SMPH Guidance for RAMP (Research Administration Management Portal)

RAMP is the implementation of the Huron Research Suite modules to replace UW’s pre-award software systems. The Huron modules went live on June 26, 2023.

You can find comprehensive information on this system at the RSP website.

The below is information is specific to processes within SMPH and includes tips to help learn the system.

“Submit to Department Review” is essentially the old “Routing” in WISPER. Make sure you have obtained all appropriate Ancillary Reviews (Division Budget Review or Dean/Division Signoff or Other) before sending a record for Department Review. Submitting for Department Review should be reserved for when you are done with a record and ready for SMPH/RSP to complete final processing.

How to find SMPH for Ancillary Reviews:

• Search Organizations;
• Filter search by “ORG ID”;
• Type in “A53”;
• Click the blue ID in upper left corner

A53 SCH OF MEDICINE + PUBLIC HLTH will be at top of search! Make sure you are NOT choosing ADMINSTRATION*EXTRAM SUP, as that will not get to us.

Before submission to the sponsor, all proposals must be reviewed and approved by:

• SMPH division budget approval
• Your department chair or his/her delegate
• SMPH Research Administration
• UW-Madison Research and Sponsored Programs (RSP)

Remember that SMPH needs to review and approve nearly every type of RAMP record before submission to RSP, just like WISPER. When in doubt, send an Ancillary Review to SMPH before “Submitting for Dept Review”.

SMPH requires Minimum 1% effort for PIs on sponsored projects with a few exceptions. 

SMPH policy for time and effort on grants can be found here.

Please give read-only rights to any Research Administrator from an outside department when you have added one of their faculty/staff to a Funding Proposal. Do this by adding the Research Administrator to the Administrative Personnel (question 4c) on the FP Smartform, Personnel page.

On funding proposals where there is a flow-through, please be sure to indicate on FP General Proposal Smartform in question 6, Instrument Type that this is a Subaward, not a Grant. This is different than in WISPER where “subaward” was not an option and all subawards were classified as grants in WISPER.

On the FP Smartform, submission details are important to include.

• Since the Cayuse license is extended until September 2026 you need to state in the submission instructions if the application is being submitted in Cayuse or RAMP. Please have this entered before sending Division Budget ancillary review.
• If nothing needs to be sent to the sponsor, state “Internal Routing only”.
• Please explain what you want to happen after submission, i.e., Do you want RSP to submit to sponsor? Will the department submit to sponsor? Do you need a cover letter signed?

In WISPER, agreements that involved SMPH Contracts Manager review were first reviewed by the Research Administration team for completeness of the record including PI signature, Chair approval, associated project number (MTAs), etc. The record was then routed to the SMPH Contracts Manager for review, approval and submission to RSP. RAMP does not have the same ROUTE function which prevents this process from continuing.

We now need a two-step process to let the SMPH Contracts Manager know the agreement is ready for review.
This means for all agreement records, first send a Dean/Division signoff to SMPH Research Administration. When you receive approval, you then need to read the comments provided. The comments may or may not contain guidance to send an additional Dean/Division signoff to the SMPH Contracts Manager. When you see this, it is a requirement of RSP.

If you miss this step and submit the agreement to RSP, it will slow down the review of your agreement as RSP sends the record back to the department for the SMPH Contracts Manager to review.

To obtain SMPH approval on NCEs, there must be some evidence that the PI has been involved in the NCE. This could be that the PI has signed the NCE letter/request that is included in the record, the PI was included on an email from/to the sponsor requesting or approving the NCE, or the PI has completed an ancillary review or has certified the record.

*Note that from subawards, attaching a NOA showing that the prime grant has been extended is not sufficient for an NCE – there must also be evidence that the prime sponsor intends to extend the subaward to UW as well.

Please indicate in the short title in the FP Smartform if the CDA/NDA is related to a Clinical Trial, by adding “CTA” to the short title, or by adding “Research related” to the short title. This distinction determines who reviews the agreement.

Once the information is uploaded in Commons, use the email function within the RAMP record to send an email to the RSP specialist of the record to submit the JIT in Commons.