Wellesley College implemented the BANNER modules for Human Resources, HR
and Finance in July 1994.  Alumni/Development went up in 1997.  In 1998,
the 3.1 upgrade to the Finance module virtually re-wrote the entire
sponsored programs section to add a post-award system that seems to work
well.  I haven't been through a fiscal year close with it yet, so my
opinion is not yet set in stone.

Its definetely true that the amount of data that you have the option to
collect might be well more than you'd need, but I find that it also
provides great flexibility through the use of user defined fields, so
for example,  we can add when IRB or IACUC reporting is due, or track
financial and progress reporting.  The system will send the faculty a
message about the reporting (that is, provided your faculty have signed
up for BANNER access and have gone to the training, that's the catch!)

What's the biggest problem  at Wellesley?   Reporting off  the system.
The table structure is GIGANTIC, so finding the field names to write
custom reports is hard.  The canned reports are only okay for sponsored
research, so we rely mainly on self-trained staff to write custom
reports for distribution.  In a post-award depatment of one, it makes it
challenging at best.    I suppose the other thing to keep in mind is
that Wellesley's annual sponsored programs expenditures are about $8-9
million.  So for you big gun places, its only the size of a department.

I'd be happy to discuss this further if you want to e-mail me directly.

Gretchen

--
Gretchen Kemp Eckert
Associate Controller for Sponsored Programs, Wellesley College
106 Central Street, GRH139, Wellesley, MA  02181
Phone:  781/283-2250 FAX:  781/283-3710 E-mail:xxxxxx@wellesley.edu

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================