Sponsored Projects Portal
Description
A Portal is a personalized Web interface targeted for a particular audience. Modeled on portals created by major Internet companies like Yahoo or Google, our portal provides a direct and seamless link for data from the multiple warehouses to those who provide adminstrative support for research at Cornell.
The Sponsored Projects Portal provides integrated access to sponsored projects and sponsored account information through links to both the Sponsored Projects and the Accounting Data Warehouses. This Web interface provides easy access for a number of different audiences. It is heavily used by department managers, college administrators and other other central administration office staff.
The portal includes multiple "views" allowing a unique interface for different constituents. Currently we provide a general query view to provide lookup of records based on predefined criteria and a PI view for faculty and their administrative assistants. Regardless of which view is choosen, consistent navigation across all pages and common formating of data allows easy movement through the system.
In addition to viewing data, the portal also allows requests to be submitted electronically. This includes new account setup requests submitted to Sponsored Funds Accounting and subcontract and consulting setup requests to the Office of Sponsored Programs. Other change requests include no cost extensions, change of scope and change of Principal Investigator.
How You Can Use the Sponsored Portal
- Look up individual awards and proposals based on pre-defined criteria
- View both project and accounting information through a single interface
- Submit new account request forms, subcontract requests, and change requests
- Generate simple list of awards and proposals based on pre-defined criteria
- Enter sent dates for technical reports
Technology
The Sponsored Projects Portal uses ColdFusion to communicate with an Oracle database and return information formatted and displayed as Web pages. The modular design of ColdFusion code allows rapid development and phased deployment of new features in the system. Authentication is accomplished with SideCar or CUWebLogin using CuWebAuth and the Cornell Permit Server allowing users to maintain a single userid/password for multiple systems.
Portals provide a number of advantages in addition to being easy to use. With appropriate design we have re-used much of the underlying code among multiple views gaining efficiency in development. At the same time each view is modular so that changes can often be made to one without impacting others. Portal views also allow us to streamline data access control by developing slightly different queries against a common set of access tables for each view. Finally, the portal allow us to combine data from multiple data warehouses to present data the way users think about it instead of limiting the view by the underlying database structure.
Access
Access to the sponsored data warehouse can be provided at a number of different levels including all Cornell, college, department, PI, project, or account. Complete and return the data access request form. Using the Portal does not generally require any special training. However, OSP staff are happy to give demonstrations to groups or individuals upon request. See user support information for how to request a demonstration.