Each year, members of the Ohio State community are required to take several trainings to remain informed and in compliance with a wide range of university standards and initiatives. The following schedule of trainings should help you understand when these courses will be communicated, when they are due, and the time commitment required by each.

The current training schedule for this year can be found at 

https://orhelp.osu.edu/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/272/47/ERIK-2023-Training-Requirements

The following are known PI Portal issues related to the Workday migration. Last updated: April 7, 2023

Unresolved

Grant/Payroll: 

• Cost-share Tuition and fees are missing in certain past periods from FY 21 and 22.

______________________________________________

Resolved

Award/Documents: (Resolved 6/24/2021)

• Some attachments coming from Workday are not showing. 

Award/Financials: (Resolved 3/26/2021)

• Check images are not yet available

Award/Grants: (Resolved 3/8/2021)

• Total amounts may not be accurate as we work on correcting the Life to Date financial amounts for grants.

Grant/Commitments: (Resolved 10/13/2021)

• Since July 1st, commitment data has been missing or incorrect for over 1000 grants. This is related to processes in Workday that did not roll forward open Purchase Orders to the new fiscal year. (Newslink article - https://it.osu.edu/news/2021/08/20/previous-fiscal-year-purchase-orders.)

Grant/Documents: (Resolved 11/8/2021)

• A revised version of the Workday report Award expenditures on Journal Lines’ will be used as an alternative to eMEFS.

Grant/Expenditures: (Resolved 4/7/2023)

• Unrecovered F&A is not showing in Cost-share F&A expenses.  (Resolved 4/7/2023)
• Expenditure data is missing for non-OSP grants. (Resolved 4/27/2022)
• Expenditure data for the period from January to August 2021 may not be correct if purchases included capital equipment.  (Resolved 12/10/2021)

Grants/Financial Rollup: (Resolved 4/5/2022)

• Some Payroll expenses are missing from the converted Financials data in January 2021. (Resolved 4/5/2022)
• Some Sponsor and Cost-share F&A expenses are missing from the Monthly Financials overview from January till December 2021.(Resolved 4/5/2022)
• F&A Commitments on Subawards with a value greater than zero may be incorrect for roughly 200 grants. (Resolved 11/3/2021)
• Fund ‘FD830 Investment in Plant Fund’ has been counted as a cost-share expense and needs to be ignored. (Resolved 7/22/2021)
• Total Expended and Committed amounts are not counting the following 2 Object classes: 4000 Tuition and Fees and 4100 Trainee/Fellow Tuition (Resolved 5/19/2021)
• Third Party costs are not getting displayed. (Resolved 5/11/2021)
• Some Object classes are incorrectly showing $0 expense amount which do not have budgeted amount setup in the award plan line. (Resolved 4/9/2021)
• Incomplete converted Expense data (from PeopleSoft) is causing lower/incorrect amounts across all Object classes. (Resolved 3/31/2021)
• Amounts may not be accurate as we work on correcting the Life to Date financial amounts for grants. (Resolved 3/8/2021)
• F&A Committed amount is not available. (Resolved 3/4/2021)
  • Committed amounts by Object Class and total line amounts were re-calculated and re-posted for January and February 2021.

Grant/Payroll: 

• ‘Forward Accrual’ journal source payroll data is missing from August till December 2022. (Resolved 2/9/2023)
• Due to calculation based on benefit rates, certain Fringe benefits for PAA type expenses may be wrong. (Resolved 11/30/22)
• Tuition and Fee encumbrances are not showing in the payroll detail and the Financial Summary overview page. (Resolved 10/5/2021)
• Fringe benefits are not showing for accounts like ‘50600:Supplemental Pay Not Subject to Retirement Salaries’ when they are tied to object class ‘8000 Unallocated’. (Resolved 5/27/2021)
• Supplemental and student pay under ‘8000 Unallocated’ Object class are not getting displayed. (Resolved 4/21/2021)
• Tuition and Fees expenses are currently showing under 'Expenditure view which needs to be moved to the 'Payroll' view. (Resolved 3/15/2021)

Grant/At a Glance: (Resolved 12/9/2021)

• When F&A exception is defined, F&A Rate values are incorrect as its still showing the values defined in the F&A Rate Agreement.

Report an Issue

To report additional issues, email orhelpdesk@osu.edu with the following information:

1. Action you were performing
2. Issue you encountered or error message
3. A screenshot of the error message and/or the PI Portal page where you are experiencing the issue.
4. If applicable, a screenshot of results in Workday.

We thank you for your feedback and appreciate your patience while we work with the Workday support team to address these issues.

The Office of Research is scheduling a maintenance window from 6 am Tuesday, December 22nd through 6 pm Wednesday, December 23rd for Workday integration and data conversion. During this time, OR applications such as PI Portal, ePA005, etc. will be unavailable but will return to service as quickly as conversion and testing results allow. After the maintenance window, all OR applications will be using Workday data and will require Worktags for financial transactions.

New user registrations for Office of Research applications will be disabled Friday, December 18th through Sunday, January 3rd to coincide with the loading of Workday personnel data into the Ohio State Identity Management System. Anyone who needs to create an account with the Office of Research may still request one by emailing our Help Desk at orhelpdesk@osu.edu.

If there are any questions, please contact the OR Help Desk (orhelpdesk@osu.edu).

Considering the recent events, ORIS wanted to take this opportunity to share with everyone strategies for working remotely and can be used at any time when you are working from any location other than our offices.

Work at Home Toolkit

ORIS has compiled a series of Work at Home articles to assist our users during this time. If you have any questions or concerns, contact the ORIS helpdesk at 614-688-8288 or orhelpdesk@osu.edu.

General university work-at-home instructions can also be found on https://keepworking.osu.edu. We will provide links to the most relevant information for OR, regardless of source, directly within the Office of Research Work at Home Tools resources - and will keep updating the site as new information becomes available.

General Practices When Working Remote

1. You are "at work" during regular business hours. Remote work does not equal "I have my own schedule" flextime and alternate work schedule rules still apply. 
2. You are logged into and available to communicate via our university-approved tools (Skype for Business, MS teams, Zoom).
3. You have previously tested your mobile device and are confident that you can accomplish your job functions from your alternate work location.
4. Although meeting attendance is virtual, you are still expected to attend and be on time.
5. Communicate with your co-workers as frequently as you would in the office together.
6. Always follow the guideline, "who does what by when." This is even more critical when you are off-site.
7. Don't be afraid of voice/video calls. No one wants more email. If you can resolve something faster by verbally communicating, don't be shy.

Behavioral Etiquette

Continue to be Inclusive 

We may be operating in conditions where most people are on campus, and a few are remote. Also, the opposite may occur. Be sure to include virtual attendance options for all meetings. Don't inadvertently exclude people from attendance when they are remote.

Also, there is always someone with a camera that doesn't work or a broken microphone. If someone is struggling, help them out. If you are the one struggling, don't be afraid to ask for assistance.

Working remotely creates significant barriers in nonverbal communication.
As a result, supervisors tend to ask more questions like: "what are you working on," "what will you accomplish this day/week," "Can you update me on …". This may feel to the employee like they are being micromanaged. Both supervisors and employees should be aware of this dynamic and approach situations with understanding. Don't assume tone in written communications. We aren't all masters of the written word.

Don't let the distance get in the way of communication.  
If there is a situation where you would just go over to someone's desk, do the same thing remotely. Send co-workers an IM or give them a video call. It's a little awkward at first, but it will get easier.

Don't stop having meetings 
Attend/keep 1:1's, team meetings, and status updates. Host virtual meetings instead. 

Don't forget to "go home." 
When the workday is over, logout do your normal evening activities. Don't be tempted to work for the rest of the evening. Also, just because you are working at 9:00 pm, it doesn't mean everyone else is. 

Conversely, don't' forget to "come to work." 
Sometimes this is easier said than done. Some tips that may help you "come to work."

• Get up at your usual time.
• Get dressed for work.
• Tell any family members that you are going to work even if it is in another room. 
• Have a workplace, whether that's a kitchen table, spare bedroom, or comfortable spot on the couch, try to find a place that helps you get in work mode.

To improve security, CISCO AnyConnect clients will be disabled from accessing the Office of Research VPN on November 29^th, and the Global Protect VPN client will be needed to access the OR servers. The Global Protect client was installed on OR issued equipment earlier this year.

 Non OR issued and personal equipment will still need to follow the instructions posted at https://orhelp.osu.edu/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/195/4/New-ORVPN-for-PC-or-MAC.

After install, you will be prompted for the server address to connect. The server address is or-gpg.rf.ohio-state.edu.  Next, you will be prompted for your name.# and current OSU password. Once entered, a DUO authentication push will be sent to your phone. Your BuckeyePass account will need to be set up for push notifications to connect. If not, please contact the OR helpdesk for further instructions. After successful authentication, you will have access to the OR network.

 If you need assistance connecting to Global Protect, comments, or concerns, please contact the OR Help Desk at 614.688.8288, https://orhelp.osu.edu/support/, or orhelpdesk@osu.edu

Thanks,

Aaron

ORIS currently has 5 laptops which OR staff may borrow.  Laptops can be reserved for a maximum of 3 days after which they may be reserved again if available.  If a laptop is needed for longer than 3 days, you can ask for special consideration.  (Director approval may be required.)

Instructions for reserving a laptop:

1) Send an email to OR Help Desk.  Include the following

            a. Dates needed - If needed for more than 3 days, list reason. 

            b. Pickup time - Be sure to schedule extra time at pickup as you will need to login to the     laptop before taking it.  

            c. Additional software needed

            d. Where the laptop will be used. (IE: in house, on campus, off campus)

2) If the laptop will be used off campus, ORIS will send you a docusign form.  Once the form is signed, your reservation is confirmed.

3) When you pick up the laptop, the OR Help Desk will set up the laptop so you can log in.

4) If you need to renew the laptop, contact the OR Help Desk.  If the laptop is available, we will extend your reservation.