One KU Training Grants & Fellowships: user guide

How to set up, enter data, keep it verified, and produce NIH training data tables for T32 and other institutional training grants, NIH F-series fellowships, and NSF GRFP.

1. Logging in

1. Open the link you were given in any current browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox).
2. Sign in with the username and password you were sent. You land on the Training Grants dashboard.

The demo site runs from a single computer, so it's available only while that computer is running it. Its link changes each time it restarts: if the page doesn't load, ask the person who sent it for the current link. Everything in this copy is fictional sample data, so explore freely. Nothing you change affects real records.

2. Finding your way around

The tabs in the blue header take you everywhere. The tab you're on is underlined in crimson.

On any list you can search (box at the top), filter (panel on the right), sort (click a column heading), and act on several rows at once (tick them, then choose an action). People, programs, awards, appointments, applications, and program memberships can also be filtered by campus. At the top right, the circle icon switches between light and dark mode, and Log out ends your session.

3. Accounts and roles

Only the administrator can add people. Go to Records → Users → Add user, set a username and password, then on the next screen tick Staff status (required to log in) and add the person to one or more groups:

Sessions end when the browser closes and after eight hours.

4. Entering records

Records point to other records, so add them in this order. If a drop-down doesn't have what you need, the green + beside it creates that record without leaving the page.

A person's page

• Academic department or program is where the person trains or teaches. HR / payroll department is the Workday cost center. They often differ, and the tables only ever use the academic one.
• Use the campus ID, eRA Commons ID, and ORCID. The app never stores Social Security numbers.
• Degrees drive time to degree and "in training" on Table 8. Mark in-progress degrees as In progress.
• Positions are jobs. The first job after training is the Table 8 initial position; the job with no end date is the current position. Set the sector and principal activity, which are NIH's own codes.
• Mentors need a kind (primary, co-mentor, committee), a level, and dates. Tables print up to two mentors.
• Support records cover funding other than this program's own training grant (appointments count automatically). Pick NIH's source and type codes, for example Univ + RA, or NIH/HHS + F linked to the F31 award.

A program's page

Program faculty rows give each faculty member's training role (PD/PI, Preceptor, Exec. Comm., Other Comm., Other), department, and research interest. A person can hold up to three roles. Program memberships list every trainee clearly associated with the program, appointed or not, with entry and exit dates, status, research topic, and the academic department they train in.

An award's page

Add budget periods for each year: dates, direct costs, and for training grants the predoctoral, postdoctoral, and short-term slots. Add roles for the PD/PI, multiple PIs, project leads, and training faculty. For a subaward, a component or core, or an agreed multi-PI split, put the amount the person actually controls in Allocated direct costs. Table 4 uses it instead of dividing the award evenly. When sources disagree on money, use the Notice of Award.

5. Importing from Excel

Ready-made workbooks for every record type are on the Templates page (link in the header), listed in the order to fill them. Each one has the right columns, a note on every column heading (hover over it in Excel), dropdowns for columns with fixed choices, and an Instructions sheet.

1. Download the template for the record type from Templates. To update records you already have, use the Export button on that list instead and choose xlsx: it comes with their current values and ids.
2. Fill in your rows. Leave the id column blank for new records; keep it for rows you're updating.
3. Click Import, choose the file, set Format to xlsx, and click Submit.
4. Check the preview. It shows each row as new, updated, skipped, or in error. Nothing is saved yet.
5. Click Confirm import. If any row fails, nothing is saved, so fix the file and try again.

6. Sources and verification

Every record has a collapsed Source and verification section. It is how the app answers "where did this number come from?"

When two sources disagree, keep both records, mark the one you trust Verified, and point the other's Superseded by at it. Every list can be filtered by verification status and by source.

7. Appointments and compliance

An appointment puts a trainee in a slot on one budget year of a training grant. It has to fall inside that budget year, and the app won't save one for a trainee whose eligibility determination is Not eligible.

1. Record the appointment with its level, dates, stipend, and tuition.
2. When you submit the Statement of Appointment in xTrain, enter the 2271 submitted date.
3. When the appointment ends, file the Termination Notice and enter the 416-7 submitted date.
4. For a postdoc's first 12 months, tick Payback required and enter the date the PHS 6031 payback agreement was signed.

Eligibility

Citizenship is kept apart from the decision. Citizenship (evidence) records what the source says and Evidence says what it rests on (Workday field, I-551 seen, self-report). NIH eligibility determination is the call a person makes: Pending, Eligible, or Not eligible, with who made it and when. Only the Eligibility group sees this section.

8. Fellowships (F-series and GRFP)

Fellowship applications are records like any other, under Records → Applications. The Fellowships tab summarizes them (see section 9).

1. Create the application: mechanism, the applicant, cycle (for example 2026-12, or GRFP 2026), due date, and status.
2. Add the sponsor, co-sponsor, and referees. Enter each letter's received date: the Fellowships tab counts outstanding letters for deadlines in the next 60 days.
3. After review, add the review result (NIH impact score, study section, dates) or ratings (GRFP: Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts from each reviewer).
4. Set the outcome: Awarded, Honorable mention (GRFP only), Not discussed, or Not funded.
5. For an A1, create a new application with kind Resubmission and point Resubmission of at the A0. The history stays linked.
6. When funded, create the award and link it on the application. For GRFP, record tenure, reserve, and deferral years as fellowship status events on the award.

9. The dashboards

Training grants and fellowships each have their own tab, so the two never mix. On both, Show at the top narrows the numbers and charts to one campus (KU Lawrence or KUMC) or one program. Hover over a chart for values, or open Show as table for the numbers. Academic years run July to June and appear on charts as, for example, 17–18.

Training Grants

How KU compares

Near the bottom of each tab, How KU compares sets KU's NIH awards against peer universities, using public NIH RePORTER data: T32s on the Training Grants tab, F-series fellowships on the Fellowships tab. Choose KU and KUMC together or either campus, the peers to compare with (KBOR peers, KU's AAUDE comparison group, or both), whether to count only peers with a medical school, and the period. The charts show awards per fiscal year against each group's average, the NIH institutes that fund them, and where KU ranks. Averages are per institution. Peer lists come from KU AIRE's comparison groups (the KBOR list was approved in October 2013); each institution is counted under its RePORTER organization names, listed in grants/peers.json. The administrator refreshes the data with uv run python manage.py load_benchmarks.

Fellowships

Needs attention

Each dashboard ends with its own checks. Anything listed links to the record to fix.

10. NIH training tables

1. Open NIH Tables, choose the program, New or Renewal / revision, and the Data as of date.
2. Click Build tables. The app includes exactly the tables NIH requires for that application type and the program's training levels.
3. Read them on screen. Anything wrong goes back to the record it came from; fix it and build again.
4. Download Word (NIH format) gives a landscape document with a List of Data Tables first page and each table on its own page. Save it as PDF from Word for upload, or use Print or save as PDF. Each table also has its own Word and CSV link.
5. When you submit, click Save snapshot of what was submitted and pick the application. Snapshots never change, even as the records do. Record who reviewed Tables 1 and 6 on the snapshot under Records → Table snapshots.

Where each table's numbers come from

10a. Pull & Compare

Table 5 needs every trainee's publications and Table 4 every faculty member's research support. Pull & Compare gathers both from outside sources, lines them up against the records, and lets you accept what belongs. Nothing reaches a table until someone accepts it.

1. Choose the campus or program in Show, then click Pull. It runs in the background; the page updates as it goes.
2. Needs a decision lists what the sources found that the records don't have. A check in several source columns, an ORCID match, or the mentor as a co-author makes a match more likely to be the right person. One source alone, a paper outside the training years, or an unfamiliar journal deserves a closer look.
3. Accept creates the publication and authorship (or the award, its current budget year, and the role), with the sources recorded and marked Verified when two or more agreed. Reject hides a wrong match for good. Accept everything two or more sources agree on does the easy ones at once.
4. In the records, not found by any source lists records no source confirmed: check them, or the person's name and ORCID.

Adding a person's ORCID to their record makes every search sharper. Viewers can see comparisons but not change records. In this demo the sources are simulated from the fictional records.

11. Data handling

• The database is one file, training_grants.sqlite3, in the TrainingGrantsData folder in your home folder. Back it up by copying that folder while the app is closed.
• Keep it on KU-approved storage only. Don't put it on OneDrive, Dropbox, or a shared network drive for several people to use at once: that corrupts it.
• Citizenship is visible only to the Eligibility group, and it never appears in the tables, exports of other records, or snapshots.
• For a team to share one database, the app moves to a KU-hosted server with KU sign-on. That needs KU IT.

12. Troubleshooting

13. Glossary