AI4RA Tip of the Week #10

What is the Effort Reporting & Time and Effort Compliance workflow? 

The Effort Reporting Compliance workflow analyzes federal award documents and produces a structured Effort Compliance Brief. It extracts committed effort levels, certification requirements, cost-share effort details, and referenced governing regulations and terms and conditions, all in one place. The workflow processes PDF award notices, cooperative agreements, award terms and conditions, and budget justifications from federal agencies.

The output includes:

• An executive summary
• A personnel commitments table
• A compliance framework
• A list of referenced governing documents 

The brief can be downloaded as a Markdown, PDF, or Word document.

The workflow was also designed to explicitly flag any information not found in the document, preventing gaps and hallucinated information in the reference.

Why This Matters for Research Administrators 

Effort reporting errors are among the most common compliance findings on federally sponsored awards. Manually combing through award documents to identify PI level of committed effort, key personnel obligations, certification deadlines, and governing regulations like 2 CFR 200.430 is time-consuming.

This workflow gives you a reliable, document-grounded snapshot of your effort compliance obligations at project setup, so nothing falls through the cracks during the life of the project.

How to Use This Resource 

To run the Effort Reporting Compliance workflow in Vandalizer:

1. Upload your federal award document (PDF with extractable text).
2. Select the Effort Reporting Compliance workflow from the explore tab in your library.
3. Vandalizer will extract key fields, including Award Number, PI name, reporting frequency, and the full personnel commitments table, and format them into your Effort Compliance Brief.
4. Use the brief as your reference document for post-award compliance tracking throughout the project period. 

How can I learn more about this topic?  

• AI4RA Office Hours – Occurs every fourth Tuesday at 11 AM PST and includes live Q&A and demos (https://ai4ra.uidaho.edu/#events).  
• Workflow Architect Certification – Vandalizer internal course which teaches you to become a certified workflow builder. Click on the bubble in the lower right corner. 
• Support – Click the Support button in the top‑right corner of Vandalizer or submit a request via the AI4RA contact page (https://ai4ra.uidaho.edu/contact/). 

Share your questions or success stories  

Post them to the AI4RA community forum (https://groups.ai4ra.uidaho.edu/g/main/topics). Your tips help the whole research‑admin community thrive.