1. EFFORT CERTIFICATION and REPORTING (ECR)
Information for Department Administrators
REVISED – August 2010
Part I of III

2. Table of Contents Part I - this presentation
Effort and ECR Background
ECR Basics
Establishing a New Department Administrator
Part II – see separate presentation
Monthly FEI Process
Effort Certification
Contact Information
Part III – see separate presentation
Reviewing Previous Certifications
Recertification
Reports

3. Effort and ECR Background

4. Effort and Certification
What is “Effort”?
Effort is defined as the total employee’s time spent on University activities for which the employee is compensated by the University
Why do effort needs to be certified?
The federal government requires that the distribution of salaries & wages to grants & contracts OR other activities (teaching, patient care, administration) must be based on payrolls that are documented via an after-the-fact Effort Certification Reporting process.

5. Effort Certification UM policy requires that: Who must Certify?
All faculty and staff whose salary is charged to sponsored grants and contracts must certify effort on a specific schedule.
Who needs to Certify?
UM policy requires that:
All faculty certify their own effort.
Other staff (i.e., lab technicians, graduate students) who work on grants and contracts, can either certify their own effort OR their effort can be certified by a person with first hand knowledge of how the effort was spent (typically the person’s supervisor or the principal investigator on the grant or contract).
Administrators can not certify effort on behalf of others.

6. Effort Certification What is included in “Effort”?
University compensated effort includes all research, teaching, administration, clinical activity (including clinical incentive pay), and any other activity for which an individual receives compensation from the University (excludes clinical bonus).
Effort Certification + + +
Combination of the above = 100%

7. Effort Certification How is effort % calculated?
Effort is initially calculated based on the salary distribution entered in the Human Resources system. Therefore, if salary is charged to four different accounts in equal salary distribution, the effort % is 25% to each account.
After the fact, the effort certification may change the effort spent on each project. For example, upon certification, the faculty member may indicate that effort spent over the last six months should reflect 30% to first project, 20% to second project, 25% to third project, and 25 % to the fourth project.
In the above example, after the effort certification is signed, the administrator must generate a payroll entry to correct the salary already charged to the first two projects in order to correspond the grant charges to the effort certified by the faculty member.

8. Effort Certification How exact must the effort percentages be?
Effort distributions should be REASONABLE ESTIMATES
of activities, recognizing that research, instruction, &
clinical activity are often inextricably intermingled.
(Per Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Circular A-21 Cost Principles for Educational Institutions)

9. Effort Certification What do auditors look for?
Generally, auditors look for:
effort % lower than originally proposed. May be an indication that the faculty member is not spending the time required on the project.
100% effort certified to sponsored projects. May be an indication of over charging the government if some of the faculty member’s time is spent on other activities, such as proposal preparation, committee service, other administrative work - this time (effort) must be paid by the University, not by a grant.
Note: any researcher who charges 100% of their University compensated time (effort) to sponsored projects should be prepared to justify to a federal auditor that no time was spent on other activities.

10. Cost Transfers
What about cost transfers?
If the certified effort percentage differs from the calculated effort percentage, a cost transfer will need to be processed. A payroll entry must be made in the UM payroll system to reflect any change in effort as certified.
The FEI reports can be used as a tool to verify distributions on a monthly basis and make proactive adjustments as necessary.
Can I use the cost transfer amount that is calculated in ECR?
No. The amount calculated in ECR is for the whole certification period. You must still compute the amount by pay period.
If it is a late transfer - past 90 days from the time the payroll charge was first recorded in the system - then a justification must be attached to the transfer request (for compliance with federal regulations).

11. ECR Basics

12. https://ecr.miami.edu/ecrt
To enter the ECR system, in your web browser (internet explorer or Netscape enter the web address shown to the left.
This is a secure site and requires your user id and password .
Suggestion: add the above web address to your FAVORITES

13. ECR Navigation - Login Screen
The login page depicted here will appear.
Enter your CANE ID and password (same id and password used to login to MYUM to update your benefits).
Then click the ‘Login’ button.

14. ECR Navigation - Welcome Screen
The Welcome Page will appear.
This page has useful information about effort, effort reporting, and certification process at UM.
A link to training material for certifiers and administrators can be found on the left orange bar.
Once you have read the information, click the ‘Continue’ button at the bottom.
If you wish to go directly to your personal effort card, click the View Effort Card button.

15. The Department Administrator Home Page will appear
Dept. Administrator Home Page
The Department Administrator Home Page will appear

16. Dept. Administrator Home Page
On the left side of the screen there are “helpful links”. These links are hyperlinks and will take the user to the sites referenced when they are clicked.
In this picture, there are links to the OMB Circulars, which are the rules governing federal grants and contracts, to NIH Grants Policy and Guidance, which provides information specific to NIH awards, and to ECR training materials.

17. ECR Navigation – Links
The various functions that a user can perform are shown around the circle. Clicking any of these links will take the user to the page related to the function.
The links a user can see are limited by security rights within the system. Rights are bundled together and associated with Roles.

18. ECR Navigation – Menus
The navigation squares at the top are present on every screen within the system.
When the cursor is positioned over one of the squares a drop down menu appears. The drop down menu contains the same links as appear in blue around the circle.
As with the blue links, the choices in the drop down menu that a user can see are limited by security rights within the system.

19. ECR Navigation – Online Help
Most of the pages in ECR have a link to online help text. The blue button with a question mark on it is typically in the top right section of the screen.
Clicking this button will cause a pop up window to appear that outlines the purpose of the page and how to use the information on it.

20. Establishing a New Department Administrator in the ECR system

21. Dept. Administrator Home Page
Recent system changes have modified how to setup a new Dept. Administrator (DA) within ECRT.
The system receives payroll data for all employees. So once an employee has been paid, their data will be in ECRT. To establish someone as a new DA, first call the Central Administrator (Judy Mallon at ). They will assign the role of a DA so that the new DA will see the Home Page to the left with the related system rights.
Once their role has been defined by the Central Administrator, one of the current DA’s within the Department can add the new DA through the Manage Department page.

22. Dept. Administrator Home Page
However……..if no users are setup as a DA within the department, the Central Administrator will need to setup the first one. After the initial DA has been created within a department, that DA can add others to share department administration duties.
So the typical first step to add a new Dept. Administrator is for the existing DA to select the Department Dashboard link from the home page.

23. Administration – New Dept. Administrator Setup
If the existing DA is assigned to more than one department, they will see the screen at the left. To search for the correct department, it is necessary to enter the first three or more characters of the dept. name. Wait for 5 seconds and the list of all matching dept names will appear. Click on the one desired then click on Submit to bring up the desired Dept. Summary page.
If the DA is only responsible for one department, clicking the Manage Department link from the Home Page will take them directly to the Department Dashboard page for that department and the selection process described above will not be necessary.

24. Administration – New Dept. Administrator Setup
This is a partial view of the Department Dashboard page. In this view, we can see there are three coordinators currently associated with the Mathematics department (the names and ID numbers have been obscured) as well as links to two reports. We will discuss the reports later.
Although Nick Gallegos has been set up with the role of a Dept. Administrator by the Central Administrator, he has not yet been assigned to the Mathematics dept. The DA for Mathematics still needs to add him to the administrator list for that department.
To do this, we select the ‘Add’ button below the list of existing coordinators.

25. Administration – New Dept. Administrator Setup
After the administrator selects ‘Add’, this screen appears. The administrator must still identify the user to be added to the department coordinator list.
Type the user name in the search box. The system will automatically populate the search box with names based on the letters that are entered. (Security will restrict this list of users to those people identified in the HR system as working for the Department. If a non-department employee needs to be setup as a DA, this will need to be done by the Central Administrator.)
When the correct name appears, click on ‘Submit’.
In this example, we have identified Nick Gallegos and will add him as a department coordinator in the next screen.

26. Administration – New Dept. Administrator Setup
After submitting the new coordinator, the user is returned to the Department Summary screen.
We can see that Nick Gallegos has now been added as a department coordinator for Mathematics.
The final step in setting up Nick Gallegos is to make him the primary coordinator for the department.
To do this, we select the pencil icon on the line with Nick Gallegos’ information.

27. Administration – New Dept. Administrator Setup
Once the pencil icon is selected, the screen will reset and Nick Gallegos will be highlighted in yellow. This is the visual confirmation that he has been designated the primary department effort coordinator for Mathematics.
At this point, we can explore the rest of the Department Summary page.

28. Administration – Dept Dashboard Sections
Immediately below the list of department effort coordinators is the list of sub-departments. In this example we show the sub-departments in Biology. In ECR, these sub-departments are called “child departments’, while Biology is the “parent department”. The name of the primary effort coordinator is displayed after each sub-department.
If a user clicks on the sub department’s name, the Department Dashboard page for that sub department appears.

29. Administration – Dept Dashboard Sections
Below the list of sub departments are two sections that are initially collapsed from the user’s view. The top section contains the lists of certifiers within the department.
The bottom section contains lists of the awards associated with the department.
If a user clicks on the “+” sign, the lists will be expanded to show the contents of each. Once the list is expanded, the “+” sign turns to a “-” sign. Clicking on the “-” sign collapses the list. The system will remember if a list is open or closed when a user returns to the page.

30. Administration – Dept Dashboard Sections
This example shows the expanded list of Certifiers, both Sponsored and Non-Sponsored.
Sponsored is defined as having charged payroll to a sponsored account in the last 4 certification cycles.
The page contains columns for the name and employee number, the certification type, the status of the last four certification statements and a Commitment Status.
The Committed Effort Status module is not in use.

31. Administration – Dept Dashboard Sections
The Statements column shows the status of the last 4 certification statements.
A description of all the icons is on the following page.
Placing the cursor over the icon will show the date the statement covers.
Clicking on an individual icon will open the certification card for that researcher.
The Non-Sponsored group contains personnel who did not work on sponsored accounts. They are auto-processed by the system and require no further action by the Dept. Administrator.

32. Administration – Dept Dashboard Sections
In Process for Certification = card is still collecting payroll data and is not ready to certify.
Not Certified, Not Processed = the card is ready to be certified but the researcher has yet to certify their effort.
Not Certified Not Process, Reopened = a card that was reopened for certification after it was initially certified and completed.
Not Certified, Not Processed, Reopened by Payroll Adjustment Reconciliation = a card that was completed but had a subsequent payroll adjustment come in that required the card to be reopened.
Transfer In Progress = Not currently used by U Miami
Certified, Not Processed = a card that has been completed by the researcher but has yet to be processed by the Dept. Admin.
Certified and Processed = a completed card
Certified, Processed, Payroll Pending = a completed card that has had a payroll adjustment come through that needs review by the Central Effort Administrator.
Auto Approved = Card had no research activity and was auto processed by the system.
On Hold = Card has been placed on hold. Certification is not allowed and automated messages are suspended.

33. Administration – Group Email Functionality
Anywhere an envelope icon is displayed on the Department Dashboard, an Administrator can use the ECR group functionality. Clicking on the envelope icon will launch a pop-up window with a subject line and message box. The subject and message content will be ed to all users with the associated card status.
Note: These s will go to both 12-month and 9-month cycle certifiers.
The group envelope icon can also be found at the top of the Sponsored and Non-sponsored categories on the Department Dashboard.

34. Administration – Dept Dashboard Sections
This example shows the expanded lists of both the Active and Inactive Awards attributed to PIs whose primary department is Chemistry.
An award is automatically moved to the Inactive section if the current date is past the End Date noted for the award.
This list shows the award number, award name, start date, and end date. Also shown is an icon to launch the SPES Report which shows all the labor charges to an award.
If a user clicks on an award name, an Award Summary screen will appear.

35. Administration – Award Summary Screen
The Award Summary Screen shows more information about the selected award.
The top of the screen shows the identifying information about the award, including the name, number, sponsor, amount, PI, and start and end dates.
The middle section of the screen shows the accounts that are associated with the award.
The bottom of the screen shows the certifiers that are associated with the award.

36. Questions? If users need to be added
or there are other questions, please contact:
Judy Mallon
Sponsored Programs OR
Maria V. Ortiz

37. See separate presentations II and III for additional information