Campus research teams and related central offices use the SAGE Suite electronic research administration system to manage application proposals and related items.
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- SAGE: System to Administer Grants Electronically – is used by campus researchers and administrators
- SAGE Central is used by both the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) and Grants and Contract Accounting (GCA)
In addition, FIDS: Financial Interest Disclosure System is used by researchers designated as investigators; it integrates with SAGE.
The following set of tables gives a high-level overview of who uses each of the different components, and describes the possible actions and the why and/or when.
SAGE: System to Administer Grants Electronically
WHO: Campus research administrators, Principal Investigators, campus reviewers, compliance reviewers
| ACTION |
WHY / WHEN |
| Create SAGE Budgets |
Centralizes data gathering for salaries, benefits, and F&A rates. It can be connected to an application, which automatically populates the eGC1 budget data on the Budget & Fiscal Compliance page. Any changes to the budget will update in real time when the eGC1 Budget & Fiscal Compliance page is viewed.
In addition, if your eGC1 is a Grant Runner application using the RR Detailed Budget form, your budget data will appear in the form.
When creating an Award Setup Request, you will need to connect a budget. |
| Create applications (standard or Grant Runner) |
Required for all sponsored research. The standard eGC1 pages of the application are, in effect, an approvals routing cover letter for the proposal. Only the UW uses the eGC1; it does not go to the sponsor.
A Grant Runner application includes, in addition to the standard eGC1 pages, the sponsor forms for NIH. OSP submits the application “system-to-system.” |
| Approve routing applications |
The Principal Investigator, Multiple-PI, Application PI, academic reviewers (division, department, dean) and compliance reviewers (human subjects, animal use, EH&S, etc.) view and approve the application. At each approval, SAGE captures a PDF snapshot of the application and attaches it to the eGC1’s Approvals History & Comments page. Copies of the attachments are also captured.
Administrators and reviewers have the option to return the application to the research team for changes. They can also add other reviewers (as individuals or a group) to the approval flow as needed. These are referred to as “ad hoc” reviewers (approvers or watchers). |
| Request an advance budget number for awards |
Used when a research proposal is being awarded by the sponsor, but the actual award has not yet arrived. It requests GCA to set up a budget account in the financial system so the research team can start spending the anticipated award money. The preparer completes the request in SAGE, then GCA processes it in SAGE Central. |
| Create Award Setup Requests and Modification Requests for awarded eGC1 applications |
Used when a research proposal has been awarded and the award has been received. A “new” Award Setup Request (ASR) is created. For an ongoing award, a Modification Request might be created. |
SAGE Central
WHO: Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP), Grant & Contract Accounting (GCA)
| ACTION |
WHY / WHEN |
| Review and approve eGC1 applications |
OSP reviews the information on the eGC1, such as the sponsor proposal information and compliance questions, after all campus reviewers have approved. |
| Process Award Setup Requests |
Received from campus for reviews and approvals. Forwards to GCA for integration into Workday, with Award budget number. As part of completing the Award Setup Request, the system sends a notification to the requesters. |
| Manage Actions |
Will manage existing items while transitioning to SAGE Central and Workday. |
| Process Advance Budget Number Requests |
Received from the research team, an advance allows the team to spend award money before the actual award arrives. GCA adds a budget number to the Advance and sets up that budget in the financial system. As part of completing the Advance, the system sends a notification to the requesters. |
FIDS: Financial Interest Disclosure System
WHO: Any research personnel designated as an “Investigator” on the PI, Personnel, & Organizations page of the eGC1.
| ACTION |
WHY / WHEN |
| Create a Financial Interest Disclosure for an eGC1
or
A disclosure for a CoMotion tech transfer agreement or IRB approval
or
Complete an Annual Update disclosure |
Investigators are required to disclose any significant financial interests (SFI) such as salary, equity, sponsored travel, etc., that might, or might appear to, bias their research.
An investigator must complete a disclosure for each eGC1, whether or not there are SFI that apply, before the proposal can be marked as Ready-to-Submit = Yes.
The disclosures are reviewed by the SFI Reviewer, in the central Office of Research, who determines if there is a potential for a Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI). The review occurs at the time of award (just-in-time).
Annual Updates: All investigators are required to review and update their SFI at least once a year. The “year” is calculated from the date of the last disclosure created in FIDS. Investigators are notified by email 45 days prior, and again at 15 days prior, to the end of that year’s time.
Full details on using FIDS can be found in its User Guide.
Note: only a UW NetID is needed to access FIDS. |
General Updates
Grant Runner: PHS Assignment Request Form
The new PHS Assignment Request Form, introduced with the Forms-D changes, is now available in Grant Runner. This new form will be available to all applications in progress as well as new Grant Runner applications where applicable.
SAGE Budget: Update to Tuition Inflation Rate Default Value
The default tuition inflation rate in SAGE Budget has been changed from 10% to 3%, to provide a more realistic figure and reduce the need for manual overwrites.
FIDS: Suppress annual SFI disclosure overdue email
At the request of the Office of Research, the third and final reminder email sent to investigators that have not submitted an SFI disclosures for 365 days will no longer be sent. This final email cc’ed all related principal investigators which caused confusion/frustration.
Fixes
Error with Attaching Budgets to an eGC1
An issue was resolved which was causing an error when users were attempting to connect SAGE Budgets to an eGC1 under a certain set of circumstances.
Investigator status reverting to Yes on Connect of Budget
An issue was resolved which was causing the investigator flag on the eGC1 personnel list to revert to YES when a user connected a SAGE Budget to an eGC1.
Personnel role selection changes and investigator flags
An issue is resolved which was occurring when a user changed the role type on personnel from one where Investigator status was automatically defaulted to YES (such as PI or Co-PI), to a role where they should be able to designate YES or NO (such as Mentor). The system was not displaying the YES/NO option in these cases until the screen was refreshed. It will now display the correct investigator options in real time.
Object Code 38 (Unallocated) costs in SAGE Budget not itemized in NIH export
An issue has been resolved so that costs in object code 38 (Unallocated) will now be itemized under Other Direct Costs in the SAGE Budget Excel export that matches the NIH Detailed Budget form format.
New Features
Additional FG-3 compliance question validation for RRF eGC1s
- eGC1s that have Royalty Research Fund (RRF) as the sponsor will display a validation error if question FG-3, the question about F&A cost reimbursement, on the Compliance Questions page is marked as ‘Yes’. RRF requires FG-3 to always be marked as ‘No’, so this validation error is intended to ensure that the eGC1 preparer selects the correct response prior to completing the eGC1.
Increase character limit in “Reason” field when adding Approvers and Watchers
- The “Provide a reason” field when adding an Approver or Watcher on the Approval Flow Screen has been increased from 250 characters to 1000. Department and School reviewers who add additional Approvers and Watchers like to include detailed instructions in that comment box and needed a higher character limit.
We now will show all recipients on the TO line of SAGE auto-generated email notifications.
- SAGE users will be able to see all persons who received the same Auto-generated SAGE email on the TO: line of the email. This was a frequent request from campus through our help desk and survey responses.
Fixes
Inadvertent sending of disclosure notifications
- Fixed the system to prevent investigators from receiving disclosure notifications when an old awarded eGC1 is opened. The system will now only trigger disclosure notifications when there is an investigator change made to the eGC1 (addition of an investigator or change of personnel to an investigator role).
HSD JIT email notifications are suppressed for RRF eGC1s
- Human Subjects Just-In-Time emails will no longer be sent to the owners of eGC1s where the Royalty Research Fund (RRF) is the sponsor. RRF is an internal UW sponsor and operates differently than external sponsors. Unique characteristics of RRF opportunities include shorter application/review/award timelines and the lack of “fundable score” notifications. These unique characteristics therefore made the Human Subjects JIT email irrelevant and confusing for the owners of the eGC1.
New clarifying message displayed when clicking on Investigator Disclosure History and FIDS Profile is not yet established
- If an Investigator has never completed a disclosure in FIDS, or does not have any disclosure history for the past 12 months, a new user-friendly message stating there is no history will display when the Investigator Disclosure History link is clicked.
New error message displayed when you have attachment upload errors due to hidden or invalid characters in file name
- A new error message will display in SAGE if you attempt to upload eGC1 attachments with invalid characters in the file name. To correct this issue, rename the file on your computer by directly typing in the characters before attempting to upload it in SAGE.
New Features
Notification dates were added to the PI & Personnel page.
- To help administrators know when to follow up with investigators, the PI & Personnel Page now displays the date when each investigator was notified by SAGE email to create a disclosure for an eGC1 and when the eGC1 reaches the Just in Time (JIT) phase.
Fixes
- We fixed several bugs related to PI Assurance so that PI Assurance values will be retained and displayed appropriately. We also corrected all of the eGC1s that were affected by the bugs.
Fixes/Enhancements
In SAGE Budget, we revised how calculations are made for salary distributions.
- In the March 2013 release, we revised salary calculations to include additional earn types. We found a few rare cases where SAGE Budget lists inaccurate salaries when the salary distributions have not yet been entered into the HR database. We have now revised SAGE Budget to account for the distributions which are not in the database.
We updated our tools’ styles.
To ensure that our tools have a more consistent look and are easier to maintain, we made some changes in our code. In some newer browsers, you may notice slightly different colors, rounded corners, and other minor changes. The changes were made in the following tools:
- SAGE – System to Administer Grants Electronically
- FIDS – Financial Interest Disclosure System
- SPAERC – Sponsored Projects Administration & Electronic Research Compliance (for OSP)
- SERA – System for Electronic Research Accounting (for GCA)
New Features
These changes were made as a result of introducing the new Financial Interest Disclosure System (FIDS) which integrates with SAGE.
On the eGC1 PI & Personnel page:
- eGC1 Preparers can select Investigator status.
- Disclosure notifications to investigators to complete a disclosure in FIDS can now be sent.
- Each investigator’s SFI status will display based on the information in FIDS.
- The PHS FCOI training status will display.
- The FIDS disclosure status will display.
- Changes may be made to the PI or personnel after the eGC1 has been approved by OSP.
- The history of any post-approval PI or personnel changes will be displayed.
On the Certify & Route page:
- An eGC1 cannot be completed until all investigators have received disclosure notifications.
- The Ready to Submit question cannot be answered as “Yes” until all investigators have completed their disclosures in FIDS.