SPARC Pro Information

SPARC Pro is the University's Strategic Planning Analytics and Reporting for Campuses (SPARC) tool with a focus on Procurement transactions. This is a management tool for campus and department decision makers to analyze procurement (contracts, supplier diversity, sourcing/bids, etc.) transactions at Campus, Functional Area, College/Division,  Department, Speedchart, and Account Description levels. The dashboard provides detailed information in one convenient location, eliminating the need to manually run reports from different sources and systems.
The SPARC Pro dashboard is used only for internal purposes and only for directional estimates to support decision making. This dashboard is not meant to be the sole source for decision making. For in-depth information for a specific transaction, we encourage users to use the BuyWays eProcurement system.

Access must be granted via email by the Vice Chancellor of Administration & Finance (A&F) of your campus; once granted Summit Team (summit@umassp.edu) can coordinate with your campus IT/ Security team.

Use this Smartsheet form created to collect information on issues users experience or to provide feedback.

The SPARC-PRO dashboard will continuously be updated over the next few months. In its present state, the dashboard has 6 dashboards: In-Progress Contracts, Expiring Contracts, Contracts Summary, Contracts Utilization Tool, Supplier Diversity Insights, and Supplier Mapping.

• In-Progress Contracts: Contract processing and cycle time information including review stage, # of days, and others.
• Expiring Contracts: Limited to information on recently expired contracts or contracts about to expire over the next 180 days. 
• Contracts Summary: Trend data, review stage, and cycle-time charts and tables for contract request and executed contracts.
• Contracts Utilization Tool: Spend comparison on use of system-wide contracts across various spend segments: UMass Optimized, GPO, Non Optimized, and Not Competitively Sourced.
• Supplier Diversity Insights: Gross and trend information on supplier diversity spend broken out by spend category and certification groups.
• Supplier Mapping: Map of UMass diversity spending with the Commonwealth and the US, with ability to dill down to zip codes and county level.

There are eleven (11) standard filters at the top of each tab: Fiscal Year, Start Date, End Date, Campus, Functional Area, College/Division, Department, Department ID and Desc., Speedchart Key, and Account ID and Desc, and Stakeholder. The PeopleSoft tree described above is used to summarize by Functional Area, College/Division, and Department.

In the top right corner of each page is an “i” icon. Hovering over this icon provides additional information and a link to this document.

The Download Data button in the top right of each page enables the user to export data into Excel or CSV formats.

See section above.

*Campuses differ on how old departments are treated in the rollups. They may choose to group all closed departments in a "closed" rollup rather than keep in a college or functional area which would in turn move all the history out of the old functional area.

Contract Summary provides a high-level historical view of Contract Requests, Contract Creation, Contract Execution, Contract Cycle Time by Review Stage.

Includes important business metrics that stakeholders can see and understand at a glance about Contract Requests and Contracts Execution Volume by Status, Completed/Executed  Volume, Carried Over to Next Year, Contract Requests & Contract Execution Cycle Times.

SPARC Pro comes with two levels of access: Full campus access: all colleges and departments for respective campus and Role access: specific college/departments based on an individual's PeopleSoft security and Role access: specific college/departments based on an individual's PeopleSoft security

You can access SPARC Pro through this <link> or using the link embedded in the SPARC Pro website.

User can download the data into Excel or CSV formats. The download data button in the top right of each page enables the user to export data.

HR Approval is needed when the contract is between UMass and a services provider that will be regarded as an Independent Contractor. This review and approval is performed by a specific Campus Human Resources department. Only UMass Boston, UMass Dartmouth and President's Office have automated this process within the contracts process.

AtP stands for Authorization to Purchase and is specific to the UMass President's Office contracts. This approval is performed by UMPO Budget Office and is required for every purchase or contract generated by a UMPO department.

Ad-Hoc Approval occurs when additional review is required from another resource not included in review or department's approval workflow process. 

UPST Approval denotes the time taken by UPST to review the specific process requirements, i.e., contract request or contract execution, and confirmed their completeness.

Contract Due Diligence is the contract stage after the contract request has been approved by UPST but additional validation or information is needed based on review feedback from the risk review stakeholders. This stage covers the time spent by UPST, department/campus and other parties in clearing up outstanding information needed to facilitate a seamless risk review and contract signature process.

This is the first part of the procurement contract process, kicked off by the submission of the contract request form in BuyWays. The focus of this process is to understand the contract requirements and validate the need for the contract with both the department (Department Approver), and Fund Approver (for sponsored needs). The final step is UPST review and approval confirming that the contract request has met all requirements initial requirements and can now be moved into the Contract Execution process for further processing. Note that this process also covers the Independent Contractor review (HR), personal credit card  information assessment (PCI) reviews, which must be done before UPST review.

Contract Execution process is the second phase  of the procurement contract process. This process starts after the end of the Contract Request process, and covers risk review by interested parties i.e., Legal (OGC), Treasury, IT, and others, in addition to the external and supplier review process. This process concludes with the   delegation of authority approval processes covering levels 1 to 4, the signatory process and UPST approval. Note that this process is broken into 2 sub-processes, namely Contract Creation, and Contract Execution.

The Contract Development process is the 1st part and a sub-process of the Contract Execution process. The Contract Development process contains the internal and external risk review processes for the particular contract being processed. Be aware that required risk review varies per contract is  dependent on various factored determined by the information the submitter/requester provided in the contract request form. This process covers: Legal (OGC), OOM (UMass Chan specific), Treasury (Insurance), IT (Information Security), etc.

The Contract Request status details the current review step after the contract request form has been submitted. The various status includes: UPST Pre-Review, Fund Review, No-Bid Justification (NBJ) Approval, Department Review, HR Approval, AtP Approval , Ad-Hoc Approval, and UPST Approval. Note that the reviews that your contract request will have is dependent various factors determined by what was completed in the submitted contract request form.

Contract Execution Status details all workflow driven reviews by UMass risk/compliance stakeholders and external parties/suppliers. Note that the required review or the levels of the delegation of authority (DoA) approvals is determined by commodity, amount, and other factors included in the completed contract request.
The Contract Execution Status includes:  Contract Due Diligence, IT Security, Treasury Review, Office of Mgmt. (Chan specific), OGC, External/ Supplier Review, Level 1 (department) to Level 4 (DoA) reviews, Out of Signature status, and UPST.

The department approval measures the amount of time taken by your department's approval authority to approve the contract request submitted by your department's Contract Requester.

Fund review is required for contracts that will use funding from sponsored needs. In some campuses this is referred to as grant funding review. This is determined by the fund code entered in the contract request form and will be routed automatically based on the workflow agreed with your campus.

IT Security review measures the time taken by a campus or President's Office Information Security team to review risks related to specific issues i.e., PHI, PII, etc.

The Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 reviews measure the time taken by different contract approval stakeholders on the campus and UMPO. These approvals must happen before a contract can be signed/executed by the University:
Level 1 (Department/PI): This is the approval from the department approval authority or Principal Investigator (PI)confirming their agreement with the contract negotiations and any associated risks.
Level 2 (Fund/Budget): This is this approval by the financial authority that funds are available for this contract.
Level 3 (Auxiliary Approval): Auxiliary approval is required for specific commodities or campus signatory authorities as confirmation that the terms are aligned with campus requirements.
Level 4 (DoA): This is the approval by the University personnel authorized to bind the University to contracted terms and conditions with external parties. This is campus specific.

NBJ (No-Bid Justification) Approval is a UPST review and approval step. It is triggered when a request does not meet UMass competitive procurement requirements.

OGC performs the legal review required on UMass contracts. This stage measures the amount of time taken for OGC to perform their review and provide their feedback.

Office of Management (OOM) review is specific to UMass Chan. This is the review conducted internally on specific UMass Chan contracts in partnership with UPST and OGC. This measures the time taken by OOM to perform their own internal review.

The Out for Signature measures the time taken by the supplier team to electronically sign the finalized contract and return to UMass.

Treasury Review measures the time taken by the UMass Treasurer's Office to review Insurance related risks posed by any contract to the system.

UPST Pre-Review starts immediately a contract request is submitted by the contract requester. The objective of this step is to ensure that all contract request form requirements are met, e.g. completion of all required fields, submission of all required attachments/supporting documentation, and, verification of the accuracy of certain information i.e., supplier information and registration.

Total spend broken down into the 4 spend segments providing a comparison between the campus vs. system contract utilization:

• UMass Optimized: Strategically sourced systemwide/multi-campus contracts by the UPST that are aligned with the procurement process to get the market leading contracted rates/benefits/value (i.e. diversity spend, committed volume enhanced warranties, fixed cost, performance management, etc.) (Examples: VAR, Executive Search, Elevator Maintenance, (OTIS), Print)
• GPO: Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) contracts that follow the UPST approved procurement process but may not have the best contracted rates. (Examples: Operational Services Division (OSD), Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium (MHEC), Educational and Institutional Cooperative (E&I))
• Not Optimized: Good & services procurements resulting from a sourcing event (bid) for a single campus, pre-existing contract executed prior to the existing UPST or other procurements made in compliance with policy such as sourced through multiple quote process when allowed by policy. (Examples: Legacy campus contracts, campus bids managed by UPST, goods under $10K, goods procured via multiple quotes <$50K, services under $50K)
• Not Competitively Sourced: Good & services that have not gone through a competitively sourced process through UPST. (Examples: NBI services not on contracts over $50K)

• Executive Search: Executive recruitment program that offers aggressive competitive pricing from search firms that satisfy University requirements with pre-negotiated ceiling prices for services and overhead offering favorable payment terms, performance and replacement guarantees, and candidate poll diversity reporting. (Includes Commodity Code: Recruitment)
• Gases: Compressed Gases, Services and Supplies Contract is a Collaborative program resulting in pricing stabilization, cost reduction and ease of use for end users, fixed commodity pricing, and consolidated ancillary charges (demurrage, hazmat and other delivery charges) into a single flat fee per cylinder or dewer. (Includes Commodity Code: Chemicals and Gases)
• IT VAR: Technology Value Added Reseller Program consolidates UMass' VAR provider portfolio down to four strategic partners offering aggressive pricing and operation efficiencies. Examples: CDW, GovConnection, WEI, Whalley Computer Associates. (Includes Commodity Codes: Computer Equipment, Laptop Computers, Desktop Computers, Tablets (ex: iPad, Surface, Kindle), Servers, Computer Hardware Maintenance/Support, Software and SAAS, Computer Accessories and Peripherals)
• Otis Elevator: Systemwide elevator maintenance program that has standardized fixed costs, set aggressive SLAs with performance penalties for not meeting mimum ops standards (Includes Commodity Code: Elevator)
• Print: Print initiative satisfies University policy requirements for contracting and competitive procurements through utilizing SLWM (aka SupplyLogic) which offers aggressive pricing, improved spend management reporting, recognition and inclusion of valued suppliers, and supports social values through supplier diversity and sustainability initiatives. (Includes Commodity Codes: Promotional Items/Exhibit/Display (non-apparel), External Printing Services)

UPST endorsed contracts that have been strategically sourced leveraging systemwide/multi-campus spend to provide UMass market leading contracted rates/benefits/value (i.e. diversity spend, committed volume enhanced warranties, fixed cost, performance management, etc.) (by UPST or incoordination with a GPO's). These contracts can be sourced by UPST or by UPST working directly with a GPO (Examples: VAR, Executive Search, Elevator Maintenance, (OTIS), Print).