RFS 6.16 release notes
In this release of the Elements Research Funding Solution (RFS), we are pleased to introduce additional Review & approval and Funder submission and outcome features, along with a number of additional improvements and enhancements supporting various aspects of the research funding lifecycle, including a number of new stock reports and dashboards. This additional functionality builds on features introduced in recent releases to help streamline the administration of grants and projects.
Funder submission and outcome functionality improvements
In this release we have improved the 'Approve all' bulk action available on the Pre-approved search screen in the Management Console to enable bulk processing of Proposals and EOIs from the Pre-approved state to Ready for submission to funder. Further details are available here.
We have also introduced new email templates to accompany relevant steps in the funder submission and outcome workflow, including prompts at appropriate steps in the process. These templates are enabled upon upgrade to 6.16, so you will want to engage with the templates to modify the text as desired.
The new templates available are:
Approved and Ready for submission to funder
Submitted to funder
Funder outcome - Awarded
Funder outcome - Invited to apply
Funder outcome - Reserve
Funder outcome - Unsuccessful
And lastly, we have introduced functionality to enable you to capture a 'Declined' outcome (along with reasons and notes) for proposals in the Approved state (previously you could only capture 'Declined' prior to moving the proposal to Approved). This enables you to accurately capture a declined award following, for example, unsuccessful contract negotiations.
Review & approval functionality improvements
We have introduced a new Bulk Dispatch function, enabling users to dispatch review notifications in bulk, by review type. Further details are available in the Dispatch reviews / approvals > Bulk dispatch screen section here. Should you wish to make use of this functionality, you will want to engage with the relevant templates to modify the text as desired.
In v6.13, we introduced a new reviewer/approver validation check on the Manage Reviews screen to confirm that the assigned reviewer (group or individual) is still a valid reviewer/approver prior to dispatching. In this release we have expanded this validation check to the Dispatch and Bulk Dispatch screens, giving administrators further confidence when delaying / staging the dispatch of reviews.
Relationships
We have made updates to the relationship creation configuration settings to ensure that all properties from the parent populate on the child sub-grant (e.g. Funder Programme, Funder scheme (if the Funder on the sub-grant remains the same as that on the parent), etc.).
We have also introduced two new summary views of related funding records in the Management Console, to help you get an oversight of activity where there are multiple related entities.
Details page
At the bottom of the details page, we have introduced a new table providing details of any related funding records, including:
Reference
Title
Status and outcome
PI
Relationship type
Relationship direction
Total budget
This table excludes the 'Linked' relationship type (multi-stage applications) and includes only directly related funding records (parents and children, but excludes grandparents / children).
Finance > Summary page
On a parent funding record's Finance > Summary page, we have introduced a new table providing details of any related sub-grants, including:
For each sub-grant:
Reference
Title
PI
Relationship type
Status and outcome
Total budget
Current award (for activated projects)
Total expenditure (if imported from Finance)
Remaining amount and % (if there are expenditure values)
Parent total budget, current award, expenditure, and remaining amounts
Total project budget, current award, expenditure, and remaining amounts
This table excludes the 'Linked' relationship type (multi-stage applications) and includes only directly related sub-grants (so excludes grandchildren, etc.)
API
We are continuing expand content available to query via the API, enabling support for more comprehensive reporting and integration with institutional BI tools. In this release we have added new endpoints for funding record Journal content (i.e. Console notes).
Further detail is available here.
Reporting
The following content has been added to the reporting database for funding records:
Journals (i.e. Console notes)
A number of modifications have also been made to the rfs schema tables and views in the reporting database.
In this release, we have also been working hard to expand the RFS content available in the Reporting hub, updating existing stock reports to capture new data available and to rationalise the behaviour of these reports to ensure that they continue to meet client needs, and adding new post-award stock reports now that this content is available in the reporting database.
Report updates
New report name | Old report name | Description | What has changed? |
All funding reviews | (no change) | Details of all reviews and approvals for submitted funding proposals. Date parameters are based on the proposal submitted date. Group parameters are based on the managing group of the proposal. | New fields such as Grant manager, Amount applied for currency. Updated logic to ensure accurate data returned now that post-award content is also available. |
Funding reviews summary | Funding reviews - managing group | Summary tables of all reviews (by status, by proposal, full details). Report includes proposals where the proposal's managing group matches the selected group parameter. Date parameters are based on the proposal submitted date. | New fields such as Grant manager, proposal status and outcome. Updated logic to ensure accurate data returned now that post-award content is also available. |
Open Funding Opportunities | (no change) | List of all open, published funding opportunities. | New fields such as configuration type, proposal outcome workflow, funder programme, funder scheme. |
All Funding Opportunities | (no change) | List of all funding opportunities. | New fields such as configuration type, proposal outcome workflow, funder programme, funder scheme. |
Funding opportunity activity - by funding record managing group | Activity on open Funding Opportunities - by Proposal Managing Group | Summary of activity on funding opportunities. Report includes funding records where the funding record's managing group matches the selected group parameter. Date parameters are based on the Funding Opportunity internal close date. |
|
Funding opportunity activity - by PI primary group | Activity on open Funding Opportunities - by PI Primary Group | Summary of activity on funding opportunities. Report includes funding records where the principal investigator's primary group matches the selected group parameter. Date parameters are based on the Funding Opportunity internal close date. |
|
Active funding proposals | (no change) | List of all active funding proposals affiliated with users in the selected group or managed by the selected group. Once closed or activated as a project, a proposal will no longer be included in this report. | Updated logic to ensure only pre-award proposals are included. New fields such as Grant manager, Contract status, Funding type, Initial amount awarded, Amount awarded. |
Funding proposal statuses - Managing Group | Proposal statuses - managing group | Summary tables of all proposals (by status, by PI, full details). Report includes proposals where the proposal's managing group matches the selected group parameter. Date parameters are based on the project start / end dates input on the proposal. | New fields such as Grant manager, Withdrawal reasons, Contract status, Funder submission and outcome details, Amount awarded. |
Funding proposal statuses - PI primary group | Proposal statuses - PI primary group | Summary tables of all proposals (by status, by PI, full details). Report includes proposals where the PI's primary group matches the selected group parameter. Date parameters are based on the project start / end dates input on the proposal. | New fields such as Grant manager, Withdrawal reasons, Contract status, Funder submission and outcome details, Amount awarded. |
Individual funding activity: active | User list of proposals | List of all active funding records affiliated with the selected user. Date parameters are based on the project start / end dates. | Updated logic to ensure that only active funding records are included (pre- and post-award). New fields such as Grant manager, Amount awarded, Current award. |
Active funding records list - all internal participants | Proposals list - all internal participants | List of all active funding records affiliated with users in the selected group or managed by the selected group, including funding record details and all named internal participants. Date parameters are based on the project start / end dates. | Updated logic to ensure:
New fields such as Amount awarded and Current award. |
New reports
Name | Description |
Active funding projects | List of all active funding projects affiliated with users in the selected group or managed by the selected group. |
Funding project statuses - Managing group | Summary tables of all projects (by status, by PI, full details). Report includes project where the project's managing group matches the selected group parameter. Date parameters are based on the project start / end dates. |
Funding project statuses - PI primary group | Summary tables of all projects (by status, by PI, full details). Report includes projects where the PI's primary group matches the selected group parameter. Date parameters are based on the project start / end dates. |
Individual funding activity: all | List of all funding records affiliated with the selected user. Date parameters are based on the project start / end dates. |
All funding records | List of all funding records affiliated with users in the selected group or managed by the selected group. Date parameters are based on the project start / end dates. |
Funder outcome summary | Funder outcome summary tables of all external proposals (by funder and funding opportunity), providing details of successful and unsuccessful applications. Date parameters are based on the date the proposal was submitted to the funder. |
Funding project deliverables | List of all deliverables for active projects affiliated with users in the selected group or managed by the selected group. Date parameters are based on the 'Required by' date of the deliverable. |
Funding project change requests | List of all change requests for active projects affiliated with users in the selected group or managed by the selected group. Date parameters are based on the submission date of the change request. |
Funding record relationships | List of all related funding records (excluding direct associated Proposal > Project relationships). |
Proposal status monitoring: Managing group | Report on the time that each external funding record remained at each stage of the process. Report includes proposals where the proposal's managing group matches the selected group parameter. Date parameters are based on the proposal's internal submission date. |
Annual and YTD comparisons of projects and proposals | Annual and YTD comparisons of externally-funded projects and proposals (including awarded and applied for amounts, and success rates). |
Other improvements and bug fixes
The Management Console homepage has been updated to include a 'Contracting & post-award tile' that navigates the user to the 'Contracting and post-award' navigation page.
The Management Console Main Menu > Pre-award top navigation menu has been updated to include direct navigation to the 'Ready for submission to funder' and 'Submitted to funder' search pages.
We have updated the name of the Funding record > Contracts tab in the Console to 'Contracts and activation'.
We have updated the name of the Funding record > Funder submission tab in the Console to 'Funder submission and outcome'.
The function to manage the default Deliverables schedule is now available to System Administrators and Research Funding Administrators in the Management Console (via Admin > Grants & Reviews > Deliverable Groups).
The full audit log for individual funding records is now available in the Management Console, giving authorised users the facility to not only view the log of all activity on the Proposal form itself, but any changes made in the Console, and changes to checklists.
We have updated the synchronisation of user names from Elements to RFS to use 'Known as' or 'User defined' names where these have been populated
We have introduced validation when creating a Funding Opportunity that stops the user from being able to create a Funding Opportunity where the name is more than 100 characters.
We have fixed a few Proposal form issues:
where navigating backwards in the form would clear out all selected Classification values.
where a recommended value was not provided, the Proposal could not be successfully submitted.
We have fixed an issue where 'For issue' contract documents were not being listed in the funding record's list of documents.
We have resolved an issue where you were unable remove a page lock on a review form previously accessed by another user.
We have resolved an issue where large numbers of Finance Codes (e.g. Cost Centres) impacted on users' ability to select the appropriate code.
We have resolved an issue where exporting the Eligibility forms from Manage forms > Eligibility forms in the Console did not return all expected columns of data.