As announced on March 31st, the Compass Financial System will be off-line from Friday, April 18th through Monday, April 21st as part of the preparation for the upgrade to the PeopleSoft 9.2 environment. As a result, the Emory Proposal Express (EPEX) system will also be unavailable.
In order to plan for this scheduled downtime, the Office of Sponsored Programs requests the following for any proposals due from April 17th through April 22rd:
- Please initiate the proposal record in EPEX as soon as possible (and preferably no later than Friday, April 11th). (You only need to initiate and save the record. You do not need to fully complete the record. We ask for this step to be completed so that we may assess what is due for these dates.)
- Please indicate the actual true deadline in the EPEX system.
- Please refrain from selecting any date from April 17th through April 23rd for any proposal which does not have a hard deadline during this timeframe. (For example, please refrain from selecting a date between April 17th and April 23rd for any clinical trial for which there is not a hard deadline, or selecting a date in this range for any proposal with a soft or moveable deadline.)
- If a proposal without a hard deadline needs to be routed and finalized “ASAP,” please plan on preparing and completing routing prior to the scheduled downtime.
All applicants should plan on obtaining all required approvals through the usual EPEX processes. If you have a proposal due on Friday, April 18th or Monday, April 21st, please plan on completing EPEX routing no later than Thursday, April 17th, even if the final proposal is not ready for submission. Similarly, if a proposal is due immediately after the system is scheduled to come back online, please begin routing and obtaining as many approvals in the system as possible before the system is taken offline.
On Monday, April 14th, OSP will run a list of all proposals due during the proposed downtime. We will work with each department or RAS unit to evaluate the status of these proposals throughout the week leading up to the downtown. (Should any proposals due during the downtime be ready for submission, OSP will be happy to submit the proposal early.)
For any proposals due during the downtime, if exceptional circumstances prevent collection of all required approvals in the EPEX system, please contact your OSP Grants or OSP Contracts representative, as appropriate. OSP staff will then work with the appropriate individuals in these situations on a case-by-case basis to obtain the necessary approvals.
Again, it is extremely important that OSP know as early as possible the exact list of proposals that will be due during this period, so we ask that you follow the request above to enter the proposal into EPEX as soon as possible. Please also feel free to forward this announcement to any faculty, or their support staff, who may have proposals due around this timeframe.
Holly Sommers, Director, OSP