All,

As the interest in pre-award systems seems to be high at the moment, I
thought I'd let you know about the system I developed for the Arkansas
Children's Hospital Research Institute, primarily in Access and SQL Server.
We evaluated (and liked) other commercial products, but decided not to use
systems such as InfoEd and the COEUS system because of the cost of purchase,
implementation, and future modification (oracle/peoplesoft programmers in
Arkansas cost $150 hour +). Our pre-award system records all submissions,
awards, denial, re-submits, etc. It records all the traditional info
including funding, protocol, Agency contact info, reports required,
purchasing requirements etc. I have created a series of standard reports
that include submission and award reports for entered periods, annualized
awards (direct and indirect) for entered periods, success rates, pending
reports, etc. The system also mails out new account letters when accounting
enters the a/c number and sends tickle emails when reports are due.

The system has an MS Access front end (currently Admin, Accounting, Audit,
and Director has access  = 10+ users (with login security)), and either an
Access or SQl Server backend depending on the number of people you want to
be able to simultaneously connect and the size of your database.

Our system also ties in with our post award system and even does things like
read the purchasing restrictions from the pre award side and apply those
business rules when the PI/Manager is doing on-line purchasing.

This system requires minimal hardware or software investment as it runs
essentially in a Microsoft Office product, has full C2 compliant security,
and has been running for over 2 years in our department.

Due to the response from the research community we are now starting to sell
this product for a small fee (we are not-for-profit). If anyone is
interested please e-mail or call. We should have a web site up with features
and screen shots by the end of next week. I have also developed other
products such as real-time grants accounting and on-line purchasing systems,
subject tracking and billing, and faculty profiles that can be searched and
updated via our web site.

-David
David A Higginson, ACMA
Administrative Director
Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute
1120 Marshall Street
Little Rock, AR 72202
Tel : (501) 320-3757
Fax: (501) 320-3547
Email : xxxxxx@exchange.uams.edu
Web : http://achri.ach.uams.edu