Questions and Answers from Je-S Seminars

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opportunity was taken to provide a brief overview of the Je-S programme of remaining ... Q: When people are moving into the SSC will ESRC institutes still be able to have .... Q: The RO admin department currently receives the paper starting.
Je-S Programme Regional Seminars – May/June 08 A series of external regional seminars was held during May and June 2008 aimed mainly at the administration staff within Research Organisations (ROs). The opportunity was taken to provide a brief overview of the Je-S programme of remaining projects and Councils’ plans for the future in terms of setting up a Shared Service Centre. The main focus of the seminars was to alert the community to the Research Councils’ plans for up and coming changes to the Je-S system, and new functionality, plus a look at some outstanding issues of interest to the community. There were some clear messages from the seminars: for Councils the main one was the need to provide clear communication of all Councils’ plans to the community, especially where they differ; for ROs there was the need to ensure well-defined internal processes were in place to deal with the changes to the administrative processes being managed through the Je-S System, making full use of the flexibility introduced by the recent pool administration changes. This document provides a summary of the main questions raised during the seminars. Frequently Asked Questions: 1. Je-S Programme 2. Shared Service centre 3. Je-S system – recent changes 4. Award Deliverables 5. Topical Issues 6. Open Q & A session – General Issues 7. Items raised for further consideration

1. Je-S Programme 1. Q: Grants Project - Will the new grant maintenance functionality include the document that the RO is asked to attach to an Expenditure Statement when requiring additional costs as a result of pay modernisation? A: No. As now this will continue to be an attachment to the Expenditure Statement as it relates to the reconciliation process. 2. Q: A:

Are Annual Statements downloadable to Excel? Yes. In actual fact, the data will be downloadable in CSV format, to be opened in whichever software package people want to use, including in Excel format. The document will be available in PDF/web/word format as well, for printing purposes.

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3. Q: Will grant references for current grants that have project students be available to link to students via the Student Researcher Data Portal? A: Yes. This will ensure that both Research Organisations and Councils can identify the related research grant. 4. Q: Will the MRC project include bringing across MRC legacy data? This would be the preference for the ROs? A: The data migration strategy for MRC is still under development, but as MRC are not migrating to Je-S until NGBO is implemented the decision on legacy data is likely to be taken at that stage. 5. Q: A:

When will RCs want Project Student data entered on Je-S? This functionality will not be live until later in 2008. Councils will individually advise their communities on timescales for entry.

6. Q: For collaborative bids, the grant goes to the main RO who has to set up complex contracts with sub-ROs; it would be better if the RC could handle this. This was particularly important with EPSRC multi-bids, occurring frequently, and often leading to delays in contracts being put in place. A: The issue has been raised by ROCG (Research Organisation Consultation Group) on a number of occasions and has been debated at RACG (Research Council Administrative Convergence Group). Research Councils are clear that the decision whether to specify a single proposal or allow multiple proposals where the project involves more than one RO, is a RC one.

2. Shared Service Centre (SSC) 1. Q: When people are moving into the SSC will ESRC institutes still be able to have individual relationships with RC staff, as these have been formed over many years? A: Yes, discussions can still be had with retained RC staff, however all processing of requests should be done via the SSC. Many RC staff will be moving into the SSC and will retain that expertise. 2. Q: NERC marine institute has some specialist requirements that are dealt with currently “off” Je-S; how will these issues be dealt with in the SSC world? A: There will no doubt continue to be specialist requests which will require discussion with RC retained staff, and the SSC will work within set guidelines. If the request falls outside of those guidelines SSC staff will liaise with the appropriate RC staff. 3. Q: As the RC finance divisions move across into the SSC, what will be the impact on the RO? What are the transitional impacts, and should ROs be aware of the timetable for migration? A: This should be a seamless transfer. Therefore ROs should be unaware of the changes in the finance hosting. However, if there is an issue

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about a payment made against a grant, in the interim the RO will be directed to the SSC and not the RC to discuss and resolve. The SSC will however keep the community informed of the timetable for migration. 4. Q: How should payment problems identified by ROs be fed into RCs once the SSC is in place? A: The first contact for ROs will be the SSC, who if necessary will liaise with RC staff. 5. Q: Will there be a different Contact Centre for each Council (grants), or will the single Contact Centre have the Terms & Conditions for all Councils and be able to answer all queries without referral to the retained function. Also will the same contact deal with the query from the start through to the resolution? A: The detailed arrangements have not been worked out yet, but the expectation is that there will be a single Grants Contact Centre, which will refer queries to the retained function as necessary (much as the helpdesk does now); and yes the expectation is that the same person will see a query through to resolution. 6. Q: Will we have to use two systems to report problems against (Je-S and NGBO)? A: No, the Next Generation Back Office (NGBO) system is for internal grant processing by RC users, and the Je-S system is for external users, i.e. the ROs. 7. Q: EPSRC currently have University Interface Managers; will they retain these after the move to the SSC? A: Yes probably, but they may have a changed role. The retained function structure for Councils and detailed roles are not yet decided. 8. Q: There are still differences between what each Council requires under attachments; will this be harmonised with SSC? A: There may still be some differences, due to differing business rules, but there should be greater harmonisation generally once there is a single back office system (NGBO) for processing grants. 9. Q: Do you foresee any difficulties with SSC being in Swindon when MRC are based in London? A: Not really and there will be the same issue for AHRC being based in Bristol. The design of both the SSC grants structure and the RC retained function will need to ensure that there are clear and distinct lines of communication irrespective of the location of the RC. 10. Q: A:

How will SSC be staffed? From Research Council staff mainly, ensuring retention of current skills/knowledge, and following a job matching exercise.

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11. Q: A:

Are rules/regulations going to be the same for all Councils? Lots of work is going on towards harmonisation of policies and processes. Many areas have been standardised, such as the Terms and Conditions for grants, and how Councils profile/make payments and index payments. There will still be some differences; for example within Studentships administration some Councils have Doctoral Training Grants, and some treat studentships in a more individual way. The SSC environment provides the scope for ongoing/continuous harmonisation improvements as the SSC develops.

12. Q: When the Finance departments all go to the SSC, will all Councils be harmonising on profiling etc? A: Yes. Common principals of profiling have been already been agreed in preparation for NGBO implementation. 13. Q: A:

How will ROs contact Councils in the new structure? There would be forward publicity of when to contact Councils rather than the SSC, particularly during the transition, but generally all queries would initially go through the SSC contact centre.

3. Je-S System – Recent Changes 1. Q: Who would use ‘Unavailability’ if a PI submits a proposal and it is returned; would the system pick up that s/he is not available? A: This is designed for Peer Review, so the RCs know if someone is available to act as a referee. Currently RCs log this information on their back office system. If a proposal is returned for amendment, it goes back to the RO pool that it was submitted from, so the RO is responsible for checking and working around the availability of individual PIs. 2. Q: When a document is returned is that a 10 Day Turnaround document? A: No, a document would be returned by the Council, once initial checks have been completed on submission, for amendment to areas such as attachments and data input. 10 Day Turnarounds are issued after panel meetings (funding decision meetings) if there have been any reductions in funds that affect Estates & Indirect Costs. 3. Q: Should we contact the Helpdesk or individual Council with queries on returned documents? A: You should always contact the Helpdesk in the first instance, as it is the current single point of contact. The Helpdesk can monitor the type of queries being raised and take up any issues with the System Manager and/or the RC concerned. The Helpdesk will refer back to RCs if necessary, but the reason for the document being returned should be clearly stated in the ‘return reason’.

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4. Q: Can the name of the Council contact be added to the returned document e-mail? A: RCs are advised not to add a contact name since the Je-S Helpdesk is the single point of contact (and can redirect to RCs as appropriate). In some circumstances, RCs may add specific contact details, if required, within the text of the return reason. 5. Q: If someone is granted access to a document but then leaves the RO, can you remove access rights. A: We have addressed giving users access to remove their own rights from a document, and the change is due to go live in August 2008.

4. Award Deliverables 1. Q: Which RCs, if any, will be implementing Award Deliverables on Je-S prior to the implementation of NGBO? A: With the exception of EPSRC, who intend to implement later in the year, the other RCs will be on the same timescales as the implementation of NGBO, estimated currently as autumn 2009. This is due to the fact that RCs do not wish to invest resources to undertake development of existing back office systems which will shortly be replaced. 2. Q: A:

Will there be any changes to status reporting? Yes, current payment data will be viewable for RC grants. Until the implementation of NGBO this will only apply to EPSRC grants.

3. Q: The RO admin department currently receives the paper starting certificate and passes this to the finance department. How will this happen in the new system? A: The admin pools can be set up by document type, so they can be configured as flexibly as the RO requires. 4. Q: How will staff that leave before the end date of the grant, or go on maternity, be handled? A: If this results in the need to either extend or suspend the grant then this will be handled as part of grant maintenance, once the grant has started. This functionality is in the process of being developed under the Remaining Grants Functionality project, in readiness for NGBO implementation scheduled for autumn 2009. 5. Q: ESRC documents currently do not contain the payment details, as shown in the demonstration. How will they be handled? A: With NGBO all RC documents and data will be harmonised across councils. 6. Q: in? A:

What happens if the document expires; what state is the document It is left in a read-only state.

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Award Deliverables: Offer Acceptance 7. Q: A:

Will this Offer Acceptance replace the award letter? Yes – and it will be included as a PDF attachment.

8. Q: A:

Who is responsible for Offer Acceptance? This will be for the RO to decide. The RO Submission Pool can give sight/access to others as necessary.

9. Q: A:

Who gets sent the offer letter – which pool? If a Research Organisation is using non-default submitter pools then they will have to use Pool Admin to include Offer Acceptance in the relevant pools; otherwise, all Offer Acceptance documents will be routed to the default submitter pool.

10. Q: Should the Offer Acceptance go to the Finance Submitter Pool rather than the original Submitter Pool? A: It was a cross council decision to route Offer Acceptance documents to the Submitter Pool rather than Finance Pool, as the offer is relevant to the proposal. 11. Q: A:

Is the Acceptance document copied to the Finance Pool? No, it goes to the submitter pool only, and will go to all pool members or the general pool email address, depending on the preferences set at the Pool Admin configuration stage. ROs will need to reconfigure their Pool Admin groupings to use this new Document Type, once it goes live in Je-S (as Pool Admin configuration is based primarily on Document Types).

12. Q: There was some concern surrounding the fact that the Grant Holder does not get sent a copy of the Offer, only an e-mail. A: The Research Councils have agreed in preparation for the Shared Service Centre that in the future there will be a common process; as the grant is between the RC and RO the offer documentation will be issued to the RO, not the Grant Holder. This process is currently used by some RCs. The Grant Holder will receive an e-mail informing them that an offer has been made to the RO. The offer document will be issued as a PDF therefore an RO could save the document and e-mail it to the Grant Holder if they so wished. 13. Q: What is the relationship between the RO and the Grant Holder? Who advises the Grant Holder on the contents of the Offer? A: It is the RO’s responsibility to have an internal process to inform the Grant Holder. The RO submits the proposal and the RO is therefore the owner of the grant. The Grant Holder will receive an e-mail advising that an Offer has been made. This will not include any reference to the value of the grant. RO admin teams can assign access to documents as they see fit.

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14. Q: Can the text of the offer be embedded in the e-mail sent to the Grant Holder? A: No, the intention of the e-mail is to provide the Grant Holder with a brief notification. If ROs want to give access to others they can do this via Assign User Privileges. 15. Q: Is the first the Grant Holder formally knows about the status of the application when they receive the e-mail? A: Yes. The Proposal tracker will also give more visibility of the progress of the application status in the future. 16. Q: Will there be a pop up on screen that outlines that the estimated start date in the offer acceptance document is not the process for requesting slippage of the grant? A: No, this is included in the help text. 17. Q: When an RO is processing a start confirmation document if the grant has started by incurring expenditure for a member of staff, will that person need to be registered on Je-S? A: No, start confirmation will be in line with expenditure statements. 18. Q: A:

Will Councils be sending rejection notifications via Je-S? When NGBO is implemented, these may come via Je-S. All proposals will in any case be reflected in the Proposal tracker.

19. Q: If you enter a revised start date a couple of months later than the announced start date, is either a new offer or new payment data issued? A: No, the RCs will not update the grant record; they will use this information in order to improve the data that they use for financial planning. If the actual start date of the grant is likely to be outside the business rules of the scheme then it will be necessary for the RO to discuss the possibility of slipping the grant with the RC. 20. Q: 10 days may not be long enough for an RO to get confirmation of acceptance from the Grant Holder, since they have to confirm s/he is able to complete the project with the resources offered. A: Councils think this should be a prompt response in the majority of cases. If 10 days is insufficient time, an RO can ask the Council for an extension. EPSRC will be the first Council to use this functionality, and therefore the 10 day duration can be reviewed following experience of EPSRC live use. 21. Q: A:

Does this 10 day turnaround apply to rolling grants as well? The expectation is that ROs will need to “reapply” for funding and if the RC decides to announce a new grant then an RO will need to accept the grant.

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22. Q: Will owners of documents have the same function to grant other users access rights? A: Yes, the pool members will act as ‘owner’ and therefore will be able to grant access. The RO must also manage the Pool set up for this new document type. 23. Q: Is it possible to transfer documents to departments from the Submitter Pool? A: You can assign access permissions to individuals, but not move documents. Departments do not have ‘accounts’ as such. ROs should manage this requirement via access permissions for individuals. 24. Q: A:

What will happen with joint proposals submitted on a single form? The offer will be sent to the lead organisation since this is the one that submitted the proposal, and is thus regarded as the grant holding organisation.

25. Q: The ‘Offer Acceptance’ slides suggest that “where there is more than one funding stream for a grant then a ‘combined’ funding stream will be shown as well as the individual funding stream” A: When the grant is originally announced there will be a single funding stream. If a RC adds funds to the grant during its currency then this will result in an announcement of a new funding stream. Where there is more than one funding stream then all the payments will also be shown in a single combined payment stream. This payment data will be visible through out the life of a grant via Status Reporting.

Award Deliverables: Start Confirmation 26. Q: A:

Where does Start Confirmation go? This goes back to the Finance Submitter Pool, so they can assign permissions etc;

27. Q: If the Start Confirmation is sent to the Finance Pool for the RO to process, how does the Grant Holder progress? A: It is the responsibility of the RO to manage their internal award administration and this varies between ROs. 28. Q: Why can’t Councils agree on the time that they allow grants to slip by – currently they allow either 3 or 6 months from the announced (not date of offer letter) start date? A: RACG is currently reviewing areas, particularly for post-award processes, including this one, where there is a difference in policy between councils, in order to establish further harmonisation. 29. Q: Why does the starting certificate (Start confirmation in award deliverables) due date vary from council to council, between 28 days and 42 days.

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There should be no difference between councils; this is 42 days from the actual start date. The Expiry Date is set to 42 days from Latest Start Date. After the Expiry Date has past, the document will be ‘view’ only (not editable or submittable). Extensions to Expiry Date would need to be requested via the Council, who would update the Expiry Date to allow submission.

30. Q: Should emails go to the generic email when a document is submitted to the pool? A: Emails will go to either pool members, or the email logged as being ‘generic’ for the pool. This is configurable at the RO end. 31. Q: A:

Are you able to ‘export to xml’ for Start Confirmation documents? As with Offer Acceptance, the payment data can be exported.

32. Q: A:

Will the Start Confirmation get copied to the Grant Holder No, unless the Grant Holder has access to the pool then they will not have sight of the Start Confirmation document.

33. Q: A:

Are there any reminders in Status Reporting? Status Reporting gave the ability to order by due date/action etc, so in theory this provided an ‘alert’ to the users. There were no other ‘alerts’.

34. Q: Payment details – can they come back in the same format as resources requested (i.e. including contribution rates, expenditure breakdown, and fund headings, etc.) and be exportable as CSV etc. A: The resources awarded will be shown on the offer letter document in the funding heading format used on the proposal. This will include 100% and fec contribution. The payment data will be shown as data and not in a document. This will be in the same fund heading format as used on the proposal but will only show the RC contribution as it relates to the actual payments that will be made by the RC. 35. Q: Once RO admin staff have input the staff details, why do they have to input them again in the Start Confirmation stage? Can the input details be auto-populated to the Start Confirmation document, and just confirmed? A: In general post identifiers are entered rather than exact people, so this is the opportunity to add actual details to the ‘grant’. Pre-population was not part of the original requirements; and the task should not be too onerous, as the RO normally only needs to enter one staff post.

5. Topical Issues 1. Q: A:

The use of GDP rates by RCs for Indexation remains a concern. This remains a live issue for RACG/ROCG, although the Councils have an agreed policy for NGBO, which has been specified in such a way as to provide significant flexibility in the future.

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2. Q: Why can’t Councils speak directly with the RO software provider, PFact, rather than having to go through the RO. A: This is not possible as it would imply the Councils were endorsing one particular supplier for the process. The original project was clear that the ROs should be the point of contact with the Councils.

6. Open Q&A session / General issues 1. Q: The question was asked as to how we work within the RCs? E.g. if there is a guidance change – how does that get amended on the Je-S system? A: There is a Je-S system group, with a representative from each RC, chaired by the Je-S system owner. At this meeting the RCs have the opportunity to request and discuss changes to the system, which get implemented on a priority / cost basis, to scheduled release dates. This group reports to a Je-S Management Board which also has cross council representation. 2. Q: What will happen to the Funding Assurance Programme once SSC is formed? A: The structure and governance of FAP is due to be reviewed, but it is likely to become a part of RCUK; RO visits will still be undertaken with contributions from individual RCs. 3. Q: What will RCs use to show that money is well spent when Final reports become more streamlined and collect less data? A: There is another project currently ongoing, the Outcomes and Outputs Collection project, which is looking in detail at what data needs to be collected for the future, and also how it will be collected. 4. Q: Final Reporting Efficiency Savings – Narrative reports will no longer be required for most councils, resulting in data requirements changing. What are the timescales for these changes? A: The Outputs & Outcomes Collection project is considering the requirements for data collection in the longer term, following the recent changes to the final reports, with further details not likely until later in the year. 5. Q: Number of hours academics can work – TRAC insists on 37.5 hours per week, but in reality the ROs actually have different working weeks (Cardiff is 35 hrs/ week, for example and Exeter is 36 hrs/ week). A: This is a TRAC issue for costing purposes, and relates to the maximum number of hours that can be charged for an academic. TRAC is not saying how many hours a PI can work as such. 6. Q: A:

10 Day Turnaround – why are FTEs counted in months? This is aligned to the calculation of months used on the application (proposal) form and is therefore rounded up or down to whole months.

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7. Q: How soon before all RCs use Je-S for all areas? For example, ESRC use Je-S for studentship proposals, but not for studentship maintenance. A: NGBO implementation and SSC will be a driver for further harmonisation. Most councils have stopped further back office system development due to the development of NGBO. 8. Q: Eligibility of Investigators is different across RCs, will there be harmonisation? A: There are some differences, but RACG are currently reviewing this area. 9. Q: Project Students – would there be any validation against the input of this data capture requirement? Would validation check against eligible address (in UK) etc? When would the new functionality/data capture be required by ROs? A: The project student screen uses the current SRDP validation, and in particular the existing Je-S person/person address screens and validation on entering the details. The RCs have their own schedules for the timescales for this data capture, and are taking responsibility for forward publicity, etc. 10. Q: A document submitted by an RO, via Je-S to a RC, had gone through a range of RC process routes, and then been returned at a later stage. The question was, whether there was a guaranteed ‘maximum length’ of processing before the RO could safely assume that the document would not be returned? A: Once the proposal has gone to the Peer Review you would not normally expect the document to be returned for amendment (unless it subsequently needing re-costing etc). 11. Q: For calls or schemes not yet managed via Je-S, when would councils move them to Je-S? A: We are currently monitoring these, and all RCs are reviewing their non-Je-S forms and moving to have these on Je-S prior to NGBO implementation. 12. Q: A:

How often is Status Reporting updated? This is at councils' discretion, but currently all councils are updating every day, overnight.

13. Q: Could the system provide functionality to report on outstanding actions by DueDates? A: Status reporting is sortable by due date (or any of the field headings), likewise all ‘current documents’ are sortable by the Due Date (where applicable).

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14. Q: After starting Je-S forms for a PI and transfer of ownership, the RO loses sight of the document after transfer and once submitted, and so is not able to monitor progress A: User Access Privileges should be used, and this would allow the document to remain visible. It is not for Je-S to provide the document management, but perhaps a copy could be provided which would allow the RO to manage. 15. Q: Why can’t documents be printed with all attachments (ROs felt they needed .doc versions prior to submission, in printed output format) A: The system allows the user to select what type of printed output they want, with or without attachments. A revised format of print options should be delivered later in 2008. 16. Q: It was suggested that a search facility would be useful to assess how many applications included project partners; this would enable ROs to know the contributions. Management information, in terms of having more information in the future for ROs to be able to obtain reports was welcomed. A: This was very much on the agenda for the future of the Je-S system, once NGBO was in place.

7. Items for consideration by the Je-S System team 1. Q: A:

Can the RO ref be added to system generated e-mails? This would be taken back to the Office for consideration, technically it was straight forward to add new fields to emails, but there was a conscious design decision to try and minimise emails with the most relevant information only being included. The Status Reporting view and Proposal Tracker functionality would include the RO ref.

2. Q: Can you remove documents that are no longer required, e.g. because the owner is no longer employed at the RO, or because it is a dummy document? A: Councils would need to know which documents are no longer required. There are no storage issues for the Je-S system. If the preference is for ROs to have access to delete documents using the RO Master ID, should documents be deleted that are owned by another person? – This is an archiving issue to be considered by councils as part of their overall policy. (Related to the Q below). 3. Q: When archiving documents can Councils ensure that the document set will be retained in Je-S A: Document archiving and availability is a longer term project. Retention of documents in Je-S - if the document (offer acceptance, ES, etc.) is always going to be available via Je-S, it might change the RO policy/practice on saving documents, etc. The suggested approach is to save documents locally if there was an on-going RO business need to refer back to them.

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4. Q: Admin Pool teams – need to have different groups (finance) for different document types. It was thought that there was a high institutional risk if the right people did not see the right documents. A: The change to make Finance pools configurable by document type is in progress, and should be available in the October or December 2008 release. 5. Q: Pool Admin – RO advised that different business teams process different sorts of grants, so for example they needed a different Grants submitter pool for Knowledge Transfer type applications. A: Routing to pools is under discussion with the Je-S System Group 6. Q: Pool Admin for multiple ROs (where someone worked across multiple ROs, they need to be able to progress accurately A: Some work was ongoing as to how we manage people who are 'registered' at more than on RO, and this would need to take account of how we 'direct' applications to the accurate pool - possibly user is recognised (at login) as having multiple ROs, and has to make the choice at the document level, so it knows which 'pool/RO' structure to follow. The office will be exploring the options. 7. Q: Request to include Due Dates or Closing Dates on emails (depending on the document type). This was thought to be useful in informing pool staff of ‘deadlines’ for action A: This would be raised as a possible change after discussion with Helpdesk. (Possibly also include Expiry Dates as these are used in Award Deliverables). 8. Q: Email reminders - can the ROs have more control over who gets what/when? A: There is an email configuration exercise in progress to give ROs more control over managing their own email actions. There is currently no confirmed release date for this change, but it is likely to be delivered in 2009. 9. Q: Batch Update: Selection criteria defaults to the general settings after you have returned from one ‘specified’ query – can it retain the settings? A: The Batch Update functionality will be reviewed more generally, later in 2008. 10. Q: Final Expenditure Statements – dates show as 01/01/3000 – can the system show accurate dates (for interim and final ESs)? A: This was potentially an error, as the 3000 date was a ‘default’ date where there was no real ‘due date’ – this will be investigated and a change raised if appropriate. 11. Q: Current applications – there appears to be a ‘rolling’ total in the Pool admin area, so you see any applications that have ever been through your pool, rather than just the outstanding/current ones.

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A:

The planned document grouping/navigation should provide more functionality for ‘removing’ documents from views, so that Pool members (or RO Master) will be able to manage views themselves.

12. Q: RO Master cannot see the ‘registered’ or ‘non-registered’ status of users in the list view. The account status would be a useful visual flag to the Master user. If the RO wants to know the type of account, they currently have to contact the Je-S Helpdesk to find this out; it would be easier to see it for themselves. A: This would be checked with the Je-S Helpdesk team, and a change to either be able to view or report on account types progressed, if there was no reason not to provide this info to the Master account user. 13. Q: Do RCs get ‘alerts’ if documents are not submitted by due dates etc? That might prompt a ‘chase’ from the RC to the RO. Suggestion is to turn on all alerts for new functionality so that as many alerts/notifications were in place as possible, and then consider turning them off as ROs became familiar with the new functionality. A: There were no Je-S prompts issued to back offices, but most council back office systems operated a ‘workflow’ system that would identify outstanding RO actions (although the responsibility remained on the RO to return documents on time). Je-S System Manager would re-look at the alerts and see if “more” could be turned on, plus consider a plan for turning them off again in the future. 14. Q: Infrastructure Technicians and Research Facilities: ROs can only put one facility on, once. It would be better to be able to put multiple amounts on for the same facilities, to provide a more accurate picture of use. A: This would be referred to ROCG/RACG for discussion. 15. Q: Access to documents that have been submitted to council; ROs cannot get rid of those docs that have been submitted. A: A change is in progress to allow assigned users to ‘delete’ views of access to documents after submission to council. 16. Q: If a PI is moving in say 6 months can s/he start the proposal now in Je-S? It was felt that there was an increasing need to link to areas to look at later in 2008. A: It is currently not possible for a proposal to be authorised in advance by the new RO, but it was recognised that the Je-S system needs to continue to develop greater flexibility, to continue to meet the needs of ROs.

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