Effort Approval and Reporting System (EARS)

Research organizations can meet NIH requirements for Time and Effort Approval using ALE EARS (Effort Approval & Reporting System).  Think of it as an internet hosted dialogue between Administration and Lab/PI. 

Every month a snapshot is taken of applicable data. This snapshot is stored as raw data, a web page and a Adobe PDF file (available if you want to do e-mail based approvals). 

The department head (or PI) can login to the secure ALE Web Reporting site to view available reports (below). When a report is selected, the detail screen (above) is displayed. The top half displays the web report snapshot and the bottom requests comments and approval of the report displayed on the top half. Administration can easily view report status and see what actions are required using the EARS administration form.

This system can be extended. For example, in addition to just gathering approvals, EARS can also request the hours worked by hourly employees.

AL Web Approvals can be added to your existing web infrastructure. If you do not have a secure mechanism for delivering data via the web, this system can act as a stand-alone or even host additional reports.