Author: Gina Wilson

Writing budget justifications is a common time-intensive pre-award task, requiring careful cross-referencing between budget figures, fringe rates, indirect cost calculations, and the project narrative. This workflow automates that process while maintaining accuracy.

The RFA (Request for Applications) Checklist Extraction workflow is a two-step, AI-enhanced process that turns an agency RFA, FOA, or NOFO into a structured pre-award checklist for the proposal team. It runs six parallel extraction tasks against the document — dates and deadlines, eligible institutions, eligible individuals, award information, application components, and budget requirements and policies — then a consolidation step assembles the results into a single Markdown checklist organized in eight sections. Missing information is explicitly marked “Not specified in the document” rather than guessed, and strict de-duplication rules keep each fact in exactly one section. 

What is a workflow and how can it help me automate an RA process?
A workflow is an ordered series of tasks which describe a process from start to finish.

The eCFR MCP Server is a free, open-source tool created by Sabrina Woo and Nathan Layman of Artificial Intelligence for Research Administration (AI4RA) that connects AI assistants directly to the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR) API.

At the 2026 REACH Research Analytic Summit, the AI4RA (AI for Research Administration) team delivered a hands-on workshop titled “The Intersection Between AI and Data.” The full workshop (including slides, interactive tools, and a post-workshop guide) is now freely available online.

One of the most difficult parts of incorporating AI into your daily workflow happens before you ever touch a computer: identifying the processes to be automated.