lab |
Health Metrics |
| Rule |
Div |
Dept |
Dean |
Div |
Dept |
Dean |
| Cost Center Receiving Funding |
(none) |
A |
W |
A |
A |
A |
| Personnel Selected Dept |
(none) |
A |
W |
A |
A |
A |
| Personnel Academic Home |
(none) |
W |
W |
W |
W |
W |
| Cost Sharing |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
A |
A |
| Joint Appointment (Additional Organizations) |
(none) |
A |
W |
A |
A |
A |
| TBA (Additional Organizations) |
(none) |
A |
W |
A |
A |
A |
| Space and Resources (Additional Organizations) |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
A |
A |
| Other (Additional Organizations) |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
A |
A |
Bothell Campus
Each unit on the Bothell campus has 4 possible levels of review – Bothell Grants, Program Director, Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Reviewer (VCAC), Vice Chancellor of Administrative Services Reviewer (VCAD). There are corresponding SAGE ASTRA roles of the same name.
For example, Bothell-Business Total defines its rules at the Dean’s level, so any departments within that cost center would follow the same rules.
| Unit |
Bothell-Business Total |
| Rule |
Bothell Grants |
Program Director |
VCAC |
VCAD |
| Cost Center Receiving Funding |
A |
A |
(none) |
(none) |
| Personnel Selected Dept |
A |
A |
(none) |
(none) |
| Personnel Academic Home |
W |
W |
(none) |
(none) |
| Cost Sharing |
A |
A |
(none) |
(none) |
| Joint Appointment (Additional Organizations) |
W |
(none) |
(none) |
(none) |
| TBA (Additional Organizations) |
W |
A |
(none) |
(none) |
| Space and Resources (Additional Organizations) |
A |
A |
(none) |
(none) |
| Other (Additional Organizations) |
A |
(none) |
(none) |
(none) |
Tacoma Campus
Each unit on the Tacoma campus has 5 possible levels of review – Division, Department, Dean Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Reviewer (VCAC), Vice Chancellor of Administrative Services Reviewer (VCAD). There are corresponding SAGE ASTRA roles of the same name.
| Unit |
Comput & Softwr Sys-t |
| Rule |
Div |
Dept |
Dean |
VCAC |
VCAD |
| Cost Center Receiving Funding |
(none) |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
| Personnel Selected Dept |
(none) |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
| Personnel Academic Home |
(none) |
(none) |
W |
W |
W |
| Cost Sharing |
(none) |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
| Joint Appointment (Additional Organizations) |
(none) |
(none) |
W |
W |
W |
| TBA (Additional Organizations) |
(none) |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
| Space and Resources (Additional Organizations) |
(none) |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
| Other (Additional Organizations) |
(none) |
(none) |
A |
A |
A |
The System to Administer Grants Electronically (SAGE) is the tool that researchers and grant administrators use to prepare proposals for approval and submission to the funding agency. At the UW, the appropriate campus units, compliance offices, and the Office of Sponsored Programs must review and approve all grant and contract proposals.
The Approvals component of SAGE manages the electronic routing of the proposal for approval. It is also used to manage the approvals for Advance Budget Requests and Award Requests for funded proposals.
This guide describes the functionality of the Approvals component for:
This page is where you indicate:
- The Principal Investigator (PI)
- Any additional research personnel involved with the proposed project and their roles
- Any additional organizational or common interdisciplinary units that need to review the application
SAGE will pull in Financial Interest Disclosure System (FIDS) data to provide the disclosure and FCOI training status for all personnel who are investigators.
The Additional Organizational Unit Reviewers section allows you to add reviewers for joint academic appointments, TBA personnel units, space and/or resources, and any other reason.
The Common Interdisciplinary Organizational Unit Reviewers section allows you to quickly select a unit and add their reviewers.
Note: You should keep the PI and Personnel list up-to-date throughout the life of the research project.
SAGE creates the approval flow (graphical and text) based on data in the eGC1 and the routing rules for each school/college. The flow displays which personnel and unit or compliance reviewers should review the eGC1 and its attachments.
Once you enter a Cost Center Receiving Funding and a PI for your eGC1, the system can generate a draft version of the approval flow. This can be viewed from either the PI, Personnel, & Organizations page or the Certify & Route page of the eGC1. As you add other research personnel, other data such as cost sharing or responses to compliance questions to your eGC1, the draft version of the graph will reflect those changes.
When you route the eGC1 for approval, SAGE creates a final flow and sends out the initial approval notifications. If you withdraw the application or a reviewer returns it, when you re-complete it, the system re-generates the approval flow to adjust for any changes you make to the eGC1. Any approvals that had already occurred will not change after the eGC1 is re-routed, unless affected by the data changes made to the eGC1.
The approval graph appears the same for all reviewers, with the exception of the bold border that indicates your approval node on the graph and the Reason for your review information in the Approval Status Data section. Most people only have one role, so the border will always appear around the same approval node.
If you have more than one approval role, you may see an application listed more than once on your My Approvals page. You will need to approve for each role separately.
For more information, see the sections on Reviewers and Compliance Reviewers.
Occasionally, there could be a difference in the eGC1 PI and the PI on the sponsor’s application, for example, in the case of career development applications.
To designate an Application PI, select that role for the person after adding them to the PI, Personnel, & Organizations page. For additional information on research team roles, review the UW Research Personnel page.
If the Application PI is a UW person, SAGE will add the Application PI to the Approval Flow and send an approval required email notification at the appropriate time. If the person selected does not already have an ASTRA role for SAGE, a warning message of “no access: ASTRA permissions required” will display in red once you select the Application PI role. You will need to give them access, so that they can approve the application. There are two non-PI researcher ASTRA roles that could be used.
As part of the approval process, the UW Application PIs are required to certify the PI Assurance Statement which appears in the approval dialog.
The statement reads:
Principal Investigator/Program Director Assurance: I certify that the statements in this eGC1 and the related sponsor application are true, complete and accurate to the best of my knowledge. I am aware that any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or claims may subject me to criminal, civil, or administrative penalties. I agree to accept responsibility for the scientific conduct of the project and to provide the required progress reports if a grant is awarded as a result of this application.
The approval/agreement reads:
I am the PI and I have read and agree with the PI Assurance Statement. I understand that approving this eGC1 electronically is equivalent to my signature.
The following image shows the assurance statement in the approval dialog.
For Grant Runner applications, the person designated as the Application PI will appear as the PD/PI on the SF 424 and Key Person Expanded forms.
Non-UW Application PI Assurance Statement Instructions
If the Application PI is a non-UW person (an affiliate), SAGE will not add them to the approval graph. Since they have a NetID, they could be given access to SAGE and added as an ad hoc approver to the graph. The eGC1 PI is responsible for securing assurance statements for those non-UW Application PIs. The following steps describe the paper process.
Grant Runner Updates
Grant Runner Support for Career Development Opportunities
Grant Runner now includes the PHS 398 Career Development Award Supplemental form, allowing you to use Grant Runner for most Career Development (K) Award opportunities.
One exception exists for those mentored opportunities in which the PI listed in the SF 424 application form is not the same as the UW PI on the eGC1. This situation occurs when the PI on the application form does not meet UW PI eligibility requirements and the mentor is listed as the eGC1 PI. For these K Award activity codes that draw applications from individuals ineligible to be a UW PI, another method should be used for sponsor form completion, or wait to complete the eGC1 until the mid-September SAGE release when that capability will be delivered.
Expanded On-Form Validations
While checking for errors on individual forms in Grant Runner, you see more of the NIH validation errors display. This expansion focuses on identifying those fields required by NIH but not by Grants.gov. For Example: the Research Plan – Specific Aims attachment, which is required by NIH for opportunities other than DP1 and DP2.
Individual Form PDFs for Forms D
You can now view or print a single Grant Runner form and its related attachments in the PDF format used by NIH reviewers. This feature offers an easy side-by-side comparison of the form with the eGC1.
FORMS-E Work
NIH requires the use of application packages with a Competition ID of ‘FORMS-E’ for due dates on or after January 25, 2018.
Opportunities using FORMS-E will begin to post on October 25, 2017. In preparation, we have completed development on FORMS-E for all existing Grant Runner forms, plus the new Career Development form. These changes will not be visible to users until the FORMS-E opportunities begin to post in October 2017.
The following FORMS-E Grant Runner forms are ready to go, when the opportunities that utilize them post in October:
- Cover Page Supplement
- Assignment Request
- Research Plan
- Career Development Award Supplement
The new Human Subjects and Clinical Trials form will be released in October, 2017, and more information on that form will be shared out closer to that time.
Update of Progress Bar Language for PDF Generation
When you click the “View Grant Runner Forms (PDF)” link, you no longer see the word “submitting” while the system is generating the PDF. This change prevents unnecessary confusion.
Fix: PDF File Size Too Large for Viewing
Large file sizes on Grant Runner attachments were preventing the full application PDF from rendering, due to size limitations enforced by the server. The size threshold has been increased to the level recommended by Grants.Gov.
eGC1 Updates
OAW Removal as Reviewer on Non-Competing eGC1s
The Office of Animal Welfare changed their business processes and will no longer review the following eGC1 application types:
- Non-Competing Revision
- Non-Competing Renewal
- Non-Competing Supplement
eGC1 users no longer see the “Animal Subjects” reviewer on the approval graph, for the above application types.
Fix: Broken links in the footer of the eGC1 task list
At the bottom of the task list, the “About SAGE” and “Learning” links are fixed and you are directed to the appropriate support documentation for those topics.
FIDS Update
Fix: Investigator Title Changes Being Overwritten by Workday Titles
An issue arose following the Workday implementation whereby manual updates that investigators made to their title were not saving properly, and instead were being overwritten by the Workday titles. This issue has been resolved.
SAGE Budget
Fix: Sea Pay period update page closes worksheet section when saved
An issue has been fixed for SAGE Budgets that utilize Sea Pay where previously opened/expanded sections of the budget worksheet were closing on SAVE. These sections will now remain open on SAVE.
Fix: Sea Pay period update page has SAVE button in wrong place
The Update Periods page for SAGE Budgets that utilize Sea Pay has been updated to move the SAVE button from the bottom to the top of the page, for a more consistent user experience.
