We use Events to manage our Post-Award in the central office (OSP) and to communicate with our accounting office (C&GA). Our Grant and Contract Specialists handle all pre-award and post-award non-financial. The Specialist creates an event with information regarding the award, amendment, etc., and tags our post-award specialist who works out of her event inbox to create the award in Cayuse and make any other necessary changes to the record per the amendment (NCE, change of PI, etc.). After she has made those changes in Cayuse, the event is tagged with someone in C&GA to set up the fund in Banner or make any other changes as needed. The even has been a wonderful way for us to keep up with what is happening on the award such as the following:
- status of review and any signatures needed
- compliance requests and approvals
- requests to PI/Dept re: budget issues, etc.
We can communicate with the PI when they call to check on the status because on the event, we can see where it is in the process and who is working on it and any outstanding issues. Below is a sample of the format we put in the description for our awards/amendments. We also use events to issue subcontracts as well with another template of information for that particular event.
Template:
For New Awards, Amendments and NCE
Current Award/Amendment Amount:
Current Budget POP:
Total Award Amount Expected:
Anticipated Increments:
Project POP:
Notes:
I think the trick is to determine who needs to make sure they are in the habit of checking their event inbox on a daily basis. Our post-award specialist works almost entirely out of her event inbox because those are her action items. It really helps to have a snapshot of what happened throughout the process in case anyone has questions later on and we have found it particularly helpful when other Specialists need to take over certain projects or departments. You have "cliff notes" to go by on what was done before. It also comes in handy for training new people because they have a record to refer to when they have questions about certain sponsors or actions on the post-award side.
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Jennifer Mills
Manager, Electronic Research Administration, Training & Reporting
University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2021 07:44
From: Augusta Isley
Subject: Best practices for Events?
Hello!
We have been trying to get more / better use out of the Events module in SP. Our post-award team is using it to some success with report reminders but mostly just grumble about it being annoying. An example of this is that the system email goes to the Grant Manager (GM) instead of the PI, and the GM is still having to send a further email to the PI as a reminder. I struggle with offering guidance because I just don't know how to use it very well.
So I was wondering if there were any hot tips or best practices, maybe some innovative uses, others have found for Events. Screenshots welcome!
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Augusta Isley
Senior Proposal Manager
Ball State University
amwray@bsu.edu
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