Award setup begins in the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) and is handed off to Contracts & Grants Accounting (CGA) via the Centralized Agreement, Contact Tracking and Approval System (CACTAS). Upon completing a negotiation, OSR transmits a CACTAS record to CGA where it is manually assigned to the appropriate CGA Service Team Member to set up the award in the Research Administration System (RAS).
In the spirit of continuous improvement and to enhance the customer experience, CGA implemented a new process in June 2021 to automate the assignment of CACTAS records for award setup. While the new process does not change the fundamental methodology for adding an award to the appropriate CGA Service Team’s portfolio, the new process improves overall accuracy, efficiency, and timeliness.
- Assignments are automated and based on pre-determined logic and data elements within each CACTAS record. The new process eliminates the potential for human error.
- Records are automatically available in the appropriate team member’s queue.
- Records are available to the CGA Service Team member immediately after OSR updates the CACTAS record to indicate that it is ready for CGA Award Set-up.
Although CACTAS records are automatically available to Service Team members, departmental and OSR CACTAS users will not see the CGA Analyst field populated immediately. It will be populated once the CGA Analyst begins working on the record, within six business days from the Award Setup Queue Date.
If you have any questions regarding a CACTAS record, please contact [email protected].