Version 7.3

December 11, 2023

The eResearch Proposal Management system (eRPM) was updated with several enhancements to version 7.3 on December 11, 2023. 

Proposal Approval Form (PAF) and Award (AWD) Enhancements

  • Updated PAF Question 1.2 (purpose for routing this PAF) options to:

    • Proposal: Process a proposal for review and approval by ORSP (e.g., full proposal application, competitive renewal application, supplement application).
    • Contract: Request the review or drafting of a contract, or other funding agreement.
    • Subsequent PAF for an existing AWD (e.g., non-competing renewal, additional funding on existing award).
      new PAF Question 1.2 text and options

Note that PAFs currently in a State of “Proposal Preparation” will be converted to the new answer choice.

  • Awarded PAFs have a new state of “Closed” to indicate that its related Award is closed. Furthermore,

    • If an Award is closed, associated PAFs will move to the Closed state. 
    • A closed PAF cannot initiate a new award.
    • If a closed Award is re-opened, then all associated PAFs remain closed.

Note that this will impact search functionality for the next few weeks as the affected records are updated.

  • The U-M Investigators page on Award Modification Worksheets was updated to provide better tracking of active and inactive investigators. 
  • PI & Project Team members can use the Manage Non Key Investigators activity on Awards to add or remove personnel when a MOD is in progress.
  • The IT Security Term text (for Special Terms and Conditions) on PAF, AWD, and UFAs, was updated.

Unfunded Agreements (UFA)

Resolved an issue so that UFAs will route for Unit Review if the category type selected is “Other.”

eRPM System Access Change

The eRPM system has changed its access policy. New non-UM users who obtain a Friend account can no longer log directly into eRPM for the first time. Instead, they must be added by an existing eRPM user (e.g., PI & Project Team or Unit Liaison). For details, refer to Proposal Management Access.

For Central Offices

Office of Research and Sponsored Projects (ORSP)

Provided an IACUC approval question in Compliance Factors to enable future dating of vertebrate animal work on federally sponsored awards as allowed on non-federal projects.

Conflict of Interest (COI), International Engagement, and ORSP

The U-M Investigators page on Award Modification Worksheets was updated to better track active and inactive investigators. Listers include:

  • Current U-M Investigators (on the Award record)
  • Personnel to be Added (based on imported ACR Investigators, imported PAF Personnel, or ORSP manual change)
  • Personnel Updates in Progress (changes in role, appointment, or status)

  • Current Personnel who have updated their COI or IE responses (since their last recorded response).

NASA records will be marked with an "Enhanced COI flag" so that COI offices can review them. For ORSP, NASA Subcontracts (SUBK) will follow the same process as NIH/PHS and DOE records.

Sponsored Programs and ORSP

  • Removed forwarding of Award Budget Information comments in P/G Notes field to MODs.
  • Redesigned the assignment of FOAC (Sponsored Programs Coordinator) on projects which allows for NRSA awards to be assigned across the team, as needed.

Research Information Security Oversight (RISO)

  • The IT Security Term text (for Special Terms and Conditions) on PAF, AWD, and some UFAs was updated.
  • Enhanced data reporting to ensure the Request Security Review date is captured on PAF.
  • Added Parent Project info to the Security Reviewer workspace and added the ability for RISO to set the Parent Project in smartforms.
  • Added IT Managers to RISO UFA smartforms.
  • Changed permissions so UFA Personnel are not able to edit RISO UFAs.

Export Controls and RISO

  • To fix reporting issues, the “Amendment Complete” activity on UFAs was updated to consistently set the Amendment Sign/Amendment Compete Date to today's date if it’s left blank.
  • In preparation to separate the Export Controls and Security Office roles:
    • Updated Security Review access across eRPM.
    • In “Create Security Review” UFA activities, set Project Representative to Security Office across projects to fix the issue of auto-assignment of a PR when creating security review UFAs off of PAF, UFA, and AWD.

Conflict of Interest (COI)

Resolved an issue where records that were in compliance hold for Other Support Review were not always automatically moved out of compliance hold once the Other Support Review had completed.

Other Central Offices

Added Prime Sponsor to the email that is sent to ancillary offices, as the MOD email notification already had this.

Innovation Partnerships

The document uploader, that has the approval if a protocol is held at another institution, was removed from UFAs as it was not being used.

All Roles

Updated the document upload functionality for Agreement Acceptance Requests (AAR) to provide a consistent user experience