Tidbit Archive

9.3.24

All faculty and students traveling internationally must enroll in international travel insurance using the applicable university-based travel and coverage website. It is the responsibility of each to ensure insurance enrollment for their travel.

Effective immediately, employees traveling internationally on system business will be required to provide documentation of insurance enrollment on their Chrome River expense report. This includes, but is not limited to, business trips, conferences, faculty exchanges, faculty-led study abroad programs, teaching, research, service, or sabbaticals.

Failure to enroll in international travel insurance may result in non-reimbursement of travel expenses.  Please see below for more details and instructions.

All UIC students who travel outside the U.S. and its territories on UIC-related or authorized travel must:

  1. Enroll in the ITS travel roster.
  2. Obtain the University of Illinois System’s comprehensive insurance plan through Gallagher Insurance or an equivalent insurance approved by the UIC Study Abroad Office (The fee should be about $20. Per university rules you have to pay out of pocket and will then be reimbursed; this will not count against your departmental student travel award)

All faculty or staff traveling internationally on UIC-related business:

  1. Must enroll in the university’s ITS travel portal.
  2. Will receive the Gallagher comprehensive insurance at no additional cost.

For more information:
https://oge.uic.edu/international-travel-safety-enrollment/

https://policies.uic.edu/uic-policy-library/global/international-travel-safety-policy/

 

9.10.24

When using Uber as your shared ride service when traveling, UberX is allowable and if multiple employees are traveling together then UberXL is also an allowable option.

Please note that Uber Black or Uber Black SUV is not allowable.

Keep this in mind for other shared ride services; only utilize the most basic/economical option.

11.5.24

There is a now a partnership between Uber and the University, Uber for Business, which has added benefits including having your Uber receipts automatically uploaded into Chrome River.

For more information visit https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/61/269514161.html.

9.17.24

For those of you take out program advances to pay participants, I would like to introduce you to Amazon eCodes; digital gift card codes to spend on Amazon.  This is an option where eCodes can be purchased directly from your department account/CFOP, so no need for a program advance and having the funds deposited into your own bank account.  This option pulls the costs from your CFOP and delivers the eCodes to your participants.

An eCode must be created in the name of the principal investigator or designee responsible for the payments related to the human subject study. This individual is the custodian of the funding source for the eCode account.

All eCodes should be issued directly to participants. Participants must have previously consented in writing to payment in the form of eCodes and be aware of the requirements for redeeming eCodes.

To obtain eCodes for human subject payments:
1.Complete and email the Amazon eCode Setup form (you can use the link to do this or contact Jennifer to complete on your behalf.
2.Instructions will then be emailed to the principal investigator or designee on how to issue eCodes.
Required documentation that must be retained by the unit initiating the study includes the IRB approval number, the name of participants, the amount of the payment, and the recipient’s signature.

9.24.24

Lodging Brokers:  These are Airbnb type lodging and have very strict limits on amounts that can reimbursed that became effective in 02/2024.  You can only receive reimbursement for the allowable amount posted by the US General Services Administration at https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates.

For example, if you are staying at an Airbnb in Philadelphia, per this website the allowable maximum rate is $210.  If your Airbnb is $300 night, you can only receive $210 per night back.  Comparison rate of the hotel conference rate does not apply to lodging brokers

Hotels:  Hotels are limited to $110 per night BUT you can receive full reimbursement for your hotel as long as you can show proof that the conference hotel was more expensive.  For example, if the conference is at the Hyatt and charges $400 per night and you stay at the Hilton for $300 per night, then you must provide proof of the conference hotel rate to receive the $300 per night.

10.8.24

University policy only allows the payee (i.e. the name on the receipt/invoice) of the expense to be reimbursed.  This can get challenging for lodging reimbursements when sharing a room and splitting costs.

If you split a room with someone, whosever name is on that statement is the one that the reimbursement will be issued to.  So it would be that person’s responsibility to submit the reimbursement, receive the funds back and pay their roommates their portion back.  It is also unallowable to submit bank to bank activity statements, such as Venmo for proof of payment to one another.  You must follow the one-person submission reimbursement process.

And if you are a student using the Departmental Student Travel Award, no worries that the payee would have that one charge count towards that; we will divide it behind the scenes for all those that shared the room.

10.1.24

Did you know that UIC has over 70 print stations installed across campus?  This is especially helpful for large print jobs that the department printer may not be able to handle.  The university uses Wepa, which enables users to send print jobs from their laptop or phone, or from a computer lab, and print at any Wepa print station. Wepa is a cloud-based system that offers integrations with Blackboard, Google Drive, and more.

For more details visit https://it.uic.edu/services/student/on-campus/printing/.

10.15.24

Waiting on a reimbursement or program advance in Chrome River and wondering the status?  These expense reports go through many levels of approvals after you hit submit.  The first two are at the departmental level and then on to University Payables, which can take weeks to process as you are probably aware.   Here are two ways to get an idea of where your expense report is….

Use this link and see “Chrome River Documents” to tell you, based on submission date where your item is in the UPay approval queue.

You can also log in to your Chrome River account under Expenses>View All Submitted, click on the expense report you are waiting on and then Tracking.

10.23.24

Did you know that your office and/or lab key is property of the state of Illinois?  Well because of that, if you lose your key then you are required to file a police report per university policy.  This must be done within 24 hours of the loosing the key and then reported immediately to our “keeper” of the keys, Deborah Rogers.  Please note that a replacement key fees may be applicable as well.

Keys are serious business as they unlock the gateway to a lot of secured and confidential data and belongings, so please be sure to be responsible with your keys.  This is especially important for those of you who manage keys for others such as your lab, classrooms, office,  etc…  Be sure to track who they go to and ensure when that person leaves that they are returning them; those should then go back to Deborah so they can be reassigned.

11.12.24

If you have a long flight for university business and don’t want to be cramped in basic economy, it is allowable to purchase business class airfare when the scheduled flight time, including stopovers and plane changes, exceeds 14 hours.