• 1. I need Revenue Increase in Budget changed to Spend and Claim (payment terms). How do I do this on the system?

    If this is a new project award that was created on the eRA system after 1 November 2019, all requests to switch the payment terms should be channelled through the eRA System. If the fund has already been opened, and your Project Award form is sitting on “Fund Opened/Fund Amended” workflow step, you will need to proceed with a fund amendment request.

    The Post-awards Research Admin role will complete the required FM003 form, to be signed off by Faculty Finance. The Post-awards Research Admin role will then move the project form to the “Fund Amendment Request Review by Faculty Finance” workflow step. Faculty Finance will then complete the required fund amendment details, attach the completed FM003, and select the “Fund Amendment Request Review by General Ledger” workflow step.

  • 2. How can I be tagged on a Post-award form that I need to work on?

    The Post-awards Research Admin contact can be tagged on the respective Project Award form in one of four ways:

    • At Pre-Awards stage

    Provision has been made for the Budget Reviewer role to tag the respective Post-awards Research Admin contact on the Internal Approval record. This means that should the fund application be successful, and a contract record is initiated from Pre-awards, the person tagged in this role will have immediate access to the Post-award record once it is initiated.

    • At Contracts stage

    You can request (via email) that the Contracts Manager assigned to manage the relevant contract, tags you as the Faculty Contact on the Key Information tab of the Contract form. This will ensure that once the contract moves over to Post-Awards, you are already tagged as the Post-awards Research Admin contact and can immediately pick up the form for processing.

    • Once the Contracts has flipped over to Post-Awards, creating a new Project Award record and is sitting on “New Awarded Project”

    When a new Project Award record is created, and fund opening is required, it will sit on the “New Awarded Project” workflow step. At this step, the Post-awards Faculty Finance role can pick up the Project Award and tag the relevant Research Admin person on the Key Information tab of the Project Award form.

    • Once the Contracts has flipped over to Post-Awards, creating a new Project Award record and is sitting on “Debtors Sales order processing”

    When a new Project Award record is created, and there is an existing fund linked to the project, it will land in Post-Awards on the “Debtors Sales Order processing” workflow step. At this step, Finance Debtors can be informed who the respective Research Admin contact should be and tag the relevant Research Admin person on the Key Information tab of the Project Award form.

  • 3. I need an invoice raised urgently, but I’ve been told I need to do that on the system. How do I do this?

    Requisition requests can only be submitted on the system once your main Project Award form is sitting on the “Project in Progress” workflow step.

  • 4. I need to open a new fund for a Project Award record that has an existing fund linked to it. What do I do?

    You will need to log a call with eRA support to change this. For this to be managed successfully, the existing Project Award record will be archived, so that a new Project Award form can be created, starting from the “New Awarded Project” workflow step so that fund opening can be processed.

  • 5. How can I change/add another Research Admin person to an existing project award form?

    Please see FAQ 2 above for instructions on how to tag a Post-awards Research Admin contact. Further to this, tagging of an additional Research Admin contact when the form has moved further down the workflow process, can be done in the following ways:

    Faculty Finance has the ability to tag an additional Research Admin contact when the form is sitting on Fund Opening Review by Faculty Finance.

    For all other points during the workflow that are inaccessible to the Post-awards Faculty Finance role, please log a call with eRA Support.

  • 6. From Contacts Managers – I incorrectly selected “Signed contact, existing fund” workflow step. How do I fix this?

    You will need to log a call with eRA Support to archive the Project Award record that was created as a result of the incorrect workflow step being selected at contract stage. We will then unlink the erroneous Project Award record from the contract, which will enable you to recreate a Project Award on the correct workflow step.

  • 7. From Contacts Managers – I created a Project Award for a contract that does not require one. What do I do?

    Please log a call with eRA Support for the Project Award record to be deleted.

  • 8. From the researchers - I received a post-award notification. What do I do now?

    Refer to the Research Announcement that went out in February 2020, which outlines the expectations of the PI in the Post-Awards process.

  • 9. From Finance - Why can I not see a new Project Award record on the eRA system?

    This issue could be related to the PI’s work affiliation card that is linked to the project. If the work affiliation for the PI is linked to a different faculty to the one you are in, you will then not be able to access or view this record. Please ensure that the corresponding work affiliation for the PI linked to the contact is set up for the faculty that should ultimately manage the Project Award.

  • 10. A fund has been opened, but I cannot see the Project Award form. How do I find the form?

    When a fund has been opened by General Ledger, and the Project Award form is sitting on Fund Opened/Fund Amended, the Project Award form is only accessible to the Post-awards Research Admin role. This Post-awards Research Admin then has the responsibility of moving the form to Finance Debtors for Sales Order processing (if applicable), or actioning Fund Amendment if it is required.

  • 11. The staff member who needs to process the form is not in the office, what do I do?

    It is best practice to ensure that there is more than one person tagged as the Post-awards Research Admin contact for situations where staff take annual, sick or bereavement leave. This will ensure that the Project Award record is always accessible to someone within the office to continue with project related tasks. For more information on tagging additional staff to a Project Award record, please refer to FAQs 2 & 5 above.

  • 12. Do all existing active projects also need a Project Award created on the system?

    • If your project is currently active and project-related activities were already underway before 1 November 2019, you do not need a Project Award record on the eRA system, and will continue to see the project through, offline.
    • If your related contract (New contracts that emanated from the eRA system as well as “in progress” contracts that were migrated from the IRMA system) was managed and concluded on the eRA system from 1 November 2019, your project will require a Project Award record for the management of project-related activities.

  • 13. What is the process to change the start and/or end dates of the project for the following scenarios?

    1. A Project Award that emanated from the eRA Pre-awards module.
    2. A Project Award without an eRA pre-award record but with an eRA contract
    3. Where the start or end dates need to be changed with a change in budget
    4. Where the start or end dates need to be changed without a change in the budget
      – For no-cost extensions like NIH grants, RC&I has edit rights to the related Project Award record to include the amended end date information. Should this be completed, there will be a notification to the faculty contacts captured on the record to alert them to the change.

     

  • 14. What are the scenarios that require the fund number to be changed?

    • When the incorrect VAT attributes are reflected on the Contract, ie. When RIB needs to be switched off, and the payment terms should be spend and claim.
    • Incorrect fund number provided by Research project support staff at the initiation of fund opening.

  • 15. What is the process of changing a fund number for the following scenarios?

    1. An older contract that was concluded before 1 Nov 2020
      • Assuming that no project activities have commenced, the contract should be pushed back, and allowed to flip over into the Post-Awards space, so that all project related activities from this point, can be recorded on the eRA system.
    2. A current contract without a post-awards Project Award record but with an existing fund number
      • This should be done using the offline process that was used before the Post-Awards module was implemented.
    3. A current contract with an existing post-awards Project Award record with a fund number in place
      • This should be taken through the fund amendment request review process as provisioned by the Post-Awards workflow process.

  • 16. Which attributes are pulled from the Contracts module to the Post-Awards module?

    The following information is pulled from the Contract but can be changed at Post-Awards stage by the Faculty Finance or Research Admin roles.

    • Title
    • eRA Contract Number
    • eRA UCT Approval Number
    • Start and End dates
    • Contractual Partner
    • Primary Funder
    • Principal Investigator
    • Co-Investigator(s)
    • Student(s)
    • Faculty Finance Contact (Financial Reviewer)
    • Faculty/Department/Research Project Admin Contact (Faculty Contact)
    • Payment Terms –> This can be changed by Faculty Finance after the fact at some steps

  • 17. The following Fund Information is the original information pulled from the Contract record. If changes for the information below occur after the fund has been opened, they should be done on the contract ONLY.

    • Is this project Basic, Applied or Contract Research, as per the SARS definition in determining VAT apportionment?
    • Is there involvement of students or postdoctoral fellows (on tax-free stipends) in this project?
    • SAP VAT Attribute
    • Related Contract(s) -> This is a link to open the contract with the latest information.

  • 18. What is the difference between all the eRA system reference numbers?

    Pre-awards module

    • Internal approvals, conference travel and open-access journal publication fund (APC) and page cost applications IDs take the format ERA0000xxxx

    Contracts module

    • New contracts which emanated from the eRA system IDs take the format UCT000xxxxx
    • Older contracts imported from the IRMA system take the format of a 5-digit number

    Post-Awards module

    • Project award form IDs take the format of PRJ0000xx