Effort Reporting and Certification

Michael V. McKee, Assistant Vice President & University Controller
Dr. Marie Zeglen, Assistant Provost & Director of Institutional Planning & Research
Dr. Tom Walsh, Director of Division of Sponsored Research

The University of Florida must satisfy federal and state requirements by accumulating information related to the types of activities engaged in by its faculty, professional employees, graduate students, OPS hourly and staff. To do this, UF performs an after-the-fact Effort Survey each term for all impacted employees. In the past these reports were filed by departments on behalf of the faculty and professional employees, sometimes for many employees. In order to more fully respond to the federal and state requirement that the Effort Survey be signed by someone with more local knowledge that the work was performed, several changes to this system are being implemented. A major impact of these changes will be effort certification that is verified by the individual. To facilitate this, the faculty will be provided a draft of an Effort Report at the end of the semester that will resemble the Faculty Assignment Report that they sign at the beginning of each semester. Faculty will be asked to certify the accuracy of the Effort Report for themselves and those whom they supervise.

1. Except in specific circumstances, certification of effort will need to be performed by either the employee or the Principal Investigator (for sponsored projects).

2. Changes have been made to the Effort Reporting System so that departmental administrators responsible for the effort data input will now see a holistic view of each individual which displays, 1) all courses (if any) that an individual was reported as having taught in the Instructor Workload, 2) all funding sources and the effort percentage related to that funding source and 3) a summary of all effort that has been allocated (no matter which department has reported the effort). This new resource will be especially useful in allocating effort for those individuals that are funded by more than one source.

3. Another new feature this term will be a separate screen that will require teaching to be reported at the course level. This will allow for more accurate reporting of teaching-related effort.

4. Lastly, the Effort Reporting System will be updated two weeks after the reporting term opens with data relating to any Payroll Retros that have occurred since the open term data was loaded. This will allow for more accurate reporting but may mean that some cross-departmental Retros will require departments that previously completed their work to revisit the affected records.

These changes will be addressed in a special training that will be offered. All employees with effort- related security of either Certifier or Authorizer will receive an email requesting that they attend training. These sessions will be offered as follows:

Monday, October 22nd
9:00 – 11:30 AM
DeWeese Auditorium, Brain Institute

Tuesday, October 23rd
9:00 – 11:30 AM
Reitz Union, Second Floor Auditorium

Friday, October 26th
9:00 – 11:30 AM
G001 McCarty D

Friday, October 26th
1:30 – 4:00 PM
G001 McCarty D

Monday, October 29th
1:30 – 4:00 PM
DeWeese Auditorium, Brain Institute

Tuesday, October 30th
9:00 – 11:30 AM
Reitz Union, Second Floor Auditorium

The signed forms will be retained by the Cost Analysis Office; instructions will be provided as a part of training.

An additional security role, UF_ER_HRPR_EffortTrack, will be needed by departmental administrators in order to print the new Effort Certification Reports. Attendance at one of the training session will be a prerequisite to approval of the role.

Web simulations, Instruction Guides and FAQ’s related to these new features will be available as well. Any questions can be addressed to either Suzanne Sindledecker at 392-5778, ssindle@ufl.edu, or Armando Ramirez at 392-0449, aramire@ufl.edu.