CAYUSE SP
CASE STUDY
Rice University
Cutting Down Manual Entry and Streamlining Proposal Routing with Cayuse SP
Challenge
At Rice University (Rice) routing research proposals among department administrators
and principal investigators (PIs) was time consuming and inefficient. For years, everything
was done on paper and organized through cover sheets. To get the required signatures
for approval and submission, proposals had to be walked around campus and returned
to the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR), where they were logged in at the front desk
and reviewed. Any changes to these proposals were sent out via email, and the proposals
themselves were re-entered, line-by-line, into FastLane, Grants.gov, or other sponsors’
forms for submission. If any required documents were missing, OSR staff members had
to circle back with everyone involved to track down necessary documents. Finally, in the
evenings, an OSR staff member entered all the day’s proposals into Banner® by Ellucian,
the university’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.
Rice University
Main Location: Houston, Texas
Type: 4-year Private
Campuses: One
Students: 6,600+
Rice is a U.S. News & World Report top 20 research institution receiving around $120 million
in awards a year, and has several research-intensive departments, including the schools
of natural sciences, engineering, humanities, social sciences, architecture, and music as
well as on-campus institutes like the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Jones
Business School and the Glasscock School for Continuing Studies. Routing paper around
campus and entering data twice was wasting time and complicating the submission
process, so administrators and faculty were shying away from more complicated—and
lucrative—funding opportunities. Rice needed an electronic solution to manage its
sponsored projects.
Faculty/Staff: 650+
Undergraduate Programs: 53
Master Programs: 34
Founded: 1891
Note: On September 12, 1962, President John F.
Kennedy gave his famous “We choose to go to
the moon” speech on Rice’s campus.
www.rice.edu
Solution
In September 2012, Rice selected Cayuse SP, a proposal life cycle management solution
from Evisions, for its ease of use and quick implementation. Rice soon began converting
its legacy data and by April 2013, the Cayuse SP system was fully implemented.
When Cayuse SP was first rolled out campus-wide, the OSR encouraged users to learn how
to use the system through resources such as a dedicated training website with videos and
screenshots, and a dedicated full-time trainer. Because Cayuse SP is so intuitive and userfriendly, many PIs only needed to watch the training videos to learn the system. Without
an enforced mandate, Cayuse SP quickly became the system of choice. OSR tracked the
amount of proposals that came in on paper for manual input into the system versus
electronic proposals created, and found that within five months of rollout, 100% of Rice’s
users were employing the new system.
“
When we first rolled out Cayuse SP, we
encouraged people to use it, but we didn’t
make it mandatory. People really started
using it quickly, and within five months, we
had 100% compliance. Everybody likes it,
and we haven’t had any complaints.
”
Melinda Cotten
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
www.evisions.com
Case Study: Rice University
Solution (cont.)
The benefits of using Cayuse SP were felt almost immediately. Academic department
staff members no longer had to hand-deliver proposals to multiple offices across campus
or chase down signatures. Faculty and department administrators saw an immediate
reduction in stress and time now that managing the proposal life cycle was straightforward
and less demanding. OSR staff members were also saving considerable hours every day
now that they no longer had to use a paper-based system for award management as well
as data entry of proposal and award information into Banner®.
Rice also reduced unnecessary, repetitive data entry by implementing Evisions’ Data
Connect and HR Connect integration modules, which keep both Cayuse SP and Banner®,
up-to-date. Prior to the Cayuse SP implementation, OSR staff had to manually enter all
proposal data into Banner®, but with integration modules, everything that is entered into
Cayuse SP automatically transfers to Banner®.
With an electronic proposal management solution in place, Rice can now trust that
its proposals and ERP data are up to the minute and dependable. Without the old
administrative strain on proposals, PIs, faculty members, and OSR employees can instead
focus on writing successful grants and expanding Rice University’s research.
“
We built an interface so we no longer
have to go into Banner and do data entry.
Now that we enter everything once in Cayuse
SP, we’re saving a lot of time, especially for
proposals.
”
Aaron Parvis
Grants and Contracts Manager
“
We have a really good relationship
with the Evisions Support Team. Everybody
is responsive, and if they can’t fix something
right away, we know they are on it and
researching a solution.
”
Echo Medina
Data Business Analyst, Office of
Sponsored Programs
About Cayuse SP
Cayuse SP is designed to handle the business side of research-sponsored projects—from proposal creation to award close-out—providing a
complete view of an institution’s entire research portfolio. Gain transparency with the ability to manage proposals, certifications and submissions,
plus monitor and track activity and compliance throughout the life cycle of projects and awards. With cradle-to-grave management, users gain
flexibility and control over the pre-award and post-award life cycle in their sponsored projects operations.
About Cayuse 424
Prepare, review, approve and submit grant proposals with the industry’s most cost-effective web-based solution. Cayuse 424 is the choice of
organizations of all sizes and has proven to help accelerate proposal development with a 99% first-time submission success rate. Reduce preaward overhead and improve the quality and accuracy of sponsored funding proposals with Cayuse 424.
About Cayuse IRB
Cayuse IRB is an easy-to-use solution that provides insight into the entire protocol creation, review and submission process. Staff members can easily
manage initial submissions, modifications, reportable events and continuing reviews all in one place. Designed by research compliance specialists,
along with development partners from leading research organizations, Cayuse IRB offers a comprehensive set of features in support of IRB requirements.
For more information about Evisions Research Suite, please visit: www.evisions.com/Research Suite.
About Evisions
Evisions develops innovative, easy–to-use software that simplifies work for higher education institutions and research organizations. Evisions is
transforming the face of electronic Research Administration by producing intuitive, cloud delivered products, and executing quick implementations.
Evisions makes Research Administration easier by increasing office efficiency and rapidly responding to support needs. Please visit us at
www.evisions.com/research, follow Evisions on Twitter (@EvisionsInc) and join the conversation on our Evisions blog @ blog.evisions.com.
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