Projects, budgets and charge accounts

There are significant changes as to how resources are requested within the client portal. More information on the changes can be found at:
Client Portal, MyOSC, documentation
"Ohio Academic Fee Model FAQ" section on our service costs webpage

OSC client portal allows users to manage their projects.

Creating a new project

If you already have a project with OSC and want to re-use that project code, please proceed to the budget section of this documentation.

Any user with the Primary Investigator (PI) role can request a new project in the client portal. Using the navigation bar, select Project, Create a new project. Fill in the required information. See more details on these options below.

The pricing implications for requesting a new project should be understood before continuing.

    Once the project is created, you need to add authorized users, including yourself, to access the project, i.e. HPC resources.

    Project types

    Depending on the project type selected here, it will alter how budgets are approved.

    The project types academic, commercial, and government/non-profit projects will use the approval process set up by the institution of the PI requesting the project. This could involve waiting on a fiscal approver to review the request, or having the request automatically approved.

    The classroom project type will be routed to OSC staff for approval since all usage under a classroom project is fully discounted so that no charges are incurred by the PI. Remember that a syllabus is required for classroom projects to be approved.

    Charge accounts

    A PI can choose to create a new charge account or select an existing one when creating a new project. The PI will not be able to select anyone else as the owner. If a different owner is needed, please contact OSC Help. Note, the owner of the charge account can request changes to the project(s) under the charge account, including closure.

    See "Charge accounts overview" section near the bottom of this page for more information on creating a new charge account.

    Use the drop-down box to select an existing charge account. If there is a credit already added to an existing charge account, then the text '(credit: <dollar-amount>)' will show next to the charge account name.

    For PI associated with Ohio academic institutions, the annual Ohio academic credit of $1,000 will be added automatically to the charge account selected here, if the credit has not already been added. The credit will be added after the first budget of the fiscal year is approved.

    The charge account is important because it is used for credits (such as the annual credit available to Ohio Academics). Many projects can be grouped under a single charge account, which also means many projects can take advantage of that charge account's credits as well.

    The $1,000 annual billing credit for Ohio academic PIs is allocated once on a fiscal year basis.

    Special properties

    Special properties can currently only be added by OSC staff.

    If the project will contain sensitive data such as PHI (HIPAA related), ITAR, etc, then contact OSC to use the protected data service which provides controls to keep data secure.

    Misc fields

    • Project title
    • Field of science

    Creating a budget

    After entering the required information on the project creation page, a budget can be created.

    For projects that are already created, head to the project details page and click the Create new budget button, and go through the budget creation process again.

    Budgets are used to constrain spending in a fiscal year, but bills are based on service type and utilization. Budgets can be replaced at any time.

    Video Tutorial

    Timeframe

    First, select the timeframe that the budget should be created for.

    The timeframe can either be for this fiscal year or the next fiscal year.

    A fiscal year is from July 1st to June 30th the next calendar year.

    Budget type

    There are two types of available budgets, limited and unlimited.

    Limited budgets are used for projects that want to put a maximum on the charges that can be incurred. This is useful for a PI that creates a new project, receives the $1,000 annual credit, then sets a limited budget of $1,000.

    Unlimited budgets are for projects that will not have a spending limit.

    To create a limited budget, answer yes to 'Do you want to set a dollar budget?'. For an unlimited budget, select no.

    If you have a restricted project you want to re-use, you would submit the budget request under that project code.

    Org Fiscal Reference text field and checkbox

    There are two fields that may need to be filled in.

    The Org Fiscal Reference is an internal accounting field for the project's organization.

    For e.g. At The Ohio State University, a PI should enter the cost center information here. At Case Western Reserve University, a PI should enter the speedtype information here.

    The Fiscal Approval checkbox is an option displayed for a PI that can automatically activate a budget without requiring review. It has the PI declare that they have already been approved for spending at OSC.

    Submit budget review or activating budget

    After filling in budget information, the next page will be different depending on whether the PI's institution has set up a review process at OSC.

    If the institution allows PIs to activate their own budget, the PI simply clicks Activate Budget, then the project and budget are both set to active.

    If the institution requires a review of the budget, an email will be sent to reviewers. Once the reviewers decide on approving, partially approving (an amount different than the PI's request), or rejecting, the PI will receive a notification of the response.

    Storage request

    Storage can be requested from the project details page. Look for the button request storage change.

    The difference between different storage at OSC is described in available file systems.

    Storage does have a cost associated with it per TB requested. Once the storage space is created it is considered permanent and it will continue to accrue charges, even if the budget has been depleted and the project is restricted.
    Please contact oschelp@osc.edu to request that project storage be removed and no longer charged for.

    Managing projects

    Projects that have been created should be managed periodically.

    View all projects

    To view all projects, even those not submitted for approval and still waiting on approval, navigate to Project, Project List.

    View Budgets

    Go to the project details page and select the Budgets button to view current and past budgets.

    Charge accounts overview

    Create a new charge account

    PI's can create a charge account, which allows them to group projects together under that charge account.

    To create a new charge account, select from navigation bar Charge account, then Create new charge account or select Project, then create new project and leave charge account selection at Generate a new charge account.

    See information on the fields below.

    Parent charge account

    Every charge account created by a PI must have a parent. Either enter the name of the parent if it is known, or clear the parent charge account selection, then click the button View hierarchy, then Collapse all, to show the available parent charge account options.

    With the hierarchy view shown, look for the correct parent charge account. For most academic PI's, there may be a "<institution> top-level" charge account that can be selected. There may also be colleges and department charge accounts under the colleges. Select the correct charge account based on your current position.

    In the hierarchy view, only charge accounts showing "PI_AVAILABLE" can be selected as a parent. This can be seen as a suffix to the charge account name listed.

    Contact

    Leave the contact as your own user account.

    Display name

    The title of the charge account being created. Can be useful to provide a summary name for the types of projects that will be created under the charge account.

    e.g. Creating a charge account to group projects which all use the same funding, or to group projects where the results are all related.

    Submit or save for later

    Click the submit button to create the new charge account or save for later button to come back to the charge account later.

    View credits

    Credits can be viewed at Charge account, then Charge account list.

    This will display all charge accounts created by you, and a column for "Total dollars given", which is the total credit available for that charge account.

    Questions on what is a budget? What is the credit?

    Please see service terms for further explanations or contact oschelp@osc.edu

    Service: 
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