We (another employee in the office and I) got two instruction booklets with
accompanying diskettes on Microsoft Access from Ziff-Davis Education, taught
ourselves Microsoft Access, and designed our own data base.  It took 8-10
hours to get through the books and exercises--say, two afternoons or so--and
we were ready to go.  Now we track proposals and awards, subcontracts,
publications, and IACUC and IRB reviews with our relational data base.  We
have a "master" form that displays the application and funding history of
each application, and assocciated forms for IRB history, IACUC histories,
and subcontract histories.  Because we know how the data base is
constructed, we have enormous flexibility to change it.

We have about $25 million in research funding.  The school is now installing
Banner as its central software, and Banner has a proposal-tracking module
which presumably we will adopt.  Because we understand something about how
data bases are constructed and know some of the basic terminology, we can
make ourselves understood to the OIT people who are overseeing the project
and will probably be able to make the transition without too much
difficulty.

In sum, the investment in learning Access and setting up our own data base
was one of the best we've made.  Of course I'm forgetting some of the
drudgery--moving the information into Access and then cleaning it up--but it
was still well worth it.

 Ziff-Davis has a web site at www.zdeducation.com.  I didn't see our books
there, but rather a set of CDs for about $40.  Not sure if these work as
well as the books.

-----Original Message-----
From: Turk, Sara [mailto:xxxxxx@STOWERS-INSTITUTE.ORG]
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 9:25 AM
To: xxxxxx@HRINET.ORG
Subject: [RESADM-L] Grants tracking system

I would like feedback on an inexpensive grants tracking system.  Our current
award volume is approximately $3 million and growing.  We are looking for a
stand-alone system to track dates, deliverables, deadlines, etc.  It does
not need to interface with our accounting system.

Any and all input would be greatly appreciated.  You can reply directly to
me at xxxxxx@stowers-institute.org.

Thanks,

Sara Turk
Senior Grants Accounting Analyst
Stowers Institute for Medical Research
1000 E. 50th Street
Kansas City, MO  64110
816 926-4055
816 926-2058 fax
xxxxxx@stowers-institute.org

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