Tutorials and Quickstart Guides
Coming Soon! A collection of step-by-step guidelines for getting started as a facilities user, using the RIMS and UFIS systems, tracking your own facilities usage, invoicing/billing/payment, and other aspects of facilities operations and usage. Here are a few examples of what this page will contain:
How Do I Log In to RIMS
- Go to the RIMS Launchpad website (www.rims.psu.edu);
- In the right sidebar, under the "Already have a RIMS User Account?" option, click on the grey "Login to RIMS" button;
- Enter your Penn State WebAccess Userid and password (or your Friends of Penn State [FPS] digital identity and password if you are an external user);
- The RIMS main screen will come up.
How Do I Reserve Equipment in RIMS
- Log In to RIMS (see Log In to RIMS instructions);
- In the Equipment portlet under the "My Reservations" section, select the equipment item or tool you want to reserve from the drop down box;
- Click on the grey "Schedule" button;
- The RIMS Equipment Reservation calendar for that equipment item or tool will open up;
- Navigate to the day/time slot you wish to reserve to make sure the slot is available;
- Use the << and >> beside the date header to go back (<<) and ahead (>>) weeks on the calendar one week at a time OR choose "Select Week" at the top of the calendar to quickly advance to another week
- Double click on the calendar day/time for which you want to make a reservation (or choose "New Reservation" at the top of the calendar to open the new reservation box);
- Update the "Start Date" and "End Date" fields to indicate the start and end date and times for your reservation;
- Click on the grey "Create" button to create the reservation.
Request a RIMS Billing Account (through UFIS)
- Go to the RIMS Launchpad website (www.rims.psu.edu);
- In the right sidebar, under the "Need a RIMS User Account?" option, click on the grey "Request through UFIS" button;
- Enter your Penn State WebAccess Userid and password;
- When the UFIS main screen comes up, under "Choose from the following options", click on the "Add A Billing Account" option;
- Complete the "Add a Billing Account" request form:
- Budget Number: Budget numbers take the form 123-45 and are all numeric (three numbers, a dash, then two more numbers); enter the budget number your advisor has given you to use for your facilities charges
- Campus: Choose the campus location of your budget from the pre-populated campus dropdown list
- Fund: Enter the Fund number your advisor has given you that goes with the Budget number you entered previously; fund numbers are four characters (alphanumeric) in length with a 0 (zero) on the end; in UFIS, you will enter only the first four characters and then the system will automatically enter the trailing 0;
- Cost Center: Some budgets/funds at Penn State are further segmented at a level called Cost Centers to split up the fund for different co-PIs, purposes, etc.; not all budgets/funds have cost centers; if your does, your advisor can tell you that and give you the proper ten character cost center name to put in your UFIS request; since not all accounts have cost centers, the field is not required on the UFIS request form
- Funding Source: For statistical reporting purposes, we track the various funding sources who sponsor grants that use the facilities; users may not know the source of funding for their project, so an option in the pre-populated dropdown list is "Unknown" in order to satisfy the required field setting with a value; if you select "Other (Please specify below)" from the pre-populated list, you must type the details in the "Other:" field box
- Research Classification: This is an optional field for our statistical reporting purposes to indicate the general nature of the project/grant; a pre-populated dropdown list includes the various research classification categories from which to choose
- PI AccessAcount Userid: The Web Access Account user ID for your PI so the project can be set up under his/her name in RIMS
- PI E-Mail: The e-mail address for your PI to which UFIS will generate a billing account approval request e-mail to finalize the processing of the billing account request
- Watch for an e-mail indicating that your PI has approved your billing account request;
- You may want to remind your PI to approve your billing account request to keep the process moving;
- Approximately 24 hours after you receive the e-mail indicating that your PI has approved your billing account request, look for the billing account in your RIMS list of projects.