Term	Definition
Department Reviewer	The Department and College reviewers that will access, review, and approve a PI’s Funding Proposal. Note: The term Department Review is used for both the department and college level review.
“Funding Proposal” or “FP” or “GFP”	Sponsored research proposal in GRAMS.
Administrative Contact	Department or College administrators that are added to a Funding Proposal and can provide assistance. Administrative Contacts can edit the proposal and can also respond to department review notes.
Editor	Other individuals who are added to the Funding Proposal with edit rights. Editors do not receive system generated email if you request changes, but the proposal will move to the “My Inbox” tab for all proposal editors.
Workspace	The term for the Funding Proposal screen with basic demographic information about the proposal, including the proposal’s status, workflow bubbles, the attachments tab, and Financials tab. If this proposal is being submitted via S2S, there is a link to navigate to the SF424 workspace. Here, the term “workspace” has nothing to do with the Grants.gov workspace.
Activity	A link in the left navigation bar that allows you to take an action for a proposal.
“Request Changes” activity	An activity (link) where you request the PI to make changes.
“Approve” activity	An activity (link) to submit your proposal approval.
“Proposals Submitted for Review” email	Automated system generated email that is requesting your review and approval.
“Changes Submitted Back to Department Review” email	Automated system generated email to inform you the PI made updates and/or responded to your request for proposal changes, and the proposal is now ready for your review.
Ancillary Review	A method of submitting a review request outside of the departmental review routing and workflow process. This is a manual process, not an automated one, and it can be kicked off by the PI/Administrative Contact/GCA Specialist for many reasons including cost share GRAMS Grants Module is UNT's system for:As a Department Reviewer, you will learn:3 approvals, compliance review/approvals, and any additional approvals needed.
Dashboard	The home screen when you log onto GRAMS. Location of the “My Inbox” and “My Reviews” tab. This screen also has a “Recently Viewed Items” bar.
My Inbox	A tab on the Dashboard with a list of your “to-do” items. Each item in the My Inbox requires action from you (such as proposal approval).
My Reviews	A tab on the Dashboard with all proposals requiring your review (either department review or ancillary review). For department reviewers, this will often be the same as the items on your “My Inbox” tab.
SmartForm	An online form that is completed by the PI for each proposal and budget. The SmartForm contains a series of questions with demographic and budgetary information for the submission. They are called “Smart” forms because they hide/show different questions based on how prior questions are answered.
S2S or System-toSystem (aka: 424)	S2S refers to System-to-System functionality that directly submits Grants.gov applications from the GRAMS system to the federal sponsor.

• Department Reviewers will receive an automatic GRAMS system generated email from DoNotReply-GRAMS-Grants@untsystem.edu in their UNT email client (such as Outlook) alerting them that there is a Funding Proposal ready for Department Review.
• The subject is “Proposal Submitted for Review – Sponsor Deadline XX/XX/XXXX” This specifically means the proposal has been submitted for your unit’s review and approval; it does not indicate the proposal has been submitted to the sponsor.
• If there are multiple individuals designated as a reviewer for a particular department/college unit, all department reviewers will be listed in the “To” field of the email. Only one of the Department Reviewers needs to review and approve on behalf of the department.
• The email includes a link that will open the proposal in a tab in your default browser window.

Additionally, the Funding Proposal will appear on Department Reviewer’s Dashboard. It will be in the “My Inbox” tab, signaling that it requires an action and the “My Reviews” tab, which is a list of all proposals requiring your review.

The reviewer will select the Funding Proposal and review this proposal from its workspace.

Department Reviewers will review the Funding Proposal SmartForm. Note that reviewers cannot edit the SmartForm pages and have read-only view. From the Funding Proposal Workspace (image below), select on the Review Funding Proposal button to access the PI’s completed Funding Proposal.

To assist with the review, Department Reviewers can check off each section as they review it. This turns the section green and is a helpful tool for tracking progress of the review.

If the reviewer has questions or comments on the Funding Proposal SmartForm pages, they may add Reviewer Notes.

To add a Reviewer Note, select the conversation bubble next to a question and a pop-up bubble will appear. The type will automatically be Department Draft Change Request.

• Add your comment.
• Select if a response is required from the PI is required or not.
• You should ONLY check Response Required when you will be sending the proposal back to the PI and require that they change or address the comment or question before proceeding. If “Response Required” is selected, the PI will not be able to submit the proposal back for department review until they have responded directly to this note.
• You may attach relevant files if needed.
• Click OK to add the Note.

Once added, the comment will appear below. Proposal PI or the Administrative Contact can respond to comments when the proposal is sent back for changes.

Checking off sections as they are reviewed and adding Reviewer Notes are not required steps of the review process but are a helpful way to track progress and communicate with the Principal Investigator. As you add reviewer notes to the Funding Proposal, you can track where notes are added by the highlighted conversation bubbles. A red dot above the conversation bubble indicates a Response is Required for that comment.

Once all sections have been reviewed, you can select Exit to exit out of the Funding Proposal and go back to the Funding Proposal workspace.

Note: The Reviewer Notes functionality is only available on the Funding Proposal SmartForm pages and is not on the budget pages or SF424 Application (if applicable). If you have changes or comments regarding the budget or SF424 Application, you will add them when executing the Request Changes activity (see section 2.6 of this guide).

Click on the Attachments tab to see links to all attachments uploaded to the FP SmartForms pages and to the activities. Click on a document name to view the attachment in a tab in your browser window.

Please note: Budget related attachments, such as the Budget Justification will be found within the Budget section and not under this Attachments tab.

If this proposal is being submitted via S2S, there might not be many attachments uploaded here since they should instead be uploaded directly to the 424 application. Refer to the next section for reviewing the S2S application and proposal documents.

If you have requested changes or comments regarding the proposal documents/attachments, you will add them when executing the Request Changes activity (see section 2.6 of this guide).

If a proposal needs to be updated or changes are required, select the Request Changes activity on the Funding Proposal workspace. This activity can be used to send the proposal back to the PI for clarifications or for updates.

In the pop-up window, a summary of any unresolved reviewer notes that were added to the Funding Proposal will appear. Additional comments to the PI can be added and will appear in the History Tab once changes are requested. If you have additional notes or questions to add regarding the Budget, Attachments, S2S application, etc., enter additional notes in the comments field. You may also upload attachments, if needed. Select OK to send your Request to the PI.

• The system sends automated email from DoNotReply-GRAMS-Grants@untsystem.edu to the PI and any Administrative Contact included in the Funding Proposal to let them know changes have been requested. Any comments added to the Request Changes window do not appear in the email but will appear on the History tab of the Funding Proposal.
• The proposal will be in the “My Inbox” tab on the Dashboard for the PI, Administrative Contact, and all editors listed in the Funding Proposal.
• You will notice that the status of the Funding Proposal changes to “Department Review: Response Pending from PI” and to the “Clarification Requested” bubble of the flow chart.

The PI and Administrative Contact can now edit the Funding Proposal, respond to reviewer notes, and submit changes back to the Department Reviewer.

• After the PI or Administrative Contact has reviewed the comments and made proposal updates, they will press the “Submit Changes to Department Reviewer” activity to route the proposal back for department review.
• All Department reviewers receive a notification email in their UNT email from DoNotReply-GRAMSGrants@untsystem.edu with the subject “Changes Submitted Back to Department Review”

Click on the link in the email or find the proposal in the “My Reviews” tab of your Dashboard. There are two places to check for comments and responses from the PI:

• Click on the History tab to see if the PI or Administrative Contact left any comments during the “Submit Changes to Department Reviewer” activity.

• Also click on the Reviewer Notes tab. If you do not see the Review Notes tab, you may need to click on the ellipsis (three dots)tab and then click on Reviewer Notes.

To see all reviewer notes previously left by the Department Reviewer click on Show Reply selection to see the reply to each note.

The reply appears:

You can click on the blue links under the Review Notes tab to go directly to the question on the Funding Proposal workspace to review any edits made. The Funding Proposal will show which sections were edited via a pencil icon as well as bubbles that highlight the updated values or information.

Once a proposal has been reviewed and the Department Reviewer is ready to approve, the Approve activity can be selected. Approving the proposal will advance it on to either the next level of Department Review or the Specialist Review state, depending on the current level of review.

From the Funding Proposal workspace, the reviewer can select the Approve activity.

The Approve pop-up will appear. If any Ancillary Reviews are outstanding, a warning message will be listed but will not prevent the Department Reviewer from continuing with approval.

Comments are not required but will appear on the History tab if added. There is also an option to upload attachments, if needed.

Click OK.

Once the Funding Proposal has been approved by the Department Reviewer(s), the Funding Proposal will proceed to GCA Specialist Review.

Once the proposal has been approved by the Department Reviewer, it no longer appears in the Reviewer’s “My Inbox” or “My Reviews” tab of their Dashboard. If the proposal needs to be reviewed later, it can be located on the Grants tab.

Once the Department Reviewer(s) have approved, the proposal will appear in the Specialist Review state, which means the GCA Specialist can begin reviewing the proposal. The Specialist Review workflow bubble is highlighted.

During the Specialist proposal review, the GCA Specialist may need to request changes or updates to the Funding Proposal. Sometimes GCA may require updates go through department review again and other times may not require the department reviewers review again. If GCA does need changes made and for the changes to be re-approved by the Department Reviewers, the GCA Specialist will request clarifications from the PI. Once the PI makes the needed changes to their Funding Proposal, the PI will be able to re-submit the Funding Proposal for Department Review and the process will proceed in the same fashion as before.

After GCA approves the proposal, it will be in “Final SPO Review” state. This means GCA is preparing to submit the proposal to the sponsor. Once the proposal has been submitted it will move to the “Pending Sponsor Review” state. The Funding Proposal will stay in this state until a funding determination is made by the sponsor.

Department Review	Ancillary Review (AR)
•Automatic notification that is kicked off when the PI submits a proposal. The Department reviewers are a predefined list.	•Manual notification kicked off when a PI/Administrative Contact/Proposal Editor/GCA Specialist adds you as an ancillary review. The review may be sent to an individual, or to a group.
•You receive an email from DoNotReply-GRAMS-Grants@untsytem.edu with the subject line: “Proposal Submitted for Review – Sponsor Deadline XX/XX/XXXX”, which means the proposal is waiting for your review and approval.	•You receive an email from DoNotReply-GRAMSGrants@untsystem.edu with the subject line “Ancillary Review Notification” which means this proposal requires an ancillary review from you. The email contains comments from the initiator letting you know why an ancillary review is requested.
•FP SmartForms have the “reviewer notes” functionality previously discussed.	•The AR might be required, or not required, as indicated in the email. Not required reviews are more of an FYI but may still need action.
•Proposal must be approved by the Department Reviewer(s) before moving on to the Specialist Review state, at which point, GCA will review and approve.	•FP SmartForms do not have the “reviewer notes” Functionality for Ancillary Reviewers.
•After dept approval, the dept reviewer can still view the proposal on the Grants tab.	•The ancillary review will not stop a proposal from moving from Department Review to Specialist Review, unlike the department approval which is necessary for GCA to review. However, all required ancillary reviews should be in place prior to the GCA internal deadlines. •After you accept and complete the AR, you are only able to view the proposal on the Grants tab if your department is submitting the proposal or if the PI gave you edit or view access to the Funding Proposal.

Ancillary reviews are sent for many reasons, such as:

• Cost share commitment approvals, for commitments outside the Lead PI’s home department and college.
• Compliance concerns.
• Review of Terms & Conditions.
• Congruency review at the award stage.
• Advance Account Approvals.
• Ad hoc.

You’ll receive an email from DoNotReply-GRAMS-Grants@untsystem.edu with the subject line “Ancillary Review Notification”. The email will have a link to the Funding Proposal, along with comments from the initiator as to why the review is being requested. It will also be indicated if the AR is required or not.

Note: It is very important to respond to required ancillary review since this may holdup GCA from being able to move forward with proposal submissions or award processing.

Review the proposal for the reason specified in the email. Check the proposal “History tab” to see any comments or documents added to the review by the review requestor. These comments will typically be the same as what was added in the email.

Review the proposal; Refer to previous sections in this manual for information on how to access items such as:

• The FP SmartForms for personnel, dates, and compliance information.
• Reviewing the financials + budgets tabs and cost share commitments.
• Viewing attachments via the Attachments tab.
• If the proposal is being summited via s2s, how to access the SF424.

If you have questions for the PI, use the Send Email functionality to email them through the system to let them know about your concerns. Click on the send email activity in the left navigation bar.

Fill out the “Send Email” popup window. Enter a subject line. You can send email to a group of people, such as all “All team members”, and/or a specific person by selecting on the ellipsis icon to add their name in the “Select any other recipients” box. Type your comment in the Comments box. You can also upload attachments using the Add button or via the drag and drop functionality. Click OK to send the email.

Comments entered here will appear in the email message and on the History tab and any attachments uploaded will appear on the Attachments tab.

When you are ready to approve the AR, click on the Submit Ancillary Review activity in the left navigation bar.

Select 2 and 3 as accepted and completed, enter comments, and upload supporting attachments using the Add button or drag-and-drop feature. Click OK to submit the ancillary review.

The ancillary review is complete. The proposal will no longer appear in your “My Inbox” and “My Reviews” tabs on the Dashboard. If your department is the proposal submitting department or the PI has added you as an editor or viewer for that proposal, you will still be able to locate this proposal on the Grants tab. If you do not have additional security access to this proposal, you will no longer be able to access it.