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UFIRST > UFIRST Resources

UFIRST Resources

What is UFIRST?

UFIRST is foremost the proposal and agreement routing and approval tool for all UF Sponsored Programs. It doesn’t replace submission tools like Fastlane or Grants@Heart. Every proposal submitted from the University to all sponsors – federal, state, industry, non-profit and all others – must be routed through the UF approval chain in UFIRST. A budget will need to be created in UFIRST in order to submit for review and approval. The proposal content may be in other systems like Fastlane, Grants@Heart, etc., or may be in electronic files which should be attached in UFIRST.

In addition, UFIRST is the award management tool collecting all award demographic and management data. It is the source of all institutional award reports. All award prior approvals are requested through UFIRST.

UFIRST Award Expectations

UFIRST holds sponsor budgets and effort commitments in order to track rebudgeting and variances between award and actuals. Actual effort and expenditures may vary from what is budgeted.

What about proposals that are submitted through the UF Foundation?

All proposals submitted for sponsored activities should go through the UF approval chain, including the Division of Sponsored Programs for approval prior to submission. If the Sponsor requires the recipient be a 501c3 organization, you should still route the proposal through DSP for review—with instructions that it requires a 501c3 recipient—and UF will work with UFF to submit on its behalf.

How does UFIRST show a faculty’s home department and salary if they have multiple job records in the myUFL HR system?

We have combined jobs where we believe it made sense. Where job records could not logically be combined, we chose the faculty position with the greatest percentage as the PI’s home department and the related salary. This will provide the default home department and salary that can be overridden on any proposal, if needed. For faculty with AEF rows, their base salary and the AEF job have been combined to ONE record.

Will collaborators and other consultants who don’t require effort be tracked?

Yes. At minimum, the University will require the names of all key personnel to be entered for every proposal.

How does the system budget for 9-month faculty salaries?

All proposals will be budgeted by “person months” rather than percentage of effort. This enables UFIRST to be usable for 9-, 10- and 12-month appointments. All base salaries shown in the personnel budget grids are annualized to 12 months. UFIRST will display both the person months and the percent effort in the budget grids to assist with effort reporting and the sponsors still requiring percentage of effort.

How does the system handle proposals that require budgets in currency other than U.S. dollars?

The University strongly prefers to do all business in U.S. dollars. This mitigates the risk of fluctuations in currency valuation. UFIRST can only calculate in U.S. dollars. If the sponsor requires you to submit budgets in foreign currency, we recommend building the budget in UFIRST, exporting and then using a recognized conversion source to create the version submitted to the sponsor.

How do I track the status of my proposal?

Every proposal routed through UFIRST will go through the same states.  Throughout these states, the proposal is visible in UFIRST worklists and search pages to all department administrators and to everyone who has been added to the proposal. Routing will be handled in this sequence:

  1. Draft
  2. Cost Share Review, if applicable
  3. Department Review
  4. Pending Proposal Team Response: Dept Review, if applicable
  5. Core Office Review
  6. Pending Proposal Team Response: DSP Review, if applicable
  7. Pending Sponsor Review
  8. Core Office Review: Post Submission Updates, if applicable
  9. Pending Proposal Team Response: Post Submission, if applicable
  10. Pending Sponsor Review
  11. Awarded or Not Funded/Withdrawn/Terminated