Research Enterprise System: Frequently Asked Questions

PeopleSoft will be the system of record for Fund 30s research project information. This information will be relayed to the research community through FAST.

As Project 1 goes live early 2022, the new additional FAST views will allow you to see your Fund 30s research project information at a glance. A project to create a research dashboard that will present research project information representing the entire research lifecycle will not be implemented until Project 4, currently slated for 2022/2023.

Yes, training will be provided to the research community in January/February  2022 on the new additional FAST views. Drop-in sessions will be made available and invites will be sent out closer to the training dates.

The training sessions for the new additional FAST views will be recorded and made available to view at your convenience. 

As Project 1 gets implemented early 2022, the new FAST views will be limited to  research projects in Funds 31, 32, 35, and 36. FAST views may be expanded to include other fund groups in the future; this enhancement is not yet scheduled.

All new (not converted) project set up in FAST will have the following supporting documents automatically attached to the project, accessible in the Award List report, if applicable:

Notice of Award
Signed agreement/contract
CAM (Contract Approval Memo)
Guarantees (Non-Payment Guarantee, Re-payment guarantee, etc.)
Confirmations
Attestations
Indemnity approval
CFI Award Agreements/Institutional Agreement
CFI Approved line-item Budget Document

FAST will display statuses. If a project is A "Awarded" it means the project is awarded but cannot spend.  If status is  "O" for "Open"then you can spend.

• Please note that these documents have already been shared with PIs, Departments and Faculties through email at the time of account setup and it is assumed that stakeholders have a process for saving and accessing all documents they require for their compliance activities. If a document cannot be found, requests to upload attachments to converted projects should be sent to ors@sfu.ca and must identify the specific project and PI for which the upload has been requested.  ORS will endeavor to upload attachments within 5 business days and will reply to the requestor once the upload has been completed.  Requests to upload documents before April 4, 2022 will only be processed for emergency situations. Bear in mind that after April 4 all such requests will be handled on a best effort basis and will be prioritized accordingly. The following documents are within scope for FAST access:
  • Notice of Award document
  • Signed agreement/contract
  • CAM (Contract Approval Memo)
  • Guarantees (Non-Payment Guarantee, Re-payment guarantee, etc)
  • Confirmations
  • Attestations
  • Indemnity approval
  • CFI Award Agreements/Institutional Agreement 
  • CFI Approved line-Item Budget Document

• Major milestones (financial reporting, invoicing, etc) are programmed in at the time of receiving the Notice of Award by ORS. Unusual terms are listed in the Contract Approval Memo (CAM). Financial terms will be highlighted yellow in the final contract document for quick reference to all stakeholders.  At this time, there is no visual indicator in FAST to bring attention to these details. As Faculty staff assume responsibility for ongoing compliance on projects, as of May 31st, it will be incumbent on them to review attachments and make note of special project specific compliance requirements that will guide that project through it’s timeline prior to start approving associated expenses. If there are questions, RS and RA are always available to assist.

All historical transaction data will be retained. You will be able to drill down to see prior transaction details for closed project years by going to the existing FAST views, as you currently do today.

Active projects that were converted from the old system (Grant Track) to the new (Project Costing) may look a little different in FAST, which is typical for any data moved from one system to another. In addition, there are some business processes that were changed as we switched systems, for example, how we calculate encumbrances, or how we can now manage PI fees or Release Time Stipends (RTS) that can impact the converted data.

For projects that do not align with SFU’s FY (e.g., Oct 1 - Sept 30) there may be a value for past years due to past encumbrances being calculated on a SFU fiscal year (April 1 – March 31) basis. The payroll encumbrance reflected in the current project year is accurate. If you wish to refer to past financial information, you can do so through current FAST reports like the Operating Statement

To facilitate conversion, projects that have recognized and collected revenue were all posted to the current project budget year, not the year in which they were recognized.

To facilitate conversion, the approved total spending budget for all converted projects will be posted to the conversion month (February 2022).

Supporting documents will not be automatically be uploaded for converted projects as there are far too many to manually upload. Requests to upload the supporting documents for converted projects can be made to Research Services on a case-by-case basis.

For converted projects that have many historical years (NSERC Discovery, etc.), the historical years were summarized in the YR01 budget. The most recent 5-year project plus auto-extension year will display beginning at YR02.

Projects that had RTS or PI fees set up as a separate project were converted as such. These projects will appear in the Award List with no ‘Total Awarded’ amount listed and have reference to their account type as a prefix to the Project Title.

• Financial compliance (non-collection, company not paying).
• Non compliance with PI progress reporting. 
• Overspending, where Research Accounting, Research Services  and Department will need to have a conversation.

Grant Track will continue to be used until all funds using Grant Track such as fund 25 are converted.

The New FAST views will provide the same information for Fund 30s as does the weekly Grant Track Report, which should no longer be required for this purpose

Research Accounting and Research Services will continue to track information in Grant Track until Kuali and AR/Billings modules are implemented.

Yes, existing projects numbers for active projects will be retained when they are converted and visible in FAST.

Project Numbers for new Research projects awarded after implementation will be auto-generated by the system and prefixed with the letter “R” to denote that it’s a Research Project . Each Fund will be assigned a unique range or series of Project Numbers. The system will automatically generate unique numeric Project IDs for each Research Fund under the Project Business Unit PCU30 by tracking the last number used and increasing the number by one for each new project. For example, if a new project is created under Fund 31 and the last number issued was R000250, the system will assign R000251 as the next Project ID.