Tag Archives: SAGE Budget

Budget Header

All budgets display a header section across the top of the page. This header remains visible regardless of what part of the budget you are viewing. The following image shows an example budget header, in two parts to accommodate its width.

budget header example

The header contains the following items, reading from left to right:

  • A blue arrow, pointing to the left, which is a link back to your Budget List
  • The budget title, default value is “New Budget”
  • The budget number, for example: B100014
  • Total Project Costs amount, sum of Total Direct Costs and F&A
  • Total Direct Costs amount, sum of direct costs for the budget
  • TDC Less Sub F&A amount, appears if there is a subaward worksheet, or if you chose TDC Less Sub F&A as the spending target
  • Subrecipient F&A amount, appears if there is a subaward worksheet, or if chose TDC Less Sub F&A as the spending target
  • Facilities & Administrative amount, sum of F&A for the budget
  • If an eGC1 is linked to the budget, the eGC1 number and the linked budget period display. Clicking on the application number will open a new tab displaying the eGC1.
  • At the far right, a “more options” menu icon appears. The icon is three, blue vertical dots. The menu choices are:

Note: if you have enabled a spending target, there will be an indicator arrow next to the targeted value. The arrow is black and pointing down if the total amount is below the target, or red and pointing up if the total amount is above. The following image shows the targeted Total Direct Costs over the target amount.

budget header with spending target indicator

Clicking on the targeted value opens a dialog with information for each period, and the option to edit the spending targets. The following image shows this dialog.

budget heading spending target dialog

Navigation Menu

The Navigation Menu is a list of links for navigating within your budget. When you select a link, it will be highlighted with a light blue shading. The following image shows an example of the budget’s left navigation menu:

SAGE Budget Navigation, showing Summary, Primary Worksheet, Internal UW Worksheet, Subaward Worksheet, Fabrication Worksheet, the Add Worksheet option, Budget Settings, and Snapshots & History links.

The possible links on the menu are:

  • Summary (All Worksheets) displays the Budget Summary (icon: clipboard with checkmark)
  • Primary Worksheet displays the initial worksheet automatically created for a new budget. If you rename this worksheet, the new name will appear. It will always be the first worksheet listed. (icon: star)
  • Links for any added sub-budget worksheets, in order of creation, regardless of type. Either the default name or your edited name will appear. Each sheet has a blue trash can icon, to the right of its name, which opens the delete worksheet dialog window.
    • Internal UW icon: mortar board/graduation hat
    • Subaward icon: handshake
    • Fabrication icon: tools
  • Add Worksheet opens the Add a Worksheet dialog (icon: blue plus sign)
  • Budget Settings displays the settings sections (icon: gear)
  • Snapshots & History displays the point-in-time snapshots (icon: clock)

SAGE – the System to Administer Grants Electronically – is the web-based system used by faculty, researchers, administrators and staff.

You can stay up-to-date on changes in SAGE (and FIDS) by subscribing to our Office of Research Information Services (ORIS) News.

The core SAGE system allows you to carry out several tasks:

  • SAGE Budget helps you create an accurate budget for your grant proposal. It auto-populates data from the payroll and financial systems, helps you select proper rates, and calculates totals automatically.
    • You can connect a budget to a standard or Grant Runner eGC1 to populate budget data.
    • You will need to connect a budget to an Award Setup Request.
  • eGC1 Forms are the electronic Grants and Contracts forms you use to route your grant proposal through the University’s internal compliance process.
  • Grant Runner applications combine the eGC1 and sponsor forms for some NIH funding opportunities requiring SF424 R&R forms, including Modular, Detailed and Subaward Budgets. With the click of a button, OSP can electronically submit your application via Grants.gov to the sponsor.
  • Approvals is the electronic routing engine that stages eGC1s, Advances, and Award Setup Requests for approval by associated departments, colleges, compliance offices, and the Office of Sponsored Programs.
  • Advances creates an online request form for an advance budget number.
  • Awards allows you to create Award Setup Requests and Modification Requests.
  • Subawards submits a request for a new subaward or a modification of an existing one.

This component of SAGE (System to Administer Grants Electronically) enables you to create accurate, detailed budgets for your grant and contract proposals and for your award requests. The comprehensive budget minimizes errors and improves data quality.

For proposals, you can connect a SAGE Budget to a standard or Grant Runner application. The budget data will automatically fill in the eGC1 Budget page, and for a Grant Runner application, the RR Detailed Budget form. Any changes to the budget are automatically reflected in the application. Review Connected SAGE Budgets and eGC1s for more details.

For Award Requests or Modification Requests, you are required to attach a SAGE Budget. Review Awards Overview/Workflow for more details. Any changes to the budget are automatically reflected in the award or modification request.

Review SAGE Budget learning resources (classes, job aids, and more).

How do I connect my SAGE Budget to an Award Setup Request?

Review the Budget & Award Lines article for the complete steps.

Briefly, to attach the SAGE budget to your Award Setup Request, search for your budget by budget title, BudgetID number, or PI.

Select your budget from the results list.

Campus research teams and related central offices use the SAGE Suite electronic research administration system to manage application proposals and related items.

    • 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.

When you create a budget, you are automatically named the role of Budget Preparer. Approvers may contact you during the review process, and OSP and/or GCA staff following the awarding of funds.

  • To select a different preparer, click the Change the Budget Preparer? link beneath the preparer information to open the personnel chooser.
  • Enter the Name or UW NetID for the person you want to add, and click Search.
  • Click on the desired person’s name to select her or him and return to the Access page.

When you choose to change yourself as the preparer, a warning message will appear. If the change you are making removes your last access to this item, once you confirm the change, the tasklist will display.

loss of access warning dialog

The information displayed for the preparer is:

  • Name and Employee ID
  • Selected unit: the name and Cost Center of the contact’s unit for the appointment selected. This is automatically displayed by SAGE.
  • Title: the contact’s title from the directory. This field is editable.
  • Phone: the contact’s title from the directory. This field is editable.
  • Email: the contact’s title from the directory. This field is editable.

December 2022 SAGE Maintenance Release

SAGE Infrastructure Updates

Switch to new Clinical Salary Service End Point

UW IT has made a change to their Clinical Salary service, which requires SAGE to update to their new end point.

Switch to new Space Service End Point

UW IT has made a change to their Space Web service, which requires SAGE to update to their new end point.

FIX: Update procedure causing task list performance issues

One of the procedures supporting the subaward task list has been improved in its design in order to improve performance when searching.

Upgrade front end developer tools

The front end engineers have upgraded to a new set of tools and a consolidation of code into a monorepo architecture. This update provides important streamlining benefits, allowing SAGE to deploy updates in a targeted way, and for code to become more easily managed and maintained.

SAGE Budget

FIX: SAGE Budget salary refresh causing display issues

An issue was resolved in the viewing of salary details in SAGE Budget, occurring at times when salary data was refreshed by the user.

FIX: SAGE Budget re-saving issue in salary details view

An issue was resolved in the viewing of salary details in SAGE Budget, where re-saving of the select allocation details caused clinical salary to be omitted.

Connected Budget and eGC1

When you link a SAGE Budget to an eGC1, each item’s contacts and access lists are combined into a shared “access” page.  A set of rules determines how the data is combined, so that no user loses access.

Once you link the Budget and the eGC1, you can make changes from either the eGC1’s Contact & Access page or from the Budget Settings Access & Roles section.

The shared page includes the “owners” which are the Administrative Contact, Pre-Award Budget Contact, eGC1 Preparer, Budget Preparer and the eGC1’s PI. The list will also include any general collaborators with assigned access, either Can Edit or View Only.

The rules for combining the information from the original pages are:

  1. If you have different Administrative Contacts and Budget Contacts listed on your eGC1 and your SAGE budget when they are connected:
    • Any existing SAGE Budget contacts will display on the resulting shared page.
    • The eGC1’s contacts will change to editable access, either Read/Write (eGC1) or Can Edit (Budget). Note: If your budget does not have an Administrative or Budget Contact, then the eGC1 contact will display on the shared page.
  2. The eGC1 and Budget Preparers will display on the shared page.
  3. The PI listed on the eGC1’s PI & Personnel page will be the PI on the shared access page.
  4. Users will keep their higher level of access to the connected eGC1 and SAGE Budget. For example, a user with View Only access to the SAGE Budget and Read/Write access to the eGC1, will have edit access on the shared page.
    • Read/Write (eGC1) or Can Edit (Budget) are a higher level of access than Read-Only (eGC1) or Can View (Budget).
    • Owners (contacts, preparers, and PI) always have edit access.
    • Anyone with edit access may change or remove assigned access for anyone else.

Disconnected Budget and eGC1

When you disconnect a budget from an eGC1, each item will retain the Administrative Contact, the Pre-Award Budget Contact and a copy of all users with assigned access.

Additionally, these adjustments will be made:

  • The Budget Preparer role will not display on the eGC1. However, if the Budget Preparer had no other access to the eGC1, they will be assigned Read Write access to it.
  • The eGC1 Preparer role will not display on the Budget. However, if the eGC1 Preparer had no other access to the Budget, they will be assigned Can Edit access to it.
  • The eGC1’s PI will be assigned Can Edit access to the Budget.

Access page for multiple eGC1s and their connected budget

If you have a budget which is connected to multiple eGC1s:

  • Access lists for the eGC1s and their connected budget will merge.
  • The creator of the most recent eGC1 will become the eGC1 Preparer on the shared access page and will therefore have owner (edit) access.
  • Creators of all other eGC1s will have read-only access.
  • The PI on the most recent eGC1 will receive any email notifications and be listed as an owner.
  • Any former PIs will still display on the PI, Personnel, & Organizations page of the corresponding older eGC1. They will have read-only access to the current eGC1 and Budget. The former PIs will not receive email notifications.
  • Note: The PI on the most recent eGC1 will display on your My eGC1s page, so you will be unable to search for an older eGC1 using the former PI’s name.

Access for Global Editors

SAGE users with the Global Edit ASTRA role do not display on the access list for an eGC1 or Budget. They only have access to eGC1s not in Composing status. They will also have read/write access to any budgets connected to those eGC1s.

Notes, tips, and warnings

  • If you are preparing your eGC1 and budget at the same time, connect your budget before filling out the access page. You will then only need to fill in the information once.
  • If you remove yourself as an owner from the Contacts & Assign Access page for an eGC1 in Composing status or in Withdrawn status with no approvals, you will no longer have any access to the eGC1 or its connected budget. For an eGC1 in Approved or Returned status, you will retain read-only access.
  • Be sure you are connecting the correct budget to your eGC1 or the wrong people will end up on the access list.

As you manage an awarded project over time, you might link more than one eGC1 to the same SAGE Budget. When that occurs, there are several things to consider.

Editing Linked eGC1s and their Budget

Generally, you cannot edit an eGC1 in Routing or In OSP status or its linked budget. When you link multiple eGC1s to the same budget, none of the eGC1s or the budget are editable if any one eGC1 is Routing or In OSP.

Shared eGC1 Data: Contacts & Assign Access

Information on the Contacts & Assign Access page is shared across all of the eGC1s and the budget that links them. If you make a change on any one of the eGC1s or the budget, it affects all of the other linked items.

For example, assume you have an older Approved or Awarded eGC1 linked to a budget. You then link a new eGC1 to the same budget. If you make changes on the new eGC1’s Contacts & Assign Access page, those changes will happen on the older eGC1 and the budget also. This ensures that the current contacts receive any system email notifications sent concerning either related eGC1.

Shared eGC1 Data: Research Personnel

Similarly, if you make a change to the PI, Personnel, & Organizations page on any of the linked eGC1s, it will display on all of the other linked eGC1s. You can change the PI, add or delete other personnel, or update an investigator’s status. Once an eGC1 has reached Approved status, the Post-Approval Personnel Changes section displays at the bottom of the page and lists any changes.

The intent is to maintain one up-to-date list of the research personnel working on the project, for the purposes of significant financial interest (SFI) disclosures. When you add new investigators to the list, they will have to create a disclosure for the older eGC1 in addition to the new one.

Note: changes to the PI, Personnel, & Organizations page do not affect the personnel listed on the linked budget.

Any personnel changes you make to an eGC1 after approval do not affect the approval graph. It remains as it was at time of approval. The list of people on the cost share page will be the people who were on the eGC1 at time of OSP approval. Personnel that you add post-approval do not display on this page.

Also, the eGC1 Snapshot on the approval History & Comments page will still show the data as it was at the time that person approved.

One of the benefits of using SAGE Budget to create your proposal budget is that you can then connect it to your eGC1. It will automatically populate the Budget page of your eGC1. Since the two items are linked, any time you update your budget, your eGC1 will show the updated data. When you select a budget period to connect to your eGC1, SAGE imports all the data from your budget worksheets.

In addition, if your eGC1 is a Grant Runner application using the RR Detailed Budget form, your budget data will be mapped into the form. A Sponsor Budget Map link will display on the left navigation menu for you to make any desired changes to where the data maps by default. Review the Sponsor Budget Map article for more details.

Your eGC1 and budget will route together so reviewers can easily see budget details in a standard format.

When you submit a renewal eGC1, you can use the same budget to link the award-adjusted data for the next period to your renewal application.

Contacts and Access

When you connect a SAGE Budget and eGC1, they will share the contacts and access information. Any information you update on the Budget will be reflected on the eGC1. When you connect the two items, everyone who had access to either item will still have access. The SAGE Budget and eGC1 Shared Access Data article explains the details.