We’re implementing PS 9.1 here at our institution as well. However, we use Click Commerce as our pre-award system for routing proposals and have no plans to change. We will only ‘push’ an awarded proposal from our system to PS. I believe our plan is to then create a copy of the proposal in PS in order to make changes to the budget to reflect the awarded amounts and ‘submit’ that. We are not using PS to route for approval. Our Click system does that and creates a 424 xml file as well for submission to grant.gov. Perhaps you could have a push of data from your existing database to create a template for PS.

Our biggest challenge has been to change the mindset of our parent hospital (the tail does not wag the dog) and streamline certain business processes.

Gary W. Lingle, CPA

Director, Grants and Contracts

The Methodist Hospital Research Institute

From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org] On Behalf Of Tom Kornacki
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 3:09 PM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] Pre-award alternatives to Peoplesoft

Colleagues,

I know we talk about this topic often on the list. I freely confess that I have tried to search the archives and just find it very tedious. I hope some of you will still have the patience to share your insights with me.

BGSU implemented Peoplesoft Financials in 2007. Only the grants accounting functionality within the Grants Module was implemented at the time. That meant that enough of the pre-award functions were implemented for our use, but day-to-day usage of the system was largely governed by grants accounting. We ultimately found this more frustrating than useful, and maintained our legacy system, a simple database.

Over the past year, the institution “re-implemented” ver 8.9 to correct some simple, but serious chart of accounts issues. This fixed a host of other problems. In addition, we upgraded to ver 9.1. This meant a full implementation of the Grants Module, including proposal workflow approval. Despite the expected frustrations of learning a new system, finding all the right fields for the data, etc., I think our office could learn to live with this.

However, the IT department that oversees the design and implementation of the entire ERP has taken a near non-negotiable position on some of the optional settings. They insist that their decision is based on “Oracle and Peoplesoft best practices” and we should mold our business practices around these settings rather than ask that the settings be tailored the other way around. These are not customizations, just settings. It all boils down to a simple option of locking or unlocking proposals. Of course, the former is “best practices.” I also realize that if all of our PIs were using the system to create their own proposals, budgets, uploading docs, trying to get course releases and summer salary commitments from their chairs and deans, we’d want to lock the system down, too. But, the reality is: five people in my office are entering data in only the Proposal section of the entire system.

This means that we cannot make any changes to a proposal after it has been approved using the electronic routing feature or “submitted” using the system time stamp (of course, another “feature” is that if we turn on workflow, you must have a proposal institutionally approved before you can submit it, and you cannot generate a proposal to award, unless it has been first submitted). I understand that our PIs too, cannot make changes to many of their proposals when they are submitted “in life.” But, we all know that even during the routing process at most institutions, the proposal is often being fine-tuned up to the last minute. I’m told my only option is to “create a new version”. If I fat-finger a key in the research title, I am told to “create a new version.” If I wish to upload a PDF attachment of the grants.gov or fastlane time stamped version of the proposal, I am told to “create a new version.” Of course, our counterparts in grants accounting can make any number of changes to the awards. “That’s the point of an award,” I was told by the consultants from Oracle.

Of course, I’d enjoy hearing your war stories. If any of you are using Peoplesoft, or who have found yourselves in a similar situation with the ERP team, and have some advice on how to break this impasse, I’d appreciate hearing from you. Failing that, I’m most interested in other options for pre-award (only) tracking, and electronic routing and approval. If they harmonize with Peoplesoft, great, but it’s not absolutely necessary.

Thanks in advance.

Tom

Tom Kornacki

Interim Director