Faculty and Staff Proposal Submission FAQs

No. If you have a University of Idaho username and password (NetID), you already have access to log in.

To request an account, login to VERAS at veras.uidaho.edu and provide your login name, last name, first name, email address, and select your department(s). You will receive an email from veras@imedris.net when your account request has been approved.

Use the same username and password that you use to log in to VandalWeb to report your timecard. Typically, your username is the first part of your university email address. Note that, like VandalWeb, if you attempt to log in more than five times using an incorrect username and password combination you will be locked out. Contact the OIT Help Desk to reset your password.

Yes. If you are listed as a PI, Co-PI, Co-Investigator, key personnel, other project staff or departmental editor you will have access to the proposal application in Proposal Assistant under the link View My Proposals.

Co-PIs, editors and Office of Sponsored Programs personnel are able to view your proposal in VERAS as soon as the person entering the proposal selects Save and Continue. Please note if you are not a PI/Co-PI and need to be able to view the proposal later, please be sure to set yourself as an editor. You do not have to submit the proposal for your Co-PIs or editors to view and edit the proposal.

The Percent Effort field should accurately reflect the percentage of your entire university appointment that you expect to devote to this specific project over the life of the project.

Collaborators from other institutions should not be listed as Co-PIs, instead they should be added as a subrecipient or collaborator in the Subrecipients, Service Agreements, Consultants, and Collaborators section of your proposal application. For Grants.gov submissions the requested funding will also be entered into the detailed budget format, question ‘5. Subawards/Consortium/Contractual Costs’. When in doubt, check with your Sponsored Programs Administrator for assistance.

The Financial Disclosure forms are now submitted in VERAS. Once your proposal for funding is initiated in VERAS, your Sponsored Program Administrator will provide instructions for the steps to take to complete the process.

No. Any document type can be uploaded to VERAS. If you have trouble with document compatibility please contact OSP right away.

If you have personnel in your college or department who review budgets and proposal content, you must add them in section 2.5 of the VERAS proposal application so they have access to the application. OSP will be able to view your proposal, but depending on college guidelines, we may not begin reviewing the proposal unless/until your departmental grant personnel have left correspondence in VERAS indicating the proposal content has been reviewed and approved.

No, VERAS is only for internal routing and approvals and does not submit the proposal to external sponsors other than Grants.gov submissions. A PDF file of the entire Research.gov proposal may be uploaded to the Proposal Documents section of the VERAS proposal application. Your Sponsored Programs Administrator will upload the final version of the proposal file once it has been electronically submitted.

Remember, unless your sponsor uses a system that requires electronic signature by the Authorized Organizational Representative, the PI is responsible for submitting the proposal to the agency via hard copy, email or electronic system after the OSP director has signed off.

Submission through Grants.gov is integrated into VERAS and Cayuse424 is no longer utilized.

VERAS builds and entire record of the proposal from inception to close-out that is accessible to all parties involved with the proposal, including the PI, Co-PIs, editors, department chairs, deans, directors, etc. This correspondence record, combined with the electronic signature log, brings transparency to the entire proposal submission process for all parties.

Department chairs, deans and institute directors have the option to set a proxy to approve proposals in the event of their absence. If an emergency arises and the department chair, institute director or dean forgets to set a proxy, OSP has the ability to set a temporary proxy. 

If a department chair, institute director or dean is going to be away, but still wishes to review and approve proposals, he or she may choose to do so. All that is needed is an internet connection to sign in and review proposals.

When all appropriate parties and OSP have signed the proposal, an email is sent to the PI, Co-PIs, Sponsored Programs Administrator and editors.

The email will indicate either: a.) that the PI may now submit the proposal, if it is being submitted directly to the agency by the PI on the agency submission site, via email or in hardcopy format, or b) that your Sponsored Programs Administrator will submit the proposal, if the proposal needs to be submitted through an electronic portal that requires an Authorized Organizational Representative login (e.g.,. Grants.gov, FastLane, FedConnect).

General questions on the system can directed to your Sponsored Programs Administrator.

We are actively soliciting feedback for how we can make this process as useful as possible for faculty and staff and will continue to work to make improvements per faculty and staff suggestions. If you find a bug in the system, or if you have an idea for how to make it better or more user-friendly, please email osp-web@uidaho.edu.