MARLO structures the annual cycle into three named phases: POWB (Plan of Work and Budget), UpKeep (progress monitoring), and AR (Annual Report). The Annual Work Plan and Budget phase — sometimes called AWPB or POWB — is where cluster coordinators enter everything the cluster intends to accomplish during the coming year: its objectives, partner institutions, planned activities, and deliverables with Open Access intent. Data entered during planning carries forward automatically into later phases, so the effort you invest here pays dividends throughout the year.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/CCAFS/MARLO/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Before you start
- Your account must have the Cluster Coordinator or Cluster Leader role scoped to your cluster.
- Confirm the active phase chip in the page header shows the current POWB year (for example,
POWB 2026). If a different phase is shown, you are viewing a past or future phase — changes made there still follow the forward-only replication rule, but your planning window is the current POWB phase. - Check the planning deadline posted in the program calendar. Submissions after the deadline may not reach QA in time for the cycle.
Planning workflow
Open your cluster's Project Description
From the main menu, navigate to Projects / Clusters and select your cluster. Open the Description section. Fill in the cluster’s title, objectives, and narrative summary. Save before moving to the next section.
Add partner institutions
Open the Partners section. Use the CLARISA-backed institution selector to search for your partner organisations by name or acronym. CLARISA is the CGIAR reference registry for institutions, so most recognised research organisations are already listed.For each partner:
- Select the institution from the autocomplete picker.
- Choose the partner’s role (lead, co-investigator, implementing, etc.).
- Enter the contact person and indicate the budget contribution if applicable.
Marlosupport@cgiar.org) before the planning deadline.Register planned activities
Open the Activities section. Add each planned activity with:
- A clear title and description.
- Start and end dates.
- The partner institution responsible.
- Any milestones you want to track mid-year.
Register planned deliverables
Open the Deliverables section. For each knowledge product or output the cluster plans to produce:
- Enter the deliverable title and type (policy brief, dataset, tool, journal article, etc.).
- Set the expected dissemination year and month.
- Specify Open Access intent — whether the deliverable will be deposited in an open-access repository (such as CGSpace) or published under an open licence.
- Link the deliverable to the relevant activity.
- Assign a responsible partner institution.
Every deliverable’s Open Access intent is recorded at planning time and carried forward. The program’s 95%+ open-access compliance target is tracked against these declared intents, so accuracy here matters. You can revise intent during UpKeep or AR if circumstances change.
Register innovations (if applicable)
Open the Innovations section. If your cluster plans to produce or advance an innovation during the year, register it now with:
- An innovation title, type, and stage.
- A Scaling Readiness score (0–9) reflecting the current level of development.
- Geographic tagging for the countries where scaling is anticipated.
Register OICRs (if applicable)
Open the OICRs section (Outcome Impact Case Reports). If your cluster has an outcome story progressing toward policy or practice change, create the OICR record and assign an initial maturity classification. OICRs grow richer through UpKeep and AR as evidence accumulates.
Review completeness
Before submitting, check the completeness indicator displayed in your cluster’s dashboard or the PMU completeness view. MARLO surfaces required fields that are still empty. Address any flagged items.
Submit the cluster plan for QA
When all required sections are complete, click Submit on the cluster summary page. The cluster status moves to Awaiting QA. QA reviewers will be notified and will begin reviewing your plan against the program’s quality criteria.After submission you can still edit individual fields, but each edit re-triggers the validation pipeline. Coordinate with your PMU before making substantive changes post-submission.
After submission
Once the cluster plan is in Awaiting QA status, the QA reviewer assigned to your cluster will open each section in the review queue. They may mark items as Validated or Needs Revision and attach structured feedback comments scoped to specific fields. You will receive a notification when feedback is posted. To respond to QA feedback, open the field indicated in the comment, make the requested change, and save. The reviewer’s queue refreshes within 30 minutes during active review periods. See Quality assurance review workflow for the full QA flow.The POWB phase deadline applies to your initial submission. Even after the deadline, QA-requested revisions can typically still be made within the review window. Confirm exact dates with your PMU.