The Research and Cost Accounting (RCA) office is happy to announce an upcoming upgrade to how we manage personnel roles in sponsored awards within iO. If you’ve ever wondered why someone who left three years ago still appears to have access to your grant data, you’ll be happy to hear that we’re giving everyone a structured way to clean up!

The Old Way

When an award is first set up, we determine the key roles: the PI, Co-PI(s), Project Manager, and Award Participant(s) are all correctly added to the iO award. 

But then things change. People move, responsibilities shift, and suddenly, you need to add someone or, more importantly, remove someone. Currently, these adjustments are handled one by one via individual iO tickets (Category = Access Permissions).

This process made good award hygiene an absolute chore:

• It’s inconvenient to audit every single award regularly to see who should stay and who should go.
• Department managers responsible for oversight haven’t had an easy way to get a big-picture view of all personnel on all their awards simultaneously.

The result? We’ve sometimes been operating with a slight (or not-so-slight) disconnect between the data in iO and reality, leaving us asking, “Who exactly is supposed to be seeing this data?”

The New Way

To finally make data management manageable, RCA is implementing a new process that takes advantage of a superb FIS-developed tool that enables organizational-level batch adjustments for award personnel. Consider it your mandatory, but very helpful, data “spring cleaning” session.

How Will This Work?

1. Bi-Annual Data Drop: Twice a year, the Cost Center Manager for your department will receive a comprehensive data table from RCA. This table lists every award owned by your Organization (Cost Center).
2. Full Personnel Disclosure: For each award, the table will clearly list every person currently assigned an award role. You’ll have the option right there to change the status of existing people (i.e., remove them) or add new personnel.
3. The One-Month Window: Your department will have one month to coordinate a full review, make the necessary amendments, and return the updated table to RCA.
4. The Great Cleanup: RCA will process these Org-level batch updates, ensuring your awards are instantly populated with the correct, current personnel.

The Best Part: Pristine Data and Focused Effort

• Pristine Data: You get rid of all the ghost users and make sure everyone who should have access actually does. Your data will reflect the people currently managing the work.
• Focused Effort: By scheduling this process twice a year, we create a dedicated, focused time slot for data hygiene. While you will still be able to use the old iO ticket method for urgent, one-off changes, this mandatory schedule will keep your award personnel data accurate and compliant.

What’s Next?!

This new process is scheduled to be rolled out during Calendar Year 2025, with a likely implementation in early November. We’ll share more detailed instructions and dates as we get closer.

If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions about this upcoming process, please let us know! Email RCA directly at jth6@rice.edu.