November 2021 GMAS release

November 1, 2021

Release Notes

The November 2021 GMAS release will be available as of the start of business on Monday, November 1st 2021. This focus of this release includes enhancements to support the process for managing research teams, which includes the addition of two new request types. Additional enhancements include added ability to download all documents in a repository, a new notification that sends when requests are awarded outside of a segment revision (action memo), and others, as well as bug fixes and technical changes.

Research team

Prior to the November 2021 release, changes to the segment research team were all managed directly in the segment research team with no tracking of changes and no workflow to help support communication between the department and central where needed. This workflow was inefficient, not transparent, and not documented systematically.

The goals for this release were to:

Increase efficiency
Improve transparency
Reduce the reliance on email and other systems

Changes in the system functionality to manage research teams in GMAS to support these goals include:

All changes to the research team will now happen through requests in GMAS.
- Confirm research team request – used to confirm the team.
- Edit research team request - used to make changes to the team after it has been confirmed.
Central review of requests is only required when editing effort for faculty or members of the research team marked as "Yes" for the sponsor approval for effort commitment changes. Request supports submitting to sponsor or awarding internally.
- Departments can “Finalize” research team requests that do not include changes to faculty or research team marked as "Yes" for the sponsor approval for effort commitment changes.

These changes will result in:

Moving activities from email to GMAS to improve efficiency and transparency.
Providing better history and detail.
General improvements to the workflow and documentation.

Enhancements

Research team related enhancements:

Changes to segment research team:
- Added indicators for Inactive & Non-HUID members.
- Added a column displaying if a team member is faculty.
- Added a column display if a research member requires sponsor approval to change committed effort.
- Removed the ability to add, edit, or delete members from the segment research team screen.
Two new request types have been created to manage the research team:
- Confirm research team request
  - This request can be created by selecting “Confirm research team” from the segment research team screen or segment home page.
  - This request is intended for confirming the project’s research team.
- Edit research team request
  - This request can be created from the create request modal by selecting “Research team” or by selecting “Create a request to edit research team” from the segment research team screen.
  - This request is intended for making updates to the project’s research team.
- New requests will have defaulted signatures set to central administrator or sponsor programs approver.
New panel to update research team:
- This panel will be where edits, adds, and deletes will be managed.
- The panel separates members based on the changes made.
  - Updated, Added, Removed, Unchanged sections.
- If a research team member is edited, the updated change will be displayed in red
  - Edited members will also have an expandable column to display the prior value of the update section.
- Edit/Add modals will have the ability to add an end date to a research member.
  - End dates will be used to track the end of a research members involvement on a project.
- The panel will display an indicator of a user’s end date.
New action - “Finalize Changes” for updating research team members:
- This action will internally award the new research team requests when edits made are not made on faculty members or on members that require sponsor approval to change committed effort.
New modal to answer if a research member requires sponsor approval to change committed effort.
- This modal will allow administrators the ability to answer “sponsor approval required to change effort” question for all research team members at once.
New flag for deleted members:
- When a research member is deleted/removed they will now be flagged as deleted.
- Any members that were already deleted/removed from research teams prior to the release have been updated with a deleted flag.

Non-research team related enhancements:

Document repositories will now have the functionality to download all documents.
A new notification will be sent to Department Administrators for request that were awarded internally.
An update to the subtitle header on request screens to fix the ID number display.
The participation agreement approval screen will display a message when the approval is associated to an inactive HUID.
The OAIR approval screen will display a message when the approval is associated to an inactive HUID.
OAIR approvals on the approval list screen will display indicator when the approval is associated to a person that is inactive or non-HUID.
Participation agreement approvals on the approval list screen will display indicator when the approval is associated to a person that is inactive or non-HUID.
Approval list screen will now display the approval attribute panel when navigating from old request home screens.
Removed matching funds from segment home key info.
Added a new reporting grouping field to organization home page labeled “Standard federal reporting group. This row only appears for organizations that are "US Federal Government" or "US Other".

Bug fixes

Fixed an issue where OAIR approvals were not generating for fellowships.
Updated ESTR Sync interface so that the status "Terminated" is recognized by GMAS.
Fixed an issue where the CSMA AddMod job was reporting incorrectly in the database.
Fixed an issue that prevented the GMAS team from adding new document category in the admin page.

Technical changes

Primefaces was upgraded to Primfaces version 10.
Replaced ITO with centralized log for Interfaces.
Upgrade slf4j to version 1.7.30.
Upgrade log4j to version 2.14.1.
Created REST API in Apigee to proxy the ESTR SOAP interface.
Updated GMAS interface code to get ESTR data from new REST API
Removed SOAP supporting code and upgrade related java libraries.
DNS changes for our non-production environments.

Job Aids