The RAMP Stage environment is available for testing and training purposes. Access the Stage environment and log in with your NetID here.

Yes. Please direct PIs here: RAMP PI Certification Page

RAMP Certification is an attestation statement the primary Principal Investigator (PI) must make before the UW submits a proposal for funding or before the UW enters into a non-funded agreement. This is a requirement of UW-Madison.

Funding Proposals: When a RAMP funding proposal record moves to the Department Review (Division/School/College) state, the PI receives an automated email from RAMP asking them to certify the record. The funding proposal email has a link taking them directly to the specific RAMP record to certify.  If a user would like to ask the PI to certify prior to this step in the workflow, they can contact the PI outside of RAMP or send an "other" ancillary review with the request.

Agreements: Notifying the PI that certification is required on an agreement can be done in two ways:

1. Use the Send Email activity from the agreement workspace to send the PI an email with a link to the record and ask them to certify.
2. Using an Ancillary Review to the PI, asking the PI to go into the RAMP record to certify/sign. Approval of the Ancillary Review doesn’t automatically certify the record, so the PI would need to access the record, click the Certify activity, and then respond to the Ancillary Review letting the unit know it’s completed. 

Note: PIs do not certify Agreement Module Records for Standard Research Agreements or Clinical Trial Agreements because those agreement types have an associated RAMP Funding Proposal Record. PI certification is obtained at the funding proposal stage instead.

Awards/Award Modifications: The Certify activity does not exist on awarded Funding Proposals, active Awards or Award Modifications. If your Division requires that the PI review & approve an award modification request (AMR) – use the Ancillary Review functionality.

How does a PI certify once in a RAMP Funding Proposal or Agreement Record? 

Once in the RAMP record, PIs navigate to the “Certify” activity on the left-hand menu.

Clicking Certify brings up the RAMP attestation statement. PIs read the statement to understand their obligations as a PI.  PIs then click OK when ready to Certify the RAMP record.

Please visit the RAMP training webpage here. As materials are developed, they will be added to this page.

Users with the Division Role Member role will have edit rights to all draft records in RAMP. Collaborating departmental research administrators must be added as either a reader or editor to the record to have access to the record.

In RAMP, there are different levels of access:

• Record-level: Access to a specific record
  • Can be granted by the dean's office via the Manage Access activity
  • Administrative contact and read-only or edit rights
  • Able to move record through workflow (submit to RSP, submit for department approval, etc.)
• Department admin editor: Access to all records in a given department
  • Can edit the SmartForm whenever the record is in an editable state
  • Does not inherently always have the same activities available as record-level editors; may need to be added as an editor to take workflow steps
• Division member: Access to all records
  • Approve funding proposals, use Manage Access activity, and more

In order to take a specific action, you will need the corresponding level of access. If you don't have it, contact your dean's office for assistance.

RAMP only shows you records you have access to--if you are missing access you need, please contact your dean's office as they can grant you access to specific records or evaluate what additional RAMP access you may need.

Yes, they will have read-only access while the ancillary review is underway including the ability to view/download attachments.

Please contact your dean's office--they can either grant you access to specific records or request that your RAMP security be updated by the ERA team.

If you work in a department at UW-Madison, you’ll have the “Study Staff” role which is automatically assigned to every active UW employee. There is no need to request it, it’s automatically provisioned.

If you work in a Dean’s Office at one of the colleges/schools, your supervisor will contact RSP to provision you the appropriate divisional access.

If you work in RSP, you will be given the roles specific to your job/team. More details here: RAMP User Roles

You cannot delete a RAMP record, however you can withdraw one. Use the "Withdraw" activity on the RAMP record.

• How to Withdraw a Proposal or Mark as Not Funded
• How to Withdraw or Discard an Agreement

More information can be found in the RAMP User Guides linked on the Resources Page: RAMP training page.

Do not use the Add Sponsor form for this. Previously, SFS required subrecipients to be configured as sponsors first before they could be used on subawards. With Workday, sponsors and subrecipients (suppliers) are separate concepts. Because of this, a subrecipient must first be configured in Workday before it can be configured as a supplier in RAMP. This process is independent of whether the entity is configured as a sponsor or not.

To request a new subrecipient in Workday, search for the Create Request task in Workday and select “Add/Update Subrecipient” for the request type to kick off this process. You may see a message stating to cancel the request and submit a request in ShopUW+; ignore it and proceed with submitting the request form.

Use the global search box in Grants to search by the legacy ID:

The RAMP-ARROW integration runs twice a day at 6:00 AM and 12:30 PM. If you made changes in between then, wait until the next run and then check again if you are not seeing something you're expecting. Please also note that RAMP records MUST be listed as a primary funding source in ARROW protocols.

For help with issues in ARROW, contact irb-arrow@research.wisc.edu

Additional resources:

• Job aid: How to Answer Compliance Questions & Associate ARROW Protocols
• Video: Access the tutorial video under the RAMP General Information > UW RAMP Learning Videos section of the RAMP Resources page

Yes. "Printer Version" is a printed version of the SmartForm. "Generate PDF Version" generates a PDF that will look like the application in the sponsor system (for example, one might look like the assembled application in the eRA Commons).

Note: The PDF generated by "Generate PDF Version" is independent from what is submitted electronically to the sponsor. The PDF is primarily for preview purposes; if something doesn't look right on the generated PDF, that doesn't necessarily mean it will get submitted to the sponsor like that. As long as it is correct in the SF424 SmartForm, it should submit as expected.

All funding proposals and awards go in Grants. Funded agreements and non-funded agreements which require RSP negotiation, review, or signature go in Agreements. There is overlap between the two. For example: a federal contract will have a proposal in Grants, once awarded will have an Agreement Module record to negotiate terms, and then an Award record in Grants. A federal grant that is issued unilaterally (no signature, standard terms) will have a Funding Proposal and Award in Grants but no record in Agreements since there is no signature or negotiation required. Non-funded agreements, like material transfer agreements and confidentiality/non-disclosure agreements might exist as standalone records in Agreements only.

Currently, the Attachments tab does not show author or timestamp when documents are uploaded, so we recommend putting the date in the file name when adding attachments so that users know which file is the most current. Additionally, to help speed up processing, you could also add necessary documents when performing a RAMP activity ("Submit for Specialist Review", etc) so they show up in the history tab for easy access and retrieval.

General Tips: 

Attachments:

• Currently, the Attachments tab does not show author or timestamp when uploaded, so it is recommended that users add an upload date to the file name when adding attachments to indicate the most recent documents (example, “budget_20230816”).

• RAMP does not limit long file names or large files, however on the SF424 (Grants.Gov System to System), users will need to follow sponsor limitations as we validate against those sponsor requirements.
• It would be most helpful to adapt a standard date naming convention for attachments and records: YYYYMMDD = 20230816.  This will allow for sorting numerically. 

Funding Proposals (FP) Tips: 

RAMP Record Titles: 

• RAMP Continuations are used for NIH RPPRS and other federal and non-federal sponsor progress reports needing authorized official signoff.  Putting the deadline in the title of the RAMP record itself will help expedite processing.

Agreements (AGR) Tips:  

RAMP Record Titles:

• If submitting an Agreement record with a short sponsor deadline (anything less than 2 weeks), including the deadline on the title of the Agreement record itself will help expedite processing. Example: Non-Disclosure Agreement deadline 20230706.

*It is good practice generally to include the deadline on the title of the RAMP Agreement record.

Withdrawn records should not be on your dashboard. It will remain in the general grants area, but it won’t be in your inbox, unless they have an incomplete ancillary review. Check to see if you have an outstanding ancillary review (AR) on the record. If so, completing the AR will make the record drop off your dashboard. Note: on the AR, you must enter YES to completed.

If you receive an automated email message from RAMP and are not sure what is needed of you, open the RAMP record by following the link within the email and check the History Tab for details.

Occasionally a RAMP record needs to be transferred to a new UW-Madison department, for instance, if there is a Principal Investigator “PI” change or departure. To change the owning department of a RAMP record, users will submit an Award Modification Request to RSP.  Follow the steps below to request an award modification to change the owning department on a RAMP record:

Step 1:  Create a modification request with type “Other” that gives details of the request. 

• Navigate to the RAMP Award Workspace and select the Request Award Modification button.
• Complete the Request Details page. When complete, select the Finish button.  If additional updates are necessary, use the Edit Modification Request button. The award modification is in the Draft state and has not yet been submitted for RSP review.

Step 2: Create Ancillary Reviews to both departments and appropriate Dean's Offices with details of the transfer as documentation of “approval”.  To do so, select the Manage Ancillary Reviews activity. 

Step 3:  When Ancillary Reviews have been submitted/approved, select the Submit to Specialist activity on the Modification Request to submit the modification request to RSP. In the Submit to Specialist window, add any comments or supporting documents (optional) and select OK.  The award modification request transitions to the Review state and will be reviewed by RSP.

Divisions can use tags in RAMP to manage special reporting or other special requirements managed by the Division. Tags are customizable (i.e., specific to UW-Madison) but must be added to RAMP by the RSP ERA team.

No. The capability to write reports will be with RSP. A report created in RAMP is not just for the individual user, but for all of campus. All the data will be in the UW’s data warehouse, SFMRT. Departments/Colleges/Schools are encouraged to work with any local IT staff they may have to generate reports. Users are encouraged to reach out to RSP if they have data requests. Once requirements are known, support staff can generate data sets that can be useful. Some limited information is available in WISER as well.

Note: Access to SFMRT and WISER will remain active through 2026--afterward, data will need to be sourced from the EAP datalake, Tableau, or other resources provided by DoIT/WEST. More information will be shared as we get closer to the decommissioning of those systems.

Records originally created in WISPER will retain their MSN ID for easy reference. New records created in RAMP will adopt the FPxxxxxxxx and AWDxxxxxxxx ID convention.

Yes, RAMP allows you to have multiple records open in multiple tabs (as long as you have access to all of the records you want to open).

Yes, there is an “Add Comment” activity on the RAMP Workspaces. Comments will display on the Workspace History tab.

RAMP is a web-based software solution and the back button will work in RAMP; however, it may not have the desired effect depending on the order in which SmartForm pages are accessed. The preferred navigation method is to use the left navigator and Continue buttons to work through a SmartForm.

RAMP does not have an autosave feature. Select Save to save the answers on a SmartForm page. Selecting Continue to move to the next page in a set of SmartForm pages will also save a page (in other words, it is not necessary to select Save and then select Continue).

On the “Compliance Review” page of RAMP, there is a “print” icon near the upper right hand corner. If you select that, it will allow you to print the page to a PDF that can be used to send to a PI, if that would help.

No. The PI can certify a RAMP record without having answered the compliance questions. However, the record can’t move forward until the questions have been answered, so it will force some conversation to get them answered.

Cayuse 424 will be operational until September 2026.

RAMP supports the vast majority of Grant.gov funding opportunities. However, there have been a few instances where opportunities were not available in RAMP and were available in Cayuse. The main reason for extending the Cayuse liscense is to keep the Cayuse "safety net" in place for a bit longer.

RSP still strongly encourages submitting Grants.gov proposals in RAMP whenever possible. Any proposal submitted via Cayuse requires a RAMP record for routing and approval.

• For questions regarding proposal submission, sponsor submission systems, Cayuse, or eRA Commons: preaward@rsp.wisc.edu
• For questions regarding award setup and award modifications: awardacceptance@rsp.wisc.edu
• For technical issues and support: era@rsp.wisc.edu
• For access questions, first contact your dean's office.
• For questions regarding a specific agreements record, contact the RSP contract specialist assigned on the RAMP record.

Selecting "Continue" will save the data and move you onto the new view. "Save" will save the data but leave you on the same view.

No--these will be tracked as gift projects in Workday.

Please see the "How to Manage Relationships" section (section 7-2) of the Funding Proposal User Guide on the RAMP Resources page.

Not at this time. It's possible it could in the future, but not anytime soon.

Please contact the RSP eRA team. The RAMP system gets nightly updates of personnel information from HRS.

Department Review Requests (division staff) and ancillary review requests.

• For all users: Mod Requests you create, Agreements you create, everything you create in Draft state.
• Deans/Division users: All of the above and funding proposals that have been sent to you for Division Review (called Department Review in RAMP).
• RSP users: Please see the RSP user guides.

Yes. There is an ancillary review type for this. See the Assign and Complete an Ancillary Review guide.

Yes.

RAMP currently does not support delegating ancillary reviews. Best practice is to use unit ancillary review approvals instead of individual ancillary review approvals. This would send the ancillary review to a group of people, rather than the specific individual.

It’s recommended to delete and add a new one.

Emails can be sent directly in RAMP via the Send Email activity. This activity will both send an email to the recipient and record the transmission in the record history.

No. Some are required, and some may not be. Please see the specific user guide (Proposal, Award, Agreement, etc.) for specific guidance.

Yes, the requestor/sender of the ancillary review receives an email notification once the ancillary review is approved/completed.

1. Locate the RAMP Record and open the History tab on the Workspace.
2. Click and open the Activity you are interested in.
3. On the opened Activity, click View More Details on the top right.
4. Click the Notifications tab to see notification details and who received it.

How to best contact the Proposal Team in RAMP: The RSP Proposal Team best practice is to use RAMP “Send Email” as opposed to Ancillary Reviews. Use the “Send Email” activity on the appropriate RAMP record and choose the “Specialist” checkbox. If sending an Ancillary Review, please search for the specialist by name. If a specific Specialist is not indicated on the RAMP record, then search for “ Proposal Team” under “Person”.

How to best contact the Award Setup Team in RAMP: The RSP Award Setup Team best practice is to use RAMP “Send Email” as opposed to Ancillary Reviews. Use the “Send Email” activity on the RAMP record and choose the “Specialist” checkbox. When using “Send Email”, make sure you are on the appropriate record (funding proposal vs. award) so the email gets to the correct recipient.

How to best contact the Contracts Team in RAMP: If you need to send an Ancillary Review for the RSP Contracts Team to review a draft agreement in a Funding Proposal record, please send the Ancillary Review to “Organization”- “RSP Contracts Team”. Please do not send the Ancillary Review to an individual.

Use the specific ancillary review type. For example, there is a specific F&A waiver type to be used. See the Assign and Complete an Ancillary Review guide.

As a division user, your “inbox” will show all records needing divisional action. To view records across campus, you can search for them in the Grants module (Grants tab). Additionally, there are various report tiles available to review records division-wide; access following the path Grants > Reports > Custom Reports. These tiles will be under the heading "C/S Division Role Member Dashboard."

RAMP effort data will flow to the RSP commitment tool. Payroll allocations must be entered in Workday. Once everything is posted, actuals will appear in ECC.

Outgoing Subawards:

Use the naming convention "SUB" at the beginning of the financial account. Example: SUB Michigan State Univ [Project Short Name]

1. If the award has outgoing subawards, you will need to create a separate financial account for each outgoing subaward. Only one financial account will be needed for each subaward regardless of any restrictions on the award. For example, you may have an award without automatic carryover that would require separate finacial accounts for the UW projects each year, but you would only need one financial account for each outgoing subaward.
2. Ensure that the correct indirect cost base type is selected on each financial acount, and that the GM-15 project type code is used.
3. After you create the financial account, then you will need to allocate the funds per budget period. You will be allocating the subawardee's total costs as direct costs and then UW's portion of the indirect costs up to $25k per subaward. Mark each allocation either Authorized by Sponsor, Advance Account, or Not Authorized, depending on the situation.
4. On each budget allocation, you will need to specify the indirect cost base type and rate percentage. Use the F&A fate that is used in the award document. If the proposal used the 55.5% MTDC rate, enter 55.5% on the budget allocation for the outgoing subaward. This will ensure that the proper indirects are calculated for UW-Madison on the first 25k of the subaward.
5. For each authorized or andvance account allocation, the categorized budget will be reconciled. For an outgoing subaward, the cost categories "SUB <25k" and "SUB >25K" should be used so that the UW's portion of the indirect costs will automatically calculate on the outgoing sub financial account.

Shared Grants

A shared grant is a subaward procided by one UW System school to another UW System school. Use the naming convention "SHARED" at the beginning othe financial account.. Example: SHARED UW-Milwaukee [Project Short Name]

Use the same process as above, howver - use the cost category "Other No IDC" as UW-Madison cannot claim indrect costs on outgoing shared grants or re-grants.

Re-grants

A re-grant is a unique pass-through funding mechanism (similar to a subaward or shared grant) in which the UW receives funding from a sponsor and then passes it through to a 'grantee' who has been selected from a panel to perform a project of their own design and direction. Use the naming convention ‘REGRANT” at the beginning of the financial account. Example: REGRANT WI Milk Marketing Board [Project Short Name]

Use the same process as above, howver - use the cost category "Other No IDC" as UW-Madison cannot claim indrect costs on outgoing shared grants or re-grants.

RAMP does pull in Compliance (IRB, IACUC, IBC, Stem Cell) information from ARROW, but only to display on the Compliance SmartForm page of the funding proposal or award. ARROW is where you will relate your protocols record to a RAMP record. See the following for more information: How to Answer Compliance Questions & Associate ARROW Protocols

Yes, multiple financial accounts (or grants in Workday) can be created for an award. RSP will setup the minimum number of financial accounts to meet sponsor requirements, but the unit can create additional accounts during the award setup process.

How to best contact the Award Setup Team in RAMP: The RSP Award Setup Team best practice is to use RAMP “Send Email” as opposed to Ancillary Reviews. Use the “Send Email” activity on the RAMP record and choose the “Specialist” checkbox. When using “Send Email”, make sure you are on the appropriate record (funding proposal vs. award) so the email gets to the correct recipient.    

For New Awards

• If department/division receives a notice of award (NOA) for a new award, please send it to awardacceptance@rsp.wisc.edu. Funding awards for new awards will be initiated in RAMP by RSP.

For Existing Awards 

• If department/division receives a notice of award (NOA) for an existing/active award, please locate the award record in RAMP and submit a modification request using “NOA has been received by department/division” as the Request Type. Attach the NOA document for RSP within the Mod Request.

• Alternatively, if RSP receives a notice of award (NOA) for an existing/active award, RSP will initiate the Modification in RAMP.

Resources: 

• How to search and sort RAMP records Job Aid
• How to Request an Award Modification in RAMP Job Aid
• RAMP Time and Money Award Modification Requests Video

1. If your award has an outgoing subaward, you will need to create a separate financial account for that outgoing subaward. Create one financial account per subawardee; if carryover is restricted, the RSP award setup team will help ensure accounts are further split out by year as well. Use the naming convention “SUB” at the beginning of the financial account. Example: "SUB Michigan State Uni Grant Short Name"
2. After you create the financial account, then you need to allocate the funds per budget period. You will be allocating the subawardee’s total costs as direct costs and then UW’s portion of the indirect costs up to $25K per subaward. Mark each allocation either Authorized by Sponsor, Advance Account or Not Authorized, depending on the situation.
3. For each Authorized by Sponsor or Advance Account allocation, the categorical budget will be reconciled. For an outgoing subaward, the cost categories “SUB <25K” and “SUB >25K” should be used so that the UW’s portion of indirect costs will automatically calculate on the outgoing sub financial account. Yes, detailed budgets entered on the proposal can be imported on the award reconciliation page to save time during award budgeting.

For more details, review the How to Complete Subaward Setup-Separate Project IDs and How to Setup a New Award job aids.

Yes, they are still required. RAMP records are linked to the protocol in ARROW and then display that protocol information in RAMP.

Yes.

RAMP effort data will flow to the RSP commitment tool. Payroll allocations must be entered in Workday. Once everything is posted, actuals will appear in ECC.

When an award has cost share: 

Mandatory cost sharing
o On the Financial Setup tab in RAMP, create a grant/award line.
     • Only one cost sharing grant/award line is needed for the entirety of an award.
     • The grant/award line and the allocation name should begin with "Cost Sharing."
o On the Budget Allocation tab in RAMP, create an authorized budget allocation for the cost sharing. Include the direct and indirect costs on the budget allocation.
o On the Budget Reconciliation tab in RAMP, enter the appropriate cost sharing amounts in each category.
o On the Effort tab in RAMP, ensure that cost sharing effort is documented if Mandatory salary cost sharing exists.
o Ensure that a Mandatory cost sharing budget is uploaded to the Funding Award in RAMP or is detailed in the NOA.*
o RSP: Ensure that the “Mandatory Cost Sharing” term is checked in RAMP.

Voluntary Committed cost sharing
o On the Financial Setup tab in RAMP, create a grant/award line.
    • Only one cost sharing grant/award line is needed for the entirety of the award.
    • The grant/award line and the allocation name should begin with “"Cost Sharing."
o On the Budget Allocation tab in RAMP, create an authorized budget allocation for the cost sharing. Include the direct and indirect costs as $0 on the budget allocation.
o On the Budget Reconciliation tab in RAMP, enter $0 as the cost sharing amounts in each category.
o On the Effort tab in RAMP, ensure that cost sharing effort is documented if Voluntary Committed salary cost sharing exists.
o Ensure that a Voluntary Committed cost sharing budget is uploaded to the Funding Award in RAMP or is detailed in the NOA.*
o RSP: Ensure the “Voluntary Committed cost sharing” term is checked in RAMP.

*If a budget does not exist, one should be created at this time, either an excel spreadsheet or PDF document.

If payroll is cost shared:

• The cost share budget should list each person being cost shared, the % of cost shared time/effort, and total cost share dollars.
• The RAMP Effort page should correctly indicate the total effort committed to the project and requested sponsor paid effort, so cost share months are calculated. 
• Below shows person one has committed 0.95 academic months of effort and is not requesting any of those months paid by the sponsor.  Person two has 2 calendar months of effort, one is paid by the sponsor, the second will be cost shared.

If there are items being cost shared after award setup, use "Request Award Modification" button and select COST SHARE ADJUSTMENT in RAMP. Attach appropriate documents and provide clear and detailed instructions in the description field.

All cost share documents should be uploaded on the Funding Award record by the Unit. 

Yes, cost share is tracked on its own award line/grant in Workday.

At a minimum, effort for key personnel and other personnel listed in the NOA should be entered into RAMP before routing to RSP.

This will allow us to have the proper information to more accurately pre-populate other support types of documentation. Departments/divisions will enter this information as normal via the award set-up process.

Any changes needed after the set-up can be requested by the departments/divisions by using "Request Award Modification" button and select EFFORT UPDATE in RAMP. Attach appropriate documents and provide clear and detailed instructions in the description field.  

Records that require your attention/action will appear on the RAMP Dashboard My Inbox tab. However, if you have access to an Award record, you will be able to view all related award records in RAMP (award modification requests, award modifications) but you may have to navigate to the record directly if it does not require your action and is not in the My Inbox tab of the Dashboard.

Only the admin contact, PI, or an editor on the award record can create an Award Mod Request (AMR), and only the creator of the AMR and the assigned submitter have access to edit/submit it. Once an AMR has been created, there is no way to add additional editors to it outside of reassigning the submitter.

You cannot change a modification once it has been submitted to RSP. RSP would need to send back to make the record editable again

The Certify activity only exists on draft and in-review Funding Proposals. The Certify activity does not exist on awarded Funding Proposals, active Awards or Award Modifications. If your Division requires that the PI review & approve an award modification request (AMR) – use the Ancillary Review functionality. Job Aid: How to Initiate an Ancillary Review

For Supplements, please use the "Create Revision" activity in RAMP from the workspace of the original award record. Please reference the following training video and job aid for additional details on the revision process:

• RAMP - Creating a Revision Proposal - RAMP Learning Video
• How to Create a Revision to a Proposal - Job Aid

RAMP agreements should NOT be created from the funding proposal for NEW RSAs and NACAs. RSAs and NACAs are not contracts and thus do not need to route to the RSP agreements team. NEW awards will be processed like a grant in RAMP. When choosing the instrument type (#6) in RAMP’s General Proposal Information section, select Grant for the RSAs and Cooperative Agreement for NACAs. Currently, mid-year modifications (awarding funding only) and closeouts (obligations) will be processed as a modification request in RAMP using the NOA received by department/division type. Note: these types of funding mechanisms are CALS specific.

If you need to request an advance account or send a modification request to the Awards team on RAMP Continuation/Resubmission/Revision/Renewal records, use the Request Award Modification button on the Funding Award record. The Continuation/Resubmission/Revision/Renewal records do not allow for set-up processing.

RSP will open the request to see the deadline.

It is based on type. It gets assigned to an RSP team (post-award, setup, etc.) and then further assigned out to a particular team member.

The recommendation is to put the due date in the short title, so it is prominently displayed.

The funding proposal record is locked to edits during the Department Review and Specialist Review states. However, the Department Reviewer (Division/College/School) and the RSP Specialist (RSP Proposal Team) can send the Funding Proposal back to a Dept/Unit/PI and it becomes editable again when sent back.

RAMP only allows one active continuation/resubmission at a time. To check if there is already an active record, go to the original funding proposal's workspace and check to see if there is a red message reading "Follow-on in progress" at the top, like so:

A status of "Complete" or "Active" does not actually count the record as complete unless it is linked to an award modification or an award--please contact the RSP Award Setup team at awardacceptance@rsp.wisc.edu for assistance with this.

RAMP funding proposals only allow for one PI certification. The Certify activity/link is only available to the Contact PI listed on a Funding Proposal. Additional Principal Investigators on multiple PI applications will certify via Ancillary Review. For Multi-PI or Co-PI proposals, the contact PI will certify the RAMP funding proposal and other PIs will need to certify via ancillary review. Initiate an Ancillary Review from the Funding Proposal Workspace, Select the intended PI, Select the Multi-PI Certification ancillary review Type and copy the UW's certification language into the comments field. For more details see the Multi-PI Certification Job Aid

To obtain certification post-submission, send an Ancillary Review to the PI with the UW Certification Language in the comments. How to Initiate an Ancillary Review

A Revision is a request for additional funds during a current project period to support new or additional activities that are not identified in the current award. The RAMP Revision Record is created from an awarded funding proposal. The RAMP ID number includes a “REV” suffix.

A renewal is a request for additional funding for a period subsequent to that provided by a current award. RAMP Renewal Records are created from an awarded funding proposal. Renewals receive a new FP number.

RAMP resubmission records are used for a proposal resubmission. A resubmission is unfunded application that has been modified following initial review and resubmitted for consideration. The RAMP resubmission record is created from a non-funded funding proposal. The RAMP ID number includes a “RES” suffix.

RAMP Continuation Records are used for progress reports requiring RSP submission and continuation proposals (or progress reports) that require authorized official or RSP involvement/signatures. For example, NIH RPPRs and other federal or non-federal sponsor progress reports that require authorized official signatures. Continuation Funding Proposal records are created from the record of an active award. Continuation Funding Proposals have unique IDs starting with the Funding Proposal ID and amended with a “Con” suffix (FP00000099-Con1).

UW is only able to load one appointment via the person feed to RAMP. The built-in logic tries to pick the "best" position but it won't always be 100% correct given certain circumstances, such as dual appointments. You can select the PI as they appear in RAMP and then change the Department in the RAMP SmartForm – Personnel page.

How to best contact the Proposal Team in RAMP:  

The RSP Proposal Team best practice is to use RAMP “Send Email” as opposed to Ancillary Reviews. Use the “Send Email” activity on the appropriate RAMP record and choose the “Specialist” checkbox. If sending an Ancillary Review,  please search for the specialist by name.  If a specific Specialist is not indicated on the RAMP record, then search for “ Proposal Team” under “Person”.

Important: When completing something in a RAMP pop-up window (such as Ancillary Review), users must click the “OK” button at the bottom of the pop-up window or the request will not save.  Just clicking OK on the Ancillary Review will not save the request.  This also applies to things such as adding attachments.  Anytime you have a pop-up window always make sure to click the OK button. You may have to scroll down to find it.

When a proposal has cost share - regardless of mandatory/voluntary: Campus should attach a cost share budget, either as an Excel spreadsheet or a PDF.

• Filename: "Cost Share Budget YYYY/MM/DD"
• The cost share budget can be a copy of the submission budget, with the filename edited to include cost share, if that budget already breaks out cost share. 
  • Otherwise, a cost share specific budget should be created to mimic the submission budget categories aand be uploaded separately with other award documents.
• The cost share should be detailed in the budget justification, or a separate cost share budget justification should be uploaded.

If salary cost will be shared, the cost share budget should list each person being cost shared, the % of time/effort, and total dollars.

If there are non-payroll items being cost shared (supplies, travel, third party, approved unfunded F&A):

• The cost share budget should include these items by budget categories.
• Third-party cost share and unfunded F&A may not be part of the original budget format but should be added, as necessary, to the cost share budget.
• Workday will require all forms of cost share (payroll, non-payroll, third-party, unfunded F&A) to be included in the total cost share budget amount.

All documents should be uploaded to the RAMP record via "Upload Award Documents".

If the PI hasn’t already certified their Funding Proposal, then they will receive an automated email message from RAMP when the funding proposal moves to the Department Review (Division/School/College) state reminding them of the certification requirement. If you would like to ask the PI to certify prior to this step in the work-flow, you can contact them outside of RAMP or send an "other" ancillary review with the request.

Continuations should be used for progress reports requiring authorized official or RSP involvement and are not for new time periods or funds outside of the original proposal. Examples:

• Use continuation for NIH RPPRs and other federal or non-federal sponsor progress reports needing authorized official signoff.
• Do not use for non-institutionally endorsed technical reporting (this can be submitted directly by the PI).
• Do not use for competing continuations or requests for new project periods (use renewal instead).

Grants admin editors will automatically have access to edit the funding proposal SmartForm. However, they will not automatically have access to all activities available on the funding proposal workspace. You must add them as an editor to the record if you would like them to be able to move the record along in workflow (submit to department, etc.) or access other activities.

If this is a S2S grants.gov proposal, then you will need to add them as an editor to the record if you would like them to have access to the SF424.

Yes.

If you are on the Workspace for the proposal then yes the URL in your browser will serve as a direct link to that record.

Yes. Both the PI and the administrative contact are notified.

Not for RAMP itself. When you're in the SF424, you will need to follow sponsor limitations as we validate against those sponsor requirements.

Budget justifications are attached on the funding proposal budget record and separately on the SF424 record for Grants.Gov system-to-system submissions.

Complete the Add Sponsor Information form on the RSP website to initiate the new sponsor addition process.

For each proposal where you want to add a subrecipient, you will need to select the subrecipient from the list. For grants.gov submissions going through RAMP, It may be necessary to enter address information for the subrecipient within the SF424 record as part of the Performance Locations section.

RAMP will accept any reasonable size limit. Larger documents may take longer for the upload process to complete. For uploads that will be submitted to the sponsor, please follow sponsor instructions as it relates to limits, extension types etc.

The funding proposal will be in a ‘Specialist Review’ state. You may filter for this state in the “internal review” tab.

Only individuals who have been identified as “Yes” to the FCOI question will appear on the COI tab of the proposal and award workspaces. Selecting “Yes” does not trigger a review in the system.

No. If there are changes to budget totals then those should be made in the FP budget and then you can rebuild the SF424 budget using the “Create-Update SF424” activity.

There is a nightly process that checks for updates to funding opportunities. If you can't find the one you are looking for, please contact era@rsp.wisc.edu.

Double-check that question 3 on the Submission Information SmartForm page is set to "Yes." If it is "No," change it to "Yes" but you may need to also click Refresh Form Support to get the forms to validate.

The funding opportunity may just need to be refreshed. On the Submission Information SmartForm page, click Refresh Form Support. The error should go away after that.

By default, the funding proposal creator and funding proposal editors/readers have access. Verify the appropriate people have access to the funding proposal before creating the SF424.

Sometimes, an error occurs during the process of creating the SF424 that causes FP access to not get carried over. Then, even if everyone is correctly listed as an editor or reader, they still won't have access.

In either case, the fix is the same. Review the list of editors/readers on the funding proposal, add anyone missing who needs access, then click the Create-Update SF424 activity. This will re-run the process that gives people access to the SF424. If you've already started editing the SF424, uncheck any forms you don't want to get overwritten; even if you uncheck all forms, the process will still run to give people access.

No. When creating the SF424 from the Funding Proposal record, only information completed to date will be used to populate the SF424.  There isn’t functionality that allows fields to be populated by changing selections directly on the SF424 record. 

To update the SF424 to match changes you've made to the Funding Proposal, users will need to select the "Create-Update SF424" on the  Funding Proposal.  Users will need to un-check everything except the page(s) they want to update on the SF424.  The SF424 pages selected will be overwritten with information from the Funding Proposal. 

Example:  If the PI hasn’t certified or answered the Compliance questions when the SF424 is created, that information won’t be auto-populated on the SF424.  Users will want to use the "Create-Update SF424" activity to flow the new information into the SF424. 

When creating the SF424 from the Funding Proposal record, only information completed to date will be used to populate the SF424.  There isn’t functionality that allows fields to be populated by changing selections directly on the SF424 record.

To update information on the SF424 after it has been created, users will need to make changes to the Funding Proposal and then use the "Create-Update SF424" activity. Users must un-check everything except the page(s) they want to update on the SF424.  The SF424 pages will be overwritten with the Funding Proposal information. 

To Print, first make sure you are on the SF424 Workspace and then click the Generate PDF Version activity on the left side menu of the workspace.  Upon creating the SF424 PDF, go back to the SF424 Workspace and click the small blue "View" hyperlink next to "PDF Version" at the center of the screen. 

*To ensure that you are on the SF424 Workspace as opposed to the FP Workspace.  On the right hand side of the workspace it will say SF-4240000xxxx and SF424 in a blue box. 

The faculty sponsor’s name will flow to the SF424 application automatically from the funding proposal in RAMP. Users will need to manually enter the fellow’s profile information to “override” the faculty mentor as the PI in the SF424. For all budget periods in R&R Budget V3.0, under Senior/Key Person, make sure the Project Role column value for line 1 is 'PD/PI" with the fellow's name. The Project Role in the R&R Budget V3.0 must match the role in the PROFILE PD/PI section of the R&R Senior/Key Person Profile. Note: Once this is done, be careful if re-executing the "Create-Update SF424" activity as it may overwrite the manual changes you made in the SF424 record.

If you experience an issue with the RAMP budget not loading to the SF424, it’s likely due to one of the following:

• The budget wasn’t completed before the SF424 was created.  The RAMP budget must be complete before the SF424 is created for it to be pulled over successfully. 

OR

• The budget choice wasn’t selected when the SF424 was created.  To get the budget to load, select the appropriate budget choice when creating the SF424. If users need to later revise the optional forms that were selected when the SF424 was created, they can do so by opening the SF424 and clicking on the Optional Forms Page to make updates.

When executing the “Create-Update SF424” activity, you can choose which form(s) you want to rebuild. You don’t necessarily need to rebuild all the forms. It will vary from form to form on what data may get overwritten. It is recommended you review all forms each time you execute the “Create-Update SF424” activity.

RAMP validates against a lengthy list of validations provided by grants.gov. For certain opportunities, there may be additional NIH specific validations that occur. Yes, RAMP will catch as part of the ‘Validate’ process if you do not upload a biosketch for a Senior/Key Person.

On the main workspace of the SF424 record, it will also display the FOA number there.

Yes. After the document is attached, the number in parentheses is an indication of what version is being displayed.

It is not saved as an organization. If you filled out the information in the SmartForm, it will pull across to the Project/Performance Site Location(s), but it does not save for future use

You should upload the PDF with the exact file name that you desire to the sponsor. File names should not be duplicated within the SF424.

Ancillary Review – Type: Division Budget Review.

There is no way to delete a RAMP budget. You can instead answer "No" to question #5 of the General Budget Information SmartForm page to exclude it from consolidated budgets so it doesn't contribute to the total.

Periodically a revised budget needs to be sent to a sponsor when the RAMP Funding Proposal is already in the Pending Sponsor Review state. Prior to sending the revised budget to RSP, utilize either the Manage Ancillary Reviews activity or the Send Email activity on the RAMP Funding Proposal Workspace to obtain Dean’s Office/Divisional approval. Upon receipt of that approval, notify the RSP Specialist of a requested budget revision by utilizing either the Manage Ancillary Reviews activity or Send Email activity. Attach the budget revision in Excel format to the Ancillary Review Request or Email. Upon receipt, RSP will review and submit to sponsor.

The suggested way is to Use the “Trainee Other”, “Trainee: Stipend”, “Trainee: Travel”, etc. options in the “General cost type” menu. These costs will not populate over into the 424 so you must manually enter in only tuition there. In SMPH, you do still need to create the internal excel budget and attach to RAMP for all to reference and send the division budget review.

Add "Staff Member to Be Determined" in the Personnel section of Budget SmartForm and select undergraduate student. Then annualize the salary (hourly x 2080) and calculate the monthly effort based on expected hours per week.

There are 2 ways to do this. (1) use blended fringe rate. (2) A more exact way would be to define intra-year periods on the funding proposal SmartForm in order to apply specific rate values for specific periods of time.

See Section 10.2.2 “Detailed Participant Support Costs Budget” In the Funding Proposals User Guide.

Yes, if you continue to use a spreadsheet, entering in RAMP will be additional data entry. There is not a way to import a spreadsheet. There is a way to export the RAMP budget into a spreadsheet.

No.

If you are using the "standard" rate (on campus research rate), the current rates that are loaded in RAMP will appear. For all other F&A types, you will manually enter those along with the appropriate base.

It does not automatically update. You can click the “Create-Update SF 424” activity to re-sync changes from the FP budget to the 424 forms. It is always recommended that you complete the budget first, prior to creating the 424, to take advantage of this one-way data pre-population.

Two windows may be the best option to see both.

If it's bi-weekly pay, you would use an annualized salary and budget person month effort against that rate as you do today. Bi-weekly pay comes in on the post-award side since we'll have 2 months with 3 pay periods (26 bi-weekly pays/year).

The fringe rate will not increase. The salary only will increase. So the current FB rate will be applied to the inflated salary unless you manually adjust the fringe rate.

On the General Cost Definition page of the budget, there is an option for “Patient Care”.

No.

As of 7/23/24, the lump sums for direct and indirect costs should be entered at minimum. Please reference this job aid for instructions: How to Enter Lump Sum Direct & Indirect Budgets. However, SF424 (submission to Grants.gov) requires budgets to be built in RAMP – it’s part of the application package. *If a RAMP budget is not developed during the proposal stage and the proposal is funded, the RAMP award record will need to have a category budget setup.

You will need to convert the percentage to a person month. However, in RAMP Select the Show Effort button on the personal cost page that will show the percentage of effort everyone will contribute to the project and the percentage of the base salary required.

See section 3.2.3 “Personnel Costs Page” of the Funding Proposal User Guide. Also, section 10.2.3.2 Over-the-Cap and Additional Cost Share, provides additional information.

Annualized.

It's showing if the person meets the definition of an “investigator” as outlined in the PHS FCOI regulations. UW-Madison interprets the regulations that only key personnel are subject to NIH FCOI regulations.

No.

When entering the personnel costs in RAMP, enter the applicable Effort and Salary Requested (Sal Req) months and modify the Fringe Benefits Rate if necessary.

The base salary in RAMP is pulled directly from HRS. However, when building the budget in RAMP you have the ability to update the salary.

The NIFA base is a non-standard F&A base, type TDC and rate 42.85% (or whatever your college allows). The recommended tool for budget creation is the USDA budget spreadsheet on the RSP home page. When inputting your budget into RAMP in TDC, each line item asks if it should be included in the F&A calculation; the answer is “Yes”. If there are subawards, each will ask you what the IDC threshold is; the answer is $0. When setting up detailed General/Travel/Participant Support Costs, “include inflation” should be “No”. With all these items in place, you should be able to enter budget numbers as intended and the indirects should calculate correctly.

See Section 10.2.2 “Detailed Participant Support Costs Budget” In the Funding Proposals User Guide.

Yes. See Section 3.2.11 of the Funding Proposals User Guide.

When creating the budgets, create a separate budget for the cloud computing expenses with the 26% indirect cost rate. All other expenses would be in the primary budget with the primary indirect cost rate.

All funded agreements will need a corresponding funding proposal record. Awards in RAMP are created from funding proposal records and cannot be created directly from an agreement record.

For Addgene MTA records, create the MTA in RAMP and complete the mandatory fields with these additional instructions for the Agreement Upload Page: Question 3: Check “First draft to be generated internally” - an agreement upload is not required for an Addgene MTA. Question 4: Include the Addgene order number in the Project Title. Question 7: Attach the Addgene order confirmation to the Supporting Documents question.

You may leave the end date blank and instead note any date details in Question 11 - “Are there any other comments that would be helpful for the RSP staff to process?”

There will not be a way to make the linkage. A note in the MTA RAMP record will be needed to document the affiliation.

PIs can open the smart forms and follow the questions in order to answer them. RAMP resources for PIs, such as basic navigation, are located on the RAMP training page.

Yes.

RSP may look if an ancillary review is sent for a specific reason. However, the agreement record cannot make it to RSP for full review until a deans/division office has signed off.

Notifying the PI that certification is required on an agreement can be done in two ways. 1. Outside of RAMP (email/conversation/chat) – sending the PI the RAMP link and # to locate the record. 2. Using an Ancillary Review to the PI, asking the PI to go into the RAMP record to certify/sign. Approval of the Ancillary Review doesn’t automatically certify the record, so the PI would need to locate the record, click the Certify activity, and then respond to the Ancillary Review letting the unit know it’s completed.

No. PIs do not certify Agreement Module Records for Standard Research Agreements or Clinical Trail Agreements because those agreement types have an associated RAMP Funding Proposal Record. PI certification is obtained at the funding proposal stage instead.

Include the deadline in the title of the Agreement Record.

RAMP agreements should NOT be created from the funding proposal for NEW RSAs and NACAs. RSAs and NACAs are not contracts and thus do not need to route to the RSP agreements team. NEW awards will be processed like a grant in RAMP. When choosing the instrument type (#6) in RAMP’s General Proposal Information section, select Grant for the RSAs and Cooperative Agreement for NACAs. Currently, mid-year modifications (awarding funding only) and closeouts (obligations) will be processed as a modification request in RAMP using the NOA received by department/division type. Note: these types of funding mechanisms are CALS specific.

If you are submitting an Agreement record with a short deadline (anything less than 2 weeks), please include the deadline on the title of the Agreement itself. For Example, you might title the agreement: Non-Disclosure Agreement deadline 07/26/2023.

How to best contact the Contracts Team in RAMP:   If you need to send an Ancillary Review for the RSP Contracts Team to review a draft agreement in a Funding Proposal record, please send the Ancillary Review to “Organization”- “RSP Contracts Team”.  Please do not send the Ancillary Review to an individual.

Important: When completing something in a RAMP pop-up window (such as Ancillary Review), users must click the “OK” button at the bottom of the pop-up window or the request will not save.  Just clicking OK on the Ancillary Review will not save the request.  This also applies to things such as adding attachments.  Anytime you have a pop-up window always make sure to click the OK button. You may have to scroll down to find it.

To upload a copy of the email: Drag the email from your Outlook app to the desktop. From RAMP, upload a new agreement and select the email that was downloaded to the desktop.

To upload a copy of the agreement in the DocuSign e-mail: Open the DocuSign link. Click the download button on the DocuSign page. Go to RAMP and upload the PDF that you downloaded from the DocuSign page. In RAMP, select where to upload: 1. PDF of Agreement to Agreements. 2. Email to other Supporting Documents in the SmartForm.

Important Note:

Do not just upload the email (email = DocuSign envelope). This can cause a problem because, while RSP can open the email, DocuSign links expire after a set period and, when they do, DocuSign sends a new email to the original email address. If only an email/envelope is uploaded and the link expires, RSP can’t see the agreement unless they were the original recipient of the DocuSign. This will result in additional correspondence with requests for the documents.