Percent of Effort

PERCENT OF EFFORT

This database field is required for all rooms, whether they have either single or multiple occupants (e.g., offices, labs), including rooms that generally do not have assigned occupants (environmental control rooms, practice rooms, conference rooms, etc.).

"Percent of Effort," as the term relates to space utilization reporting, is defined as the amount of effort (maximum effort equaling 100%) spent on a particular activity/functional use code in a particular room during a specified reporting period (to be determined by university processes and requirements). Work dedicated to an activity within a room is represented by a percentage ("Percent of Effort" or "POE"). This percentage will determine how the square footage of the room should be prorated.

1. Rooms with occupants (e.g., offices, labs):

In rooms with single occupants working on multiple activities (such as instructional support, sponsored research, department administration, etc.), assign a reasonable estimate of POE for each activity.

In rooms with multiple occupants working on multiple activities, occupants are first grouped by activity (such as 41 Sponsored Research; 05 Instructional Support; 11 Department Administration). For sponsored projects, identify the funding/grants. Finally, factor together the individual efforts within each activity to determine a reasonable POE estimate for each activity. These percentages are entered into the database and are applied automatically to the square footage of the room to establish a reasonable estimate of square footage for each activity. The total POE for the room must equal 100%.

2. Rooms without occupants (e.g., support or non-occupied program spaces):

For space utilization tracking, we also need to apply POE to rooms that generally do not have assigned occupants (e.g., instrument-equipment rooms, stockrooms, conference rooms, environmental control rooms, dark rooms, etc.), or to rooms that are prorated because of multiple type codes or multiple departments.

2A. For research support spaces (rooms with single or multiple prorates) that are coded as either Sponsored Research (use code 41) or Sponsored Public Service (use code 61):
If a lab support room has only one prorate and the activity sponsored research, sponsored public services, or department research, the room can be coded as 100% in the POE field. Otherwise the POE for the sponsored activity should be estimated, generally on the same percentages as the lab it supports.

2B. For "non-occupant" rooms that are not coded as sponsored research or sponsored public service (such as practice rooms, open labs, reading rooms, etc.):

  • rooms with one prorate (record) should be coded as 100% for that coded activity;
  • rooms with multiple prorates should be assigned a percentage for each prorate that will allow for a reasonable square-footage proration.