Effort Reporting

Effort is defined as the total of all professional activities which are performed as part of an individual’s employment obligation associated with an individual’s institutional base salary. The “full workload” or “total professional effort” is defined as 100% effort.

Effort Reporting is a method for documenting activity expended in support of all sponsored projects.

Labor (payroll) distributions and effort reports are related but not the same thing.  Labor distribution reflects the activities to which salary is charged in the payroll system while an effort reports describes the allocation of an individual’s actual time spent on the project whether or not reimbursed by the sponsor.  Thus effort reporting is separate from and can be independent of salary charges.

Faculty, staff and graduate students will complete effort certification reports if they perform work on any sponsored project, funded directly or by a federal pass-through organization as well as any work related to activities to fulfill their individual employment obligation to the University, whether the effort is paid or unpaid. Non-exempt employees, undergraduates and/or college work study students who complete auditable time sheets and pre/post-doctoral students, supported only by fellowships are not subject to effort reporting procedures.

Effort reporting is the mandated method of certifying to the granting agency that the effort charged or cost shared has actually taken place. Effort Certification is the process for ensuring compliance with the payroll distribution requirements of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Uniform Guidance, which addresses "principles for determining costs applicable to grants, contracts, and other agreements with educational institutions." The policies, provisions, and cost accounting standards in the Uniform Guidance are mandatory for institutions which directly or indirectly receive federal funds. Essentially, this process ensures that direct labor charges to sponsored projects are reasonable and reflect actual work performed.

Effort of faculty, staff and graduate students should be certified either by the employee or by an individual having suitable means of verifying the effort distribution (e.g., the principal investigator, department administrator or designee having oversight and firsthand knowledge of the employee’s effort). The department administrator will ensure that all certifications are completed accurately and timely.

Effort is now certified quarterly per fiscal year. Effort reports for quarters after December 31, 2015 need to be pre-reviewed and certified in the Banner Effort Reporting System via DrexelOne. Effort reports for periods prior to December 31, 2015 were completed biannually, and must be pre-reviewed and certified in the Effort Reporting Calendar System.

Effort certification is the process for ensuring compliance with the payroll distribution requirements of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Uniform Guidance, which addresses "principles for determining costs applicable to grants, contracts, and other agreements with educational institutions." The policies, provisions, and cost accounting standards in the Uniform Guidance are mandatory for institutions which directly or indirectly receive federal funds. Essentially, this process ensures that direct labor charges to sponsored projects are reasonable and reflect actual work performed.  A salary reallocation records a change to university records so if a salary reallocation is requested and processed, a revised effort report will be generated and will need to be re-certified.

The following is an excerpt from the National Institutes of Health posting on 3/31/17:

A “person month” is the metric for expressing the effort (amount of time) principal investigators (PIs), faculty and other senior personnel devote to a specific project. The effort is based on the type of appointment of the individual with the organization; e.g., calendar year (CY), academic year (AY), and/or summer term (SM); and the organization’s definition of such. For instance, some institutions define the academic year as a 9-month appointment while others define it as a 10-month appointment.

Conversion of percentage of effort to person months is straight-forward. To calculate person months, multiply the percentage of your effort associated with the project times the number of months of your appointment. For example:

• 25% of a 9 month academic year appointment equals 2.25 (AY) person months (9 x 0.25= 2.25)
• 10% of a 12 month calendar appointment equals 1.2 (CY) person months (12 x 0.10 = 1.2)
• 35% of a 3 month summer term appointment equals 1.05 (SM) person months (3 x 0.35= 1.05)
• 10% of a 0.5 FTE 12 month appointment equals 0.6 (CY) person months (12 x .5 X .1 = 0.6)
• If the regular pay schedule of an institution is a 9 month academic year and the PI will devote 9 months at 30% time/effort and 3 months summer term at 30% time/effort to the project, then 2.7 academic months and .9 summer months should be listed in the academic and summer term blocks of the application (9 x 30% = 2.7 person months; 3 x 30%= .9)

The deadlines for pre-reviewing and certifying effort reports can be found on the Effort Reporting Calendar.

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To certify on behalf of another individual, select the “Review or Certify Reports” tab. Select "Advanced Search," then "Select Attribute," and "Chart of Account Code." Enter D for employees of Drexel University or S for employees of Academy of Natural Sciences, then click "Go." A list of all effort reports where you are identified as the alternate certifier should appear, and you can double click on one of them to certify. In the Banner Effort Reporting System, if the report is in a status of “Awaiting Certification,” it is ready for your certification. If the report is in the status of “Certified” or “Complete,” the report is finished. If the report is in a status of “Under Review” or “Awaiting Refresh,” you cannot certify it as your pre-reviewer is working on it.

If the “Review or Certify” tab does not appear on your screen, please contact Research Accounting Services to obtain access.

Pre-reviewers with any effort reports with a status of “pending” in their queue will receive a follow up email the day following the release of the effort reports each quarter. Additional follow up emails will be generated by the system weekly until all reports in their pre-review queue have the status of “reviewed.” When reports move to the certifier (including alternate and graduate student certifiers), the certifiers will receive an email that there is/are report(s) for certification in his/her queue. The certifier will receive a follow up email weekly until all of the reports in the his/her queue are listed as “complete/locked” in the effort system.

The email notifications on a new report will be focused on only the current effort reporting period. However, each week, a summary reminder email will be sent to anyone who has outstanding effort reports in any state, in any effort reporting period in Banner.

There are two possibilities for this result.

1. If a salary reallocation was submitted for payroll during the effort reporting period, the reallocation needs to be processed completely through the labor reallocation process before the effort report can be revised. The effort report will state "Pay events are in process that may affect this effort report" in the "Effort Report Overview" section if a salary reallocation is in process.
2. If the pre-reviewer accidentally clicked the "Request Changes" button, the effort report will be locked from other users until the changes are cleared or the report is refreshed with the change.

Review the status of the effort report. If the report status is ‘under review’ and the effort report reflects the payroll change, then the redistribution has been completed and you can proceed with reviewing the revised effort report.

Contact Research Accounting Services to resolve this issue.

There is a possibility that the effort report was not generated for the period or that the effort report was routed incorrectly to another individual. Contact Research Accounting Services to resolve this issue.

The pre-reviewer can add a member to the pre-review queue. However, the system requires all members of the queue at the pre-review level to pre-review the report. If a complete change is required, please contact Research Accounting Services to request the change.

The pre-reviewer can be added as an alternate certifier. At the certifier level, only one certifier is necessary. Some schools require the “Graduate Student Certifier.” If this requirement has been made, this person MUST certify the report. Any other certifier may certify the report in addition to the Graduate Student Certifier.