Sponsored Projects Administration > Manage > Effort Reporting > Frequently Asked Questions
The required maximum level of committed effort for a university primary individual who has effort commitments on sponsored projects is below.
The required minimum level of committed effort listed for a university primary individual is 2% on every sponsored project he or she is involved in. Exceptions to this minimum level of effort are granted for equipment and instrumentation grants, doctoral dissertation grants, and augmentation grants. The minimum level and the primary individual’s actual effort should be commensurate with his or her responsibilities on that sponsored project.
Exceptions to these minimum and maximum levels require review and approval by the respective Dean and the Executive Vice President for Academic and Research Affairs, by submitting a waiver to effort@uth.tmc.edu with all the required signatures.
Faculty Position | Max Effort |
Executive Leadership (Presidents, Vice Presidents, Deans, Institute Directors) | 70% |
Academic Leadership (Department Chairs, Division Directors) | 80% |
Tenured & Tenure-track Faculty | 90% |
Non-Tenure Track Faculty | 95% |
Generally, administrative staff may not be charged to sponsored projects. There are, however, two major exceptions to that rule:
- where the nature of the administrative work relates directly to the science itself, or
- where the extent of administrative work required by the project is very significant (for example, a Program Project grant).
For further guidance, contact your departments assigned Sponsored Projects Administration, Grants & Contracts team member.
During the 30-day certification period, statements can be reopened to allow for adjustments of any kind. After the 30-day period, discrepancies on the statement should be notated in the notes & attachment sections of the applicable statement.
To request a statement be reopened or questions, please email effort@uth.tmc.edu
When a retro personnel action is submitted to Systems & Data Reporting (SDR), SDR will submit it to the Post Award Finance Team (PAF) for approval. Once approved by PAF, SDR will enter the retro PA into HCM. The retro PA will be loaded onto the effort card when payroll loads on the 3rd or 17th of each month. Once approved by PAF and the correct data has hit the effort card through data load the effort coordinator can contact the effort team to re-open the card that will need adjusting. The departmental effort coordinator should then place the card on hold to prevent the Faculty member from certifying before adjustments are made. The effort coordinator shall find the individual effort card to be re-opened. The effort coordinator will then need to take the card off hold and make the adjustments under certified effort to match payroll and click “Save to complete later”. Once Save to Complete Later is clicked, the card is ready to be certified by the Faculty member. When certified the card will be back in the effort coordinators “Manage Effort tasks” box for processing.
NOTE: If the request is allowable, the PAF team will check to see if an Effort Report has been generated for the account effected. If an Effort Report has been generated, PAF will check to see if it has been certified by the department. If the Effort Report has already been certified by the department, the PAF team will disapprove the request and forward their disapproval to the SDR team. However, expense can still be transferred from a Sponsored Project Account to an All Other Account.
NOTE: All cards placed on hold should have an effort note as to why it is on hold
The system builds the card from payroll. The salary cap worksheet was developed to assist with salary cap effort calculations. It is the effort coordinator’s responsibility to change the certified effort column during the pre-review prior to opening of the certification period. You can run a report in HCM under UT Effort Reporting>Reports>Funding History File. This report will allow you to retrieve a 6 month period of all the funding PA’s that were submitted and entered on the Department Budget Earn report showing the effort percentage and FTE percentage. You can use this to plug the percentages into the Effort Calculation worksheet. At the very end of the worksheet, it will show you how the effort card should look.
During the 30-day certification period, statements can be reopened to allow for adjustments of any kind. After the close of the certification period, statements that have been certified and processed will not be reopened, unless they meet the below criteria:
A non-payroll related adjustment, such as a manual addition of a non-paid project & its associated effort &/or modifying only the certified effort.
The request must be made within 30 days of the certification period close.
To request a statement be reopened or questions, please email effort@uth.tmc.edu