SAFE Overview

• What should NOT be Recorded in SAFE?

SAFE Terms and Concepts

• Activity Types
• Funding Sources
• Opportunity Types
• Roles and Functions

Getting Started

• SAFE Navigation Basics
• Requesting Access to SAFE
• Logging In
• Who to Call When You Need Help
• Before Starting Checklist
• Activity Type Descriptions

For Funding Office Managers

• Creating a Funding Opportunity

For Funding Opportunity Administrators

• Searching for Funding Opportunities
• Completing Entry of a Student-Initiated Opportunity
• Administrators for this Opportunity
• Fund Information Fields
• Basic Eligibility Criteria Fields
• Funding Sources for Direct Payments and Department Transfers
• Application Cycles
  • Adding application cycles
  • About project locking
• Entering and Awarding Funder-Initiated Opportunities
• Allowing a Student to Apply Post-Deadline
• Viewing Project Applications
  • Printing Project Applications
  • Converting Applications to PDF Documents
• Awarding Funding for a Student-Initiated Opportunity
• Paying Awards
• Saving, Deleting and Reversing Payments
• Viewing Post-Project Information

FYI: How SAFE Works for Students

• What Can Students Do in SAFE?
• How Does a Student Find Funding and Start a Project?
• Completing an Application for Funding
  • Tip about project start/end dates
• Viewing Projects
• Changing a Project
• Uploading Receipts 

Glossary

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SAFE Overview

The Student Activities Funding Engine (SAFE) is a system designed to make it easy to manage and find funding for various student activities, such as undergraduate senior thesis research, summer study abroad, internships, and independent work as well as graduate research, internships, and conferences. In some cases, a funding office may make awards outside of SAFE but report them to SAFE to allow for effective stewardship of funds and to track a student’s current and past funding. In most cases, though, funding offices will set up funding opportunities to which students can apply through SAFE, to support activities and projects that the students have identified. A student may search for any funding opportunity for which he or she is eligible. 

The system allows funders to identify and post opportunities, review student applications, approve and award funds, and notify applicants. SAFE funding administrators can directly authorize the release of funds within SAFE, in addition to tracking the applicants and allocation of funds in SAFE.

Active students, as well as students who are on leave, and student groups are able to search, view, and apply for funding opportunities, create student-initiated projects and request funding for them, receive notifications via email, and accept an award after reviewing any terms and conditions associated with it. Students will receive payments and complete the project outside of the SAFE funding portal, but can upload receipts in SAFE.

SAFE is a web-based system that can be accessed from any location, using your Princeton netID and password to authenticate.

What should NOT be Recorded in SAFE?

The following activities and funds should not be entered in SAFE:

• Prizes to recognize achievement
• Salary (including casual hourly appointments, paid internships and fellowships)
• Financial Aid and Work/Study funds
• Financial assistance, including emergency assistance or hardship funding
• Payments that are entirely external to the University (never touching University accounts or administered by University departments; for example – funding provided by family; raised by the student via fundraisers; completely external support such as Rotary Club, or another philanthropic/non-profit organization; direct internship payment from hosting organization)
• Purchases of equipment that will be used by the student but remain the property of the department (including reimbursements to students who purchase materials that are considered to be department property).

Activity Types

Activity types that can be managed in SAFE include

• undergraduate Summer Study Abroad

This category refers to enrollment in a structured academic program of study. The program of study may include language study and/or discipline-based courses. Individual guidelines and restrictions may apply.

• undergraduate Senior Thesis Research

This category refers to funding available for students to conduct research directly related to their senior thesis; individual guidelines and restrictions may apply.

• undergraduate Independent Projects

This category includes Junior Independent Work, counted as such by the student’s department, as well as academic, co-curricular or extra-curricular independent work that does not fall into any of the three categories above. This may include an individual student’s travel to a scholarly conference, participation in a competition, attendance at an event that is relevant to the student’s academic pursuits, and similar types of activities. This does not include travel simply for the same of tourism or other activities that have no relevance to the student’s work and studies at Princeton. Because of the fluid and open nature of this category, funding opportunities in this group normally do not have a set deadline and applications are normally accepted on a rolling basis. For this reason, this is the only category in which a student’s application locks at the time of submission.

• undergraduate Internships

This category refers to up to 12 week, non-credit bearing opportunities, either pre-arranged specifically for Princeton students or initiated by the student, that allow undergraduates to participate in planned, supervised work that allow them to explore and/or inform their careers, academics, and/or extracurricular interests. The majority of internships occur during the summer. Most pre-arranged internships provide funding to offset travel, living, and/or project costs. In some cases, a funding opportunity may "top off" or provide additional funds in addition to any salary received but salary itself is not processed through SAFE.

• undergraduate and graduate Group projects on and off campus (competitions, performances, service projects, speakers, sponsored lectures, parties, approved fundraisers, performances and special events)

On campus events or off campus projects that are planned by members of an student organization or by a group of students who are not part of a student organization. The events could include speakers, social events, service projects, travel to conferences, etc.

• graduate Research

Graduate Research funding supports graduate students' activities relating to their independent research or to meet the requirements of their degree. The scope of expenses covered may include, but is not limited to, language study, research-related courses, archival research, travel, equipment, purchase of materials and supplies, or other expenses required for research.

• graduate Internships

Graduate internship funding supports graduate students who are attending a conference/meeting or presenting their scholarly work at a conference/meeting. The presentation of scholarly work may be in a variety of formats including a paper, performance or project. Expenses may include registration fees or travel costs.

• graduate Conferences

Graduate conference funding supports the acquisition of professional skills or practical training at a corporation or organization. Internships may include teaching opportunities at another institution.

Funding Sources

If an opportunity is funded from any of the following sources, it should be included in SAFE.

• Dedicated university funds
• General university funding used to support undergraduate and graduate student activities
• Grant funding used to support student activities
• External funds (such as alumni clubs) that are managed and allocated by University departments
• Gift and restricted endowment/gift funds dedicated to particular relevant purposes
• Unspent prize money that has been reallocated to support student activities

For a list of activities and funding sources not included in SAFE, see”What should NOT be Recorded in SAFE.”

Opportunity Types

Funding Opportunities may be student-initiated, funder-initiated, or a hybrid of the two.

• Student/group-Initiated opportunities occur when a student or group finds his/her/its own opportunity (internship, summer study abroad program, senior thesis research project, independent project, group event on campus, group project off campus) and asks one or more offices/programs to provide financial support.
• Funder-Initiated/Group Funder-Initiated opportunities occur when a student or group is accepted into a particular activity directly by the funding office. This might include a department or program sponsored internship or special project for which the student or group applies. The funding opportunity and application process is managed outside of the SAFE portal, and only entered in SAFE when the funding has been awarded to the student or group.
• Hybrid opportunities occur when a SAFE record is initiated and awarded by the funding office for a funder-initiated opportunity, but the activity is only partially funded, and the funding office allows the student to seek additional support from other sources.

Student Initiated and Group Initiated Opportunity Process

1. Funding offices create student-initiated or group-initiated funding opportunities in SAFE.
   • Note: Student-initiated and group-initiated opportunities will be visible when students or groups search for funding in SAFE.
2. The student or group representative searches for and selects funding opportunities to which s/he will apply.
3. The student or group representative creates a project (entering information about the specific activity into the system).
4. The student or group representative completes and submits an application specific to the activity type and funding opportunity.
5. When necessary, the student or group representative provides additional opportunity-specific materials to the relevant funding office.
6. Funds are allocated on a preliminary and final basis from one or more funding opportunities.
   • Note: All Funding Offices receiving the request can see each other’s allocations to that student or group for that activity.

Funder Initiated Opportunity Process

1. The funding office manages student applications outside of SAFE, but creates the opportunity in SAFE as a Funder-Initiated opportunity.
2. When the funding has been awarded, the funding office enters the award in SAFE by clicking the Award funding action on the My Opportunities list, and then entering the student’s name, the project title, the location and dates of activity, the amount awarded, the award status, and the deadline by which the student must accept the award.
   • Note: It is important to review the student's project history by clicking on their name in the projects list. Verify that none of the other student's "current projects" are the same as the one for which you are going to award funding. If there is already an existing project, you will need to correspond with the student about duplicate projects. The student may only have one application for the same activity. He/she must either apply to your funding opportunity with another project or apply to the other funders with the project you are viewing. Duplicate projects can cause confusion among funders and is not permitted. 
3. The funding office notes if the activity is fully funded (the student is not allowed to seek additional funding from other sources) or if the student is allowed to seek additional funding in support of this activity. If the activity is not fully funded, and the student is allowed to seek additional support, this becomes a hybrid record.

"Hybrid" of Student and Funder Initiated Process

1. The funding office creates the opportunity and awards funding as in funder-initiated opportunities.
2. The student is notified via e-mail that s/he has been awarded funding from the originating Funding Office and that s/he is eligible to apply for additional support from other sources.
3. The student can open the record initiated by the Funding Office and resubmit it as a student-initiated request, with pre-populated information. The process continues as a standard Student Initiated request.

Roles and Functions

What you can do in the SAFE portal depends on what role you are assigned. The following lists all the possible administrative roles in SAFE.

Super User

• Creates and maintains funding offices, and assigns funding office managers
• Creates and maintains activity types, and assigns activity type administrators
• Creates and maintains country groups

Designated Staff: Beth Zawodniak

Activity Type Manager

• Brings activity type funding offices together to determine type-specific questions, requirements and criteria.
• Makes changes to the activity type as needed after initial setup.
• Brings new funding offices to the attention of the Super Users. 

Funding Office Manager (FOM)

• Creates funding opportunities and assigns the funding opportunity administrators (FOA).
• Gives access to FOAs.
• Trains new FOAs.
• May identify a proxy.

Designated Staff: Academic Manager or Undergraduate Administrator or their designee in the Department. In some offices, the FOM and the FOA may be the same person.

Funding Office Administrator (FOA)

• Enters the specifics for the funding opportunity.
• Reviews applications for the funding opportunity, and approves advisors and department representatives.
• Awards funding, preliminary & final.
• Verifies that the student has complied with applicable requirements (i.e. travel registration; travel waiver; IRB approval; etc) before awards are paid.
• Corresponds with applicants as needed.
• Updates award amounts, if necessary.
• Uploads funder-initiated information to SAFE.
• When the student’s project is complete, the FOA reviews the uploaded receipts (if the funding office requires them)

Designated Staff: Undergraduate Administrator or multiple individuals in each department

Dep Rep (for Sr. Thesis Research)

• Answers questions about the student’s readiness and preparedness to carry out the project in SAFE. They will receive a link to the site in an email.

Designated Staff: Departmental Representative, pre-populated in SAFE for each department.

Recommender (for u/g study abroad, u/g independent work, and some graduate funding opportunities)

• Assesses the student’s academic motivation, abilities, and personal strengths in SAFE. They will receive a link to the site in an email. Recommenders may enter text or upload a letter.

Designated Staff: Usually a staff or faculty member or graduate student lecturer or AI designated by the student on the project application.

Adviser

• For undergraduate Sr. Thesis Research--Answers questions about the student’s readiness and preparedness to carry out their Senior Thesis Research project in SAFE. Advisers will receive a link to the site in an email.
• For graduate Research and Conferences--SAFE will send an automatic notification to the student's departmental administrator upon acceptance of an award. Students may indicate additional Princeton University faculty or staff members to be notified at that time as well.
• For graduate Internships--SAFE will send an automatic notification to the student's departmental administrator upon acceptance of an award. Students may indicate additional Princeton University faculty or staff members to be notified at that time as well. Also, Adviser approval of internship plans is required. Advisers will be notified upon the student's application submission. The adviser will be prompted to review the project and approve/disapprove of the plans.

Designated Staff: Must be a currently active (not on leave) Princeton faculty member, designated by the student on the project application.

Reviewer (for all activity types)

Reviewers are Princeton faculty or staff who may serve on an application review committee or who need to be able to see and review applications for a given funding opportunity. Reviewers can be added at the time the funding opportunity is created or modified. Reviewers cannot award or recommend funding or make comments within SAFE. They will receive an email notification with a link to the applications they are eligible to review in SAFE.

Note: FOAs and FOMs need not be added as reviewers. They can already review applications. The reviewer role is to provide access to those who would otherwise not be able to view applications in SAFE.

Individuals who do not have a valid Princeton netid may not be entered as reviewers in SAFE. If applications for a given funding opportunity must be reviewed by individuals who are external to Princeton, the applications may be captured as pdfs and printed or emailed to the external reviewers.

Designated Staff: Must be a Princeton faculty or staff member with a valid Princeton netid.

SAFE Navigation Basics

SAFE is a web-based system accessed through a URL in your browser (www.princeton.edu/studentfunding/). You will be required to authenticate through CAS by entering your netID and password.

When SAFE opens, you will see the Home page, which includes several modules:

• What do you want to do? Lists the activities that you are authorized to perform. Note: your authorized activities may differ from other users'. 
• User Preferences-- Allows you to indicate whether you do or do not want to receive e-mail notifications
• Your Messages--Lists e-mail messages you have received. If you click on a message, the content of the message is displayed below the message list. In addition to being stored in the SAFE message portal, SAFE messages are, by default, sent to users' Princeton email account. Users may uncheck the "receive email messages" box if they do not want SAFE messages to be sent to their Princeton email account.

Across the top of the page are tabs. The tabs you see vary, depending on your role in the system. They may include Opportunities, Projects, Recommendations, or Evaluations. From the Home page, you can access an activity by clicking on the link in the What do you want to do? module, or by clicking on a tab.

Requesting Access to SAFE

The Student Activity Systems Manager will initially set up all Funding Office Managers in SAFE and will notify FOMs once they have been given access. If your funding office has not been given access, please contact [email protected] and be ready to identify your Funding Office name and Funding Office Manager. Funding Opportunity Administrators should be given access to their opportunity by the Funding Office Manager.

Logging In

To log into SAFE,

1. Enter the URL www.princeton.edu/studentfunding/ in your web browser.
2. On the CAS login page, enter your netID and password.
3. Click the Login button or press the Enter key to log in.
4. The SAFE home page is displayed.

Who to Call for Help

The Help Desk (dial 8-HELP, and select option 3) should always be your first point of contact if you have a problem in SAFE. They can take any information about your issue, and if they cannot resolve the issue themselves, they will contact the designated person for escalation of the issue. You may also contact [email protected].

"Before You Begin" Checklist

Before entering any information into the SAFE system, it is best to understand your opportunities and potential candidate criteria. Included in this section are a series of questions and answers to help you plan for using SAFE.

For each of your opportunities, make sure you know the answers to the following questions:

1. Which activity type(s) does this opportunity fall under? A funding opportunity may be appropriate for more than one (or all) activity types. In this case a separate funding opportunity should be created for each type of activity.
2. Is the opportunity funder-initiated or student-initiated?
3. Is there a restriction on the destination, duration or timing of the activity?
4. Is the opportunity restricted to one or more concentrations?
5. Is the opportunity restricted to students in a certain class year, degree level or those pursuing a specific certificate?
6. Is this opportunity restricted to students in a particular residential college?
7. Are there online forms, instructions, expense guidelines, or a website URL where students will find important information about the opportunity? You will be able to copy and paste these URLs into the funding opportunity form in SAFE. 

Tip! Make your opportunity criteria as least-restrictive as possible. The more narrow your criteria, the fewer students will see it and be able to apply for it.

Activity Type Descriptions

Undergraduate Senior Thesis Research Funding 

This category refers to funding available for undergraduate students to conduct research directly related to their senior thesis. Department-specific guidelines and restrictions may apply. 

Undergraduate Internships

This category refers to up to 12 week, non-credit bearing opportunities, either pre-arranged specifically for Princeton students or initiated by the student, that allow undergraduates to participate in planned, supervised work that allow them to explore and/or inform their careers, academics, and/or extracurricular interests. The majority of undergraduate internships occur during the summer. Most pre-arranged internships provide funding to offset travel, living, and/or project costs. In some cases, a funding opportunity may "top off" or provide additional funds in addition to any salary received but salary itself is not processed through SAFE.  

Undergraduate Summer Study Abroad 

This category refers to enrollment in a structured academic program of study. The program of study may include language study and/or discipline-based courses. Departmental guidelines and restrictions may apply.

Undergraduate Independent Work

This category includes Junior Independent Work, counted as such by the student’s department, as well as academic, co-curricular or extra-curricular independent work that does not fall into any of the three categories above. This may include an individual undergraduate student’s travel to a scholarly conference, participation in a competition, attendance at an event that is relevant to the student’s academic pursuits, and similar types of activities. This does not include travel simply for the sake of tourism or other activities that have no relevance to the student’s work and studies at Princeton. Because of the fluid and open nature of this category, funding opportunities in this group normally do not have a set deadline and applications are normally accepted on a rolling basis.

Undergraduate Group Event On-Campus
This category is used when funding is available for undergraduate group-sponsored on-campus events, including speakers, lectures, parties, approved fundraisers, performances. Student groups, clubs/organizations search and apply for funding by logging in to SAFE with their group's net id.

Undergraduate Group Project Off-Campus

This activity type is used when funding is available to support undergraduate group travel to attend a conference, competition, performance or similar event for academic purposes. This may also include group extracurricular travel, including service trips.

Graduate Research

Funding to support graduate students’ activities relating to their independent research or to meet the requirements of their degree. The scope of expenses covered may include, but is not limited to, language study, research-related courses, archival research, travel, equipment, purchase of materials and supplies, or other expenses required for research.

Graduate Conferences

Funding to support graduate students who are attending a conference/meeting or presenting their scholarly work at a conference/meeting. The presentation of scholarly work may be in a variety of formats including a paper, performance or project. Expenses may include registration fees or travel costs.
 
Internships

Funding to support the acquisition of professional skills or practical training at a corporation or organization. Internships may include teaching opportunities at another institution.
 

Graduate Group Projects and Events

On campus and off campus projects and events that are planned by members of a graduate student organization or by a group of students who are not part of a graduate student organization. The projects and events vary in nature such as trips, guest speaker talks, and social events.
 

Tip! If you would fund a project of any activity type, create a funding opportunity for each type. This way, students will find it regardless of their projects activity type.

What is a Funding Office Manager?

The Funding Office Manager (FOM) creates the funding opportunity by giving it a title, and then assigns it to a Funding Opportunity Administrator (FOA). The FOM can also complete other fields, but the assigned FOA will be able to change those values if necessary. In some cases, the FOM and the FOA will be the same person. In this case, the same individual can initiate and complete the creation of a funding opportunity. Funding Office Managers may view all funding opportunities within their funding office.

Creating a Funding Opportunity

1.  Click on the Opportunities tab, or the View Opportunities… link under “What do you want to do?” on the Home page.
2. Click the link for Create a New Opportunity or, to edit or finish creating an opportunity, click on the name of the desired funding opportunity.

   

3. In the Administrators for this Opportunity section, begin typing the name of the Funding Opportunity Administrator to whom you want to assign this opportunity. A list of names that match what you have typed is displayed. You can keep typing until the name you want appears, or scroll through the displayed list to find the name you want.
4. When you select the name, it will appear below the field, with information that helps to identify the person. If this is the correct person, click the Add Administrator button. The person’s name and identifying information will appear above the field with a white X framed in red in front of it. Tip! The red-framed X is your best indicator that the person has been added as the FOA. Note: If you need to remove an administrator you have assigned, click the red-framed X in front of the name you want to remove.
5. Type the title of the funding opportunity in the Title field. This title will appear in student searches, so you will want to make it fairly descriptive.
6. Scroll down and make sure that your desired funding office appears in the Funding Office field.
7. If you are also the Funding Opportunity Administrator, continue with the procedure under Creating a Student-Initiated Opportunity, Fund Information Fields below.
8. Click the Save button to save the funding opportunity and assign it to the specified FOA 

What Do Funding Opportunity Administrators (FOAs) Do?

Funding Opportunity Administrators have the ability to:

• Complete the entry of opportunity details, such as contact information, description, eligibility criteria, and application cycles for all opportunities assigned to them.
• View all project applications for their opportunities and make awards.
• View all opportunities to which a student has ever applied in SAFE, previous awards made, and concurrent applications to other funding opportunities for the same project.
• Export and print information.
• Communicate with other FOAs when a student is applying to multiple funding opportunities for the same project.

Searching for Funding Opportunities

When you have been assigned to a funding opportunity, you will need to complete the information in SAFE for that opportunity. You may also want to find opportunities in SAFE to check for applications, and to enter awards. To search for a funding opportunity:

1. From the SAFE Home page, click the Manage My Opportunities link under "What do you want to do?", or from any page, click the Opportunities tab.
2. On the Search Funding Opportunities page, select your Funding Office and the Activity Type for the funding opportunity for which you are searching, or ALL.
3. Click the Search button.
4. The funding opportunities that match your search criteria will be listed under the Search Results. Click the Name of the opportunity to open the record for that opportunity.

Add Opportunity Administrators and Reviewers

When you are assigned as an administrator for a funding opportunity (FOA), it has technically already been created although you will need to complete the information in SAFE for that opportunity. The required information fields are in red.

You are a funding opportunity administrator for this opportunity. You may add additional FOAs and Reviewers for this opportunity.

• Start typing the name of the Funding Opportunity Administrator or Reviewer to whom you want to add to this opportunity. A list of names that match what you have typed is displayed. You can keep typing until the name you want appears, or scroll through the displayed list to find the name you want.
• Select the desired name from the list that will appear.
• Click the Add Administrator or Add Reviewer button to add the name. When you select the name, it will appear below the field, with information that helps to identify the person. When the name has been added, it appears above the field, with a red-framed X in front of it. This is your best indicator that the name has been added. To remove an administrator, click the red-framed X in front of the name you want to remove.

Fund Information Fields

• Title. The title may have already been entered by the FOM.The title may be edited or changed at any time.

• Short Description. Enter up to 10 characters that can identify this funding opportunity. The Short Description is used only in internal reports to identify the opportunity. Students will not see the short description. 

• Contact Name. Enter the name of the person who should be contacted by a student wishing more information about this funding opportunity. This must be an active Princeton employee.

• Contact Email. Enter the email address of the person specified as the contact.
  Be sure to include the full address, for example, [email protected], not just lean. In most cases, the contact e-mail will match the contact name, unless your office uses a generic email account to handle queries.

• Website URL. If the funding opportunity has a website with more information, enter the URL of that website here. Having a website to which you can send students for additional information is very helpful.

Tip! Make sure the website contains up-to-date information on the application procedures for the funding opportunity. Do NOT link students to an entirely different application procedure.

• Fund Opportunity Description. Provide a description of the funding opportunity. Keep in mind that this should be brief, as students will not see your funding opportunity description unless they already meet qualifying criteria. Lengthy descriptions should be posted to a website URL and linked to the application for reference. The content of this field will appear in the student email.

• Expense Guidelines URL. Enter the URL of the web page that has the expense guidelines for the students applying for this opportunity (if relevant). You can open the guidelines web page in a new window, and copy and paste the URL into the SAFE form.

• Fund Request Initiation Type. Select Student-Initiated if you want students to be able to find this opportunity in a search. See ”Opportunity Types“ for more information on the differences between Student-Initiated and Funder-Initiated opportunities. Note: This field cannot be changed once you have saved the funding opportunity.

• Application Questions. To see the required questions the student will see, click the Sample Project link. The form will be displayed in a new window. Note: The questions and text of accompanying forms will not be visible until after you have selected and saved the activity type for this funding opportunity. You cannot change the questions here. If you need to add additional application questions, you may put them on a website and link to it, or provide instructions at the end of the next section. Please be careful not to duplicate SAFE questions in any of your supplemental questions.

Basic Eligibility Criteria

The values you enter here will determine if and when your opportunity will appear in student searches. The more specific your criteria, the fewer students will see your opportunity in their searches.

• Activity Type. Select the type of activity to which this funding opportunity can be applied. (See “Activity Type Descriptions” for more information.) If you have funding available for more than one type of activity, you will need to create a separate funding opportunity for each activity type. Some funders have 4 opportunities--one for each activity type--for the same pool of money. They are willing to fund any of the 4 activity types and want students to be able to find their opportunity in a search.

Note: This field cannot be changed once you have saved the funding opportunity.

• Funding Amount Restrictions. Select the applicable funding amount restrictions:

No restrictions – the student will be able to apply for additional funding.
Fully Funded – the student will not be able to apply for additional funding.
Fixed – the student will receive only the fixed amount you specify for this opportunity.
Range – the student may receive funds within the range you specify for this opportunity.

Note: If the opportunity is fully funded, the student will not be able to add funding from any other funding opportunities to his/her project. For any other value, the student may add funding to supplement this award from other funding opportunities. 

• Certificates (undergraduate activity types only). Select No Restrictions, or select one or more certificate programs. If you select one or multiple certificate programs, only those students who express an interest in the specified certificate(s) will see your opportunity. If you select one or more certificate programs AND select one or more plans/departments (concentrations) the search will function as EITHER/OR not BOTH/AND. In other words, by clicking on certificate A and department (concentration) B, you are NOT limiting your matching criteria to students who are pursing both certificate A and concentration B, but opening the match criteria to students who are pursuing one or the other.

• Activity Location. Specify any restrictions on the location where the student will perform the activity. You may select multiple locations.

If you select Off Campus (International), you can further restrict the location to a specific country or group of countries.

If you don’t select all locations, only students who specify the location(s) you selected in their search criteria will see this funding opportunity.

Locations may include regions or countries in which a particular language is spoken. Some of these have already been created as options. If you do not see a category you need, please contact the Super Users.

• Time Restrictions. Check each time period when the activity may be performed. You may select multiple time periods. The opportunity will show up only in those searches for which the student specifies the time period(s) you selected. For maximum availability, select all time periods.

• Program (AB, BSE or Undecided)--for undergraduate opportunities only. Check each program for which the opportunity is available. You may select multiple programs. Don’t forget to select Undecided if you want the opportunity to appear for Sophomores or Freshmen.

• Division/Program--for graduate opportunities only. Check the division or program for which the opportunity is available. You may select multiple divisions/programs or select all.

• Plan/ Department (concentration)--for undergraduate opportunities only. Select the departments or plans for which the opportunity is available. You may select multiple plans, or select "All". Selecting All is the least restrictive. Otherwise, only those students in the specified plan or department will see the opportunity in their searches.

• Degree--for graduate opportunities only. Select the degree for which the opportunity is available. You may select multiple degrees or select "no restrictions."

Note: If you have selected ‘Undecided’ for Program and if you list a specific concentration for Plan, your opportunity will appear to freshmen and sophomores who are planning to have a concentration in this field.

• Duration. Check all activity durations that are allowed. Only students who select the same duration you checked will see this opportunity. Duration is presented as a filtering field because some funders will only support activities of a minimum duration.

• Year of Study, DCE/Regular, and Generals Status--for graduate opportunities only. Select criteria for eligibility based on these parameters or select "All" and "no restrictions".

• Residential College. If you restrict funding to students in particular residential colleges click on the relevant college or click "All" if this restriction does not apply to your funding opportunity.

• Other Fund Restrictions (will appear to applicants). Enter any restrictions that you want students to know about. This does not restrict what appears in student searches.

• Instructions to students for post-project activities. Enter any steps students must complete upon finishing their project. For example, all students receiving Senior Thesis Research funding should upload receipts to account for their expenses (so that any unspent funds can be returned to the funding office). Other requirements may include a post-project report, a "thank you" note to the funder (if donor gift funds are used) or documentation of the completed project. Receipts and pdf documents may be loaded by the student directly into SAFE via the "complete my project" action. Please provide specific instructions if students must provide materials to the funder outside of SAFE.

• Additional Application Instructions. Enter instructions for the students who want to apply, if there are application steps outside of the SAFE funding portal. These instructions appear to the applicant when the project proposal is submitted.

• Website Link to Instructions
  If you have a website with instructions for applicants outside of the SAFE portal, enter the URL here. You can test the link to be sure it was entered correctly. The web page will open in a new window.

Funding Sources for Direct Payments and Department Transfers

To pre-populate the drop down menu for funding sources used when PAYING students or transferring money to another University account for group payments, click on “add funding source.” Enter the name of the funding source as you refer to it in your office and/or as you would like students to see it described in their award notifications. (Be sure to click the box here if you would like students to see the name of the funding source. Some departments want students to know the funding source when it is a donor gift, for example.) Complete all remaining fields (department, fund, and program). If you draw from multiple funding sources to pay awards for a given funding opportunity, continue to click on “add funding source” until you have completed the list of potential sources. Save the changes to the opportunity.

 

 

Note: You may add funding sources for this opportunity at any time by editing the opportunity.

Note: As of 7/1/14, any project grants which were associated with a SAFE opportunity were automatically converted to the new chartstring.

Funding for Student Account Credits

You will see an option for Student Account Credits under Funding for Direct Payments. This option should be used ONLY by Princeton departments that offer their own study abroad programs and charge student participants through student accounts.

Funding for External Payments

This section is entirely optional. You may wish to use this if you award funder-initiated funding to students who may also receive some funding directly from outside sources (such as alumni clubs or internship supervisors) and if you would like to track the sources of these outside contributions.

Application Cycles

With SAFE, every opportunity can have unique deadline dates (as permitted by the overall Activity Types. In the case of Senior Thesis Research Funding, specific deadlines have already been defined by the Office of the Dean of the College. See http://www.princeton.edu/odoc/student_funding/ for deadline details). If the Application Cycle fields are not displayed, click the add more cycles link at the bottom of the section.

• Application Period. Enter the start and end date when the students may apply for this funding opportunity. Make sure the application period does not end before the Publishing Period.

Note: Funders can extend the application period to a later date but cannot shorten the application period once it has begun.

About "locking": Students can edit and save changes to their applications before submitting them. After a student submits an application in SAFE, the application "locks". When an application is locked, funders can be sure that it is final and there are not going to be any major changes. In addition, locking triggers notification to recommenders, evaluators and advisers (where applicable) to prompt their review and submission of approval and feedback. Funders should not award projects until they are locked.

• Publishing Period. Enter the start and end date when you want this opportunity to appear in student searches. It’s a good idea to enter a start date for publishing well in advance of the application period. In most cases, you will want to set your start publishing date as the day when you are satisfied that your funding opportunity information is complete and accurate. You may wish to make the end date of the publishing period coincide with the end date of the application period; alternatively, you may set your publishing end date after your application deadline so that when students search, they see your funding opportunity with a note that the application period is past.

• Funding Period. Enter the date range during which your department expects to be completing the review of applications and awarding funding. These dates help students and other funders know when they should expect to see an award from your office.The funding dates are not "enforced" by SAFE; funders can offer and pay awards at any time.

• Cycle Name. Enter a name for the cycle that will identify it internally. When an opportunity is offered in multiple cycles, the Cycle Name helps to identify which opportunity this is, and when it will be awarded.

• Class Year(s)--for undergraduate opportunities only. Select the classes who may apply for this funding opportunity. You may select multiple class years. To select multiple classes, hold the control button while selecting. Keep in mind that if your opportunity is for a summer period, graduating seniors should not be selected.

• Add more cycles. If the funding opportunity will be offered for more than one award cycle, you can add more cycles. By adding more award cycles, you will not need to update your basic funding opportunity information for each cycle. To add additional cycles:

1. Select the "opportunities tab".
2. Click on the name of the opportunity in your list to open the create/edit opportunity screen.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen to the Application Cycles section.
4. Click "Add More Cycles".
5. Enter the new dates for application period, publication period and funding period.
6. Enter a unique name for the new cycle (eg. STR spr14)
7. Select the relevant class years for the new cycle.

Note: If your department offers funding seasonally (i.e. fall, winter, spring, summer), please create a NEW funding opportunity for each season. This will help you to filter and sort applications with ease, allow students to apply for funding in your future cycles, and keep your data neatly organized in SAFE. Once you have created one funding opportunity for each season, you can add cycles for future years.

• Delete a funding cycle. You may delete a funding cycle any time prior to the time a student submits an application for that cycle. To delete a funding cycle after it has been added, simply click “delete” to the right of the cycle name and class years.

Allowing a Student to Apply Post-Deadline

In some cases, a student may miss the deadline for applying to a funding opportunity and may contact the funding office to request an extension. If the funding office agrees to extend the deadline for this student, the FOA may adjust the application deadline for that funding cycle and may place a note in the Applicant Message field to say, for example, that only students who have requested an extension prior to a given date may apply.

Note: Funders can extend the application period to a later date but cannot shorten the application period once it has begun.

Delete a Funding Opportunity

Most fields in a funding opportunity description are editable and can be changed up until the time students begin to apply for the opportunity or are awarded funder initiated funds. Two fields lock at the time an opportunity is first created, however, and these cannot be changed: the funding request initiation type (student vs. funder initiated) and the activity type. If you need to change these fields, you will need to delete the entire opportunity and begin a new opportunity with the correct fields. To delete an opportunity, simply click on “my opportunities” and then click “delete” under “action” to the right of the opportunity’s name and description. Warning! Once an opportunity is deleted it cannot be recovered.

Note that the system will not allow you to delete the funding opportunity if a student has selected the funding opportunity and begun an application. The student's application may still be "open" and, therefore, you would have to select "open projects" in your search for student projects to see it.

Viewing Student Inititated Project Applications

When students have applied for one of your student-initiated funding opportunities, you will be able to view the projects they have entered before awarding funding.

To view a project application:

1. On the SAFE Home page, Click the View Projects tab or the Award Funding to Projects link under “What do you want to do?”
2. On the Search Projects page, select an Activity Type, or leave the field blank to search for all activity types.
3. Verify that the Funding Office displayed is the office you want.
4. Click Find Projects to see all projects in your funding office. However, if you want to refine your search, you can enter values in any of the following fields:

Show project ____ days past end date.
Enter a positive value in the field to see only projects that have been completed. Otherwise, leave the default value.

Award
To see only those projects for which no funding has been awarded yet, select Not Reviewed.
To see only those projects with funding awarded on a preliminary basis, select Preliminary.
To see only those projects with funding awarded on a final basis, select Final.
If you want to see both Not Reviewed projects and projects with Preliminary awards, use the Quick Search field.
Use the Quick Search field to find all projects with an award status other than Final.
Use this instead of Award when you want to see both Not Reviewed projects and projects with Preliminary awards.

Project Status
You can search for projects that are not submitted, locked or withdrawn.

Note: If you view open projects, remember that these are not yet submitted. Students may still make changes. Only locked/submitted projects should be considered for funding.

Travel Request Status

You can search for projects with approved, pending or not applicable concur travel request status.

Applicant
Enter the name of the applicant whose project(s) you want to see.
A list of names that match what you have typed is displayed. You can keep typing until the name you want appears, or scroll through the displayed list to find the name you want. When you select the name, it will appear below the field, with information that helps to identify the person.

Once you click the “Find Projects” button, you will see a list of all applications for your funding opportunity that meet the criteria you included in your search parameters. You can sort these applications by student last name, date submitted, major department or project date. You may also print all selected applications or export application data to a spreadsheet for simpler viewing. To view an application without making an award, click on “view project.”

Printing Project Applications

Funding opportunity administrators can print single projects (applications) or select multiple projects (applications) for printing.

To print a project application:

1. Go to your Projects tab, enter the criteria for the projects you want to display in the search fields.
2. Select/check the box next to the application(s) you want to print or Select All.
   • Note: In preparing for print, the system merges all the elements of each student's application into one large document. The process could use a lot of memory depending on the number and size of the applications you have selected. It is recommended that you limit batch printing to a maximum of 10 applications in one batch to reduce the possibility of your computer or print server timing out and failing to produce the job.
3. Select the button for Print Selected in the upper right corner of the Projects List. The following message in a green banner should appear at the top of the page:
   • 
   • You will find the email in your SAFE messages list on your Home tab. If you have your SAFE messages set to also deliver to your PU email account, you will also receive the email there.
4. Open your message. It will appear as below:
   • The print job you requested is now complete. Please click the link below to view and print the document.
   • https://puwebp.princeton.edu/safe/priv/viewprintdoc?requestId=xxxx
   • This document will be available for the next 30 days.
5. Click on the link or copy and paste the link into your browser. The link opens a webpage containing the student application(s). All attachments (uploaded transcripts, supporting documents, recommendations, etc) will be imbedded into the "document".

Note: This link will not open for anyone else but the requestor. Forwarding the link is not an effective method of sharing applications with others. To share applications with others who do not have reviewer access in SAFE, please save the document as a pdf and then attach the pdf to an email correspondence.

Converting Applications to PDF Documents

1. Follow steps 1-5 for Printing Projects.
2. Once the webpage is open displaying the desired document, select convert web page to pdf or Save as pdf depending on the browser you are using.
3. Name the pdf document and save it to a desired location on your computer. Distribute the pdf document which is saved on your hard drive via email attachment.

Awarding Funds to Student-Intiated Projects

To award funding to a student who has applied for a student-initiated opportunity:

1. Search for the student’s project as described in “Viewing Project Applications”.

2. Locate the project for which you want to award funding and select the Award Funding Action.

Note: It is important to review the student's project history by clicking on their name in the projects list. Verify that none of the other student's "current projects" are the same as the one for which you are going to award funding. If there is already an existing project, you will need to correspond with the student about duplicate projects. The student may only have one application for the same activity. He/she must either apply to your funding opportunity with another project or apply to the other funders with the project you are viewing. Duplicate projects can cause confusion among funders and is not permitted.

3. Review the application and any attachments. When you have verified the attached documents, click the Verify Action. Verifying a document locks it to the application so that it cannot be withdrawn by the student. For this reason, you should wait to verify a document until the application has locked.

4. Review the Project Budget, and any other opportunities and allocations.

5. Enter the funding you are awarding for each expense type or enter a lump sum amount, and click the Save Preliminary button below the amount fields.

6. Under Funder Discussion, enter any comments you want to appear for other funding opportunities to which the student applies, and click the Save Funder Comments button.

7. To leave the award in a Preliminary status, you can return to the View Projects tab.
To finalize the award, click the Offer Final Awards on This Project button. The page will be redisplayed with the award amount in the orange box at the top right of the Project Budget section. Once an award is made final, the student will receive an automated email notification from SAFE.

Note: If necessary, you can reopen a final award to make changes by clicking the Reopen Final Award button at the bottom of the page.

Paying Awards

Once a student has accepted the funding you have offered and has complied with all relevant requirements, you may issue payment. FOAs have important responsibilities regarding students’ compliance with University policies and powerful leverage in persuading students to comply. When “paying awards,” FOAs must verify the student’s compliance with the Terms and Conditions (both PU requirements and any additional departmental requirements) of their award.

1.Verify that the student has accepted the award in SAFE as indicated by the check mark next to the final offered award amount, highlighted in green.

2. Verify that the student's travel has been approved (when required). For more information about trip approval, contact [email protected].

3. Verify that the student has uploaded IRB and IACUC approval documents into their SAFE application (if applicable). Open and view the uploaded documents to verify.

4. Review any other funding the student is receiving for THIS and OTHER current projects. Adjust your funding accordingly. 

5. Take note of any significant project changes that would invalidate the student’s application (i.e. change in destination country). Revoke funding if necessary.

To issue payment, click on pay award. Scroll to the Payments direct to student section and click add payment (for direct deposit to an individual student) or Add GL Payment (to transfer funds to another department's account for group payments). 

Complete the required fields:

• Funding Source: If you have already provided a list of funding sources, these will appear as drop-down options. Select the desired source from the drop down.
• Amount: You may pay the entire award amount in a single payment or you may set up installments for partial payments by adding additional AP payments.
• Payment Date: Set the date you want the payment to be processed.
• User Description: Enter a description of the payment to inform the recipient of the purpose.

Select SAVE AP Payment or SAVE GL Transfer.

 

 

Saving, Deleting and Reversing Payments

AP Payment and GL Transfer Processes