Before we move on to describing XRAS in terms of the various menu options, tools, and configuration screens, we first describe how the system is designed to allow an allocation administrator to use XRAS to manage the requests submitted ahead of a deadline to be reviewed by a panel and posted to your site’s internal resource management system. We keep this description at a high level; you should refer to the cross-referenced sections throughout for more detail on each part of the workflow.

This section assumes you have completed the initial setup (including allocation types and their supporting review processes), defined appropriate notification templates, created a panel and added panel members, and implemented the API routes, if desired, to allow integration with your local resource management system.

Preparing for and Accepting Submissions

The first step in the general allocation workflow is to create the opportunity to which users will submit their requests. In XRAS Admin, select the “Opportunity” menu option, then “All Opportunities,” then select the green “New Opportunity” button. You will enter a name (which will be visible to users) and, for this example, select “Terminating” and an appropriate allocation type. You should have previously defined required fields and required/optional documents for this allocation type using the rules interfaces. You will also need to select a “Primary Panel” for reviewing the request. See the Opportunities section for details on the various opportunity data fields.

Starting on the opportunity announcement date (if used), information about the upcoming opportunity, including the submission notes, will be visible to users in the XRAS Submit UI, but users will not yet be able to submit their requests. The opportunity will also appear on the XRAS Admin opportunity menu as an open opportunity at this time.

From the submission begin date through the submission end date, the opportunity will be visible in the XRAS Submit UI and users will be able to enter requests.  During the grace period (if any), the opportunity will be displayed as closed, but submissions will still be accepted. After the grace period, submissions will no longer be possible (unless, of course, you extend the grace period). 

During the submission window, you can help users troubleshoot problems or complete requests on a user’s behalf by impersonating them in the XRAS Submit UI. XRAS will send notifications to the submitters and appropriate staff as submissions come in.

In most cases, you will check requests for correctness as they come in or soon after the submission deadline. You may find ineligible submissions, unusual allocation amounts being requested, or typographic errors in key fields. Most data entry errors can be corrected using the edit capabilities in XRAS Admin. You can also upload documents to a user’s submission on their behalf; you may find this helpful if you want to allow an exception to posted page limits or document size limits.

Once you complete the correctness check of the requests, you can begin the panel review process.

Managing Review of Requests

XRAS supports an extensive suite of features supporting comprehensive, multi-phase review processes; however, you can also implement a minimalist review process, if that matches your normal practice. 

For a terminating opportunity, you manage the review process from the main page for that opportunity, which displays a sortable list of all submissions. For submissions to one or more Continuous opportunities, you will likely find the XRAS Dashboard a more convenient way of tracking incoming requests and management actions.

First, you will prepare the submissions for review. In addition to the administrative correctness check, XRAS allows you to group requests into categories you specify and manage conflicts of interest (COIs) between reviewers and requests. XRAS automatically catches some common COIs—such as a reviewer being one of the persons associated with the request or a reviewer being from the same institution as the request personnel—and you can also manually enter or remove COIs. Panel members can also self-report a COI during the review process.

To help you assign reviewers, XRAS provides an optional request rating tool, through which reviewers can express their interest (or lack thereof) in reviewing a particular request. 

Next, you will assign reviewers to each request. Here, you must work your way through each request in the Opportunity and assign reviewers. The XRAS review assignment interface helps you identify panel members with appropriate expertise, incorporate each panel member’s rating input, and track how many assignments each panel member has already been given. XRAS will only display the assignments in the Review UI when you’re ready.

Now, the reviewers complete their reviews. Through the Review UI, they can find their assignments, download documents for offline reading, and submit their reviews into a review template you define. 

After you’ve given the panel the appropriate time to complete their reviews, you conduct the panel meeting. XRAS Review provides a dedicated Meeting UI to help manage the discussion of requests at a panel meeting, or the Review UI can serve as a basic “agenda” that sorts and displays the requests. You can define and generate a custom report to manage a discussion. You can use XRAS to track the panel’s consensus recommended amounts during the meeting or enter these later. XRAS allows you to record panel recommendations separately from the final awards. If your process requires it, you can also enter or upload a consensus final review.

Finalizing and Processing Awards

Following the panel meeting (or the end of your review phase, if you don’t use a meeting), you will finalize and process the awards. For each request, you enter the final recommended (optional) and award amounts and add optional comments about the reason for the final awards, such as a summary of the panel discussion. You can also add global comments, such as a summary of the meeting as a whole, to be viewed by all submitters.

Before sending the notifications, you must finalize and process each award. Depending on how you integrated XRAS with your local site, this may be as simple as saving the final award information, or you can have XRAS post each allocation award to your local accounting system. If your institution is an ORCID member, XRAS can also post allocation awards to your users’ ORCID profiles, if they’ve given you permission. 

You will probably want to review the email notification templates for the opportunity to make sure the text is current and that the appropriate data fields are included. XRAS allows different templates for awarded versus rejected requests. Essentially, XRAS performs an opportunity-wide “mail merge,” allowing you to tailor a unique message for each request. For example, you can have XRAS insert the anonymized reviewer comments into the notification email for each request. (Users can also see reviewer comments via the XRAS Submit UI.)

If you prefer all the email notifications to go out at once, XRAS provides a shortcut that will process and send notifications for all the requests in the opportunity at the same time. With that, you have completed tho tasks for that opportunity, unless your policies allow for an “Appeal” phase, supported by XRAS, in which users make their case for additional resources.

Continuous Requests and Transactions

Not all opportunities have a submission deadline or panel meeting. XRAS also supports continuous opportunities, which are always open for submissions. Submissions to a continuous opportunity are generally handled as they come in, perhaps by assigning reviewers (XRAS can automatically assign reviewers to such requests) or by internal-only review.

Besides submission-deadline, panel-review types of opportunities and requests, XRAS supports the ongoing handling of “management actions” after allocation awards have been made. During their allocation period for example, a user may want to ask for additional award amounts, that is, a supplement to their original award, or an extension to their project’s end date. Users can make these requests through the XRAS Submit UI, and these requests can then be reviewed and awarded, to help you document the full range of allocation activities.

The XRAS Dashboard helps you keep track of both the incoming management actions and continuous requests that are awaiting your attention. 

We have now covered the range of XRAS functionality from a high-level perspective. The following sections provide greater detail for the XRAS specifics.