ATTACHMENT 4
User Requirements for Fiscal and Administrative Information System for
Research and Other Sponsored Activities at UH
Second Draft
Systems Users and Clients: PIs, FOs, Project and Program Staff, UH Central
Administration Managers, Field Managers, Federal Contracts and Grants Administrators.
The Fiscal and Administrative Information System should provide:
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Completely on-line interaction with the system for PIs, FOs, and Project Staff with
electronic routing, approvals, and signatures (High Priority);
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Authentication and security (High Priority);
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Accurate, real time or near real-time financial information available to PIs, FOs, and
project staff (High Priority);
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Reliability and availability—system needs to be accessible and have the computing
power to prevent lock-ups and loss of information entered (High Priority);

Single point of access--single website with single log-in and password for each PI,
secondary user and FO (Low Priority);

A mechanism to allow delegation of PI approval and electronic signature authority on
an ongoing basis (High Priority) as well as periodic delegation when PIs are traveling
(critical)

Ability for PIs to designate different secondary users (project staff) to different
accounts to initiate transactions and to view financial information (High Priority).

Ability for PIs and secondary users to download spreadsheets and obtain ad hoc
financial reports with near real time account information to do scenario budget
planning (critical)—with on-line graphing capability (Medium Priority).

User-friendly navigation (High Priority) with at least two levels of sophistication with
the system (Medium Priority)—one for the less experienced and the other for the
"expert" users.

Mechanism to allow encumbrances of salaries (including overloads), estimated fringe
benefit costs and applicable overhead costs—in the short run could be done as a
separate transaction but in the long run would be tied to People Soft so that funds
would be encumbered for appointment periods of employees (High Priority).

Mechanism to allow encumbrances for inter-departmental agreements, UH
requisitions, UH AFPs similar to POs but that could be used within UH with periodic
payments or payments on delivery of products or services (High Priority).
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
Mechanism to allow commitments (an administrative reservation of funds in
anticipation of an obligation. i.e. cost match, start-up) (Medium Priority)

Some way to allow PIs to deal efficiently and fairly with vacation funding for people
who move from project to project (High Priority).

An idiot proof on-line travel request and completion system that would have built in
worksheets for combined personal and business travel and travel paid out of multiple
accounts that would calculate per diem based on an itinerary entered into the system
based on either the UH or federal per diem rates and calculate mileage allowance
(Medium Priority). If possible, this travel information processing system would allow
processing of non-employee travel and ready access to instruction for processing
non-employee travel.

A “help function” to ensure compliance with embedded controls within reason,
pointers to online agency-specific policies otherwise (Medium Priority).

Mechanisms to ensure timely billing and payment (High Priority),

Data warehousing to allow retrieval of project documents and project data that can
be retrieved and reproduced for new transactions (critical) and producing reports
(High Priority).

A mechanism within the UH financial management to capture G, S, and F fund
expenditures on research support that can be accounted in the indirect cost rate
calculations.

Self-training and tutorials on-line where possible (i.e. drill down to policy) (Medium
Priority)
In general new policies and procedures should:
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eliminate redundancy;
be streamlined, easy to understand;
decentralized processes and accountability;
ensure compliance;
reduce process time;
create a service-oriented environment; and
standardization of policy language and format in plain English.
Note: Three levels priority are used for the system requirements: High, Medium, and
Low. These need to be weighed against the cost of developing applications and
systems to meet the user requirements.
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