SPARC Research Dashboard Information

SPARC Research is the University's Strategic Planning Analytics and Reporting for Campuses (SPARC) tool with a focus on sponsored awards. This is a management tool for campus and department decision makers to analyze various aspects of grant revenues and expenditures. The dashboard provides detailed data in one convenient location, eliminating the need to manually run reports from different PeopleSoft tables. The SPARC Research dashboard is used for internal purposes and directional support for decision-making.

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 suggest changes.

There are fourteen sections of the dashboard in gray boxes at the top of the screen:

• Summary
  • High level summary on revenue, expenditure, F&A recovery by sponsor, research support fund distribution activity by fiscal year, unspent balance by PI, and awards expiring in the next three months
• Revenue by Sponsor
  • Grant revenue by prime and direct sponsor type and list of top ten prime sponsors
• Revenue by Department
  • Grant revenue summary by department broken out by prime sponsor type or direct vs. indirect revenue
• Revenue by Fiscal Year
  • Grant revenues by prime sponsor type or direct vs. indirect revenue
• Expenditure by Fiscal Year
  • Grant expenditures by prime sponsor type or expenditure type
• Payroll Expenditure by Fiscal Year
  • Grant payroll expenditures by expenditure category
• Non-Payroll Expenditure by Fiscal Year
  • Grant non-payroll expenditures by expenditures included or excluded from MTDC base
• Ending Awards
  • Detail of awards ending within a specified timeframe, including remaining budget
• Overspent Awards
  • Detail of awards where expenditures exceed current budget
• F&A Recovery by Sponsor Type
  • Overview of agreed upon F&A rate recovery based on individual awards compared to institutionally negotiated indirect cost rate by fiscal year
• F&A Recovery by Fiscal Year
  • Overview of agreed upon F&A rate recovery based on individual awards compared to institutionally negotiated indirect cost rate by fiscal year
• Research Support Fund Distribution
  • Departmental distribution of research support funds based on loaded contract allocations
• Research Support Fund Activity by Fiscal Year
  • Revenue and expenditure activities within research support funds by fiscal year
• Research Support Fun Activity by Group
  • Revenue and expenditure activities within research support funds by functional area

There are standard filters at the top of each tab: Fiscal Year (for single-year tabs), Campus, Functional Area, College/Division, Department, and Department ID. Grant filters are available on all tabs that include grant data: Contract Purpose, Contract Type, Prime Sponsor Type, Prime Sponsor Name, CFDA, and Principal Investigator. Additional tab-specific filters are available on select tabs.

The Download Data button in the top right of each page enables users to export data into Excel or CSV formats. To export contract and project level detail from a tab, select the "Detail" sheet from the Download popup.

All data is sourced from PeopleSoft Finance.

Data is refreshed daily based on a live feed. Prior year data is as of the last day of the fiscal year. Current year data is as of the last complete calendar day.

SPARC uses the campus RPT_DEPARTMENT trees for department roll ups.

The most current effective dated values are used on this tree on SPARC, which means SPARC always reflects how departments are currently set up ("As Is"). For example, if a child department A is moved to a new parent X, historical A data is now reported under X.

The following describe how changes and updates to the data tree affect reporting in SPARC:

*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.

• What is the different between prime and direct sponsor?
  • Prime Sponsor:
    • The entity that provides the original source of funding, which may be different from the entity with which UMass has a direct relationship
  • Direct Sponsor:
    • The entity with which UMass is contracted, which may be the prime sponsor, or may be a passthrough for the original funding entity
  • For example, if UMass is a subrecipient on a federal award with a university, the prime sponsor type is Federal Government, and the direct sponsor type is Colleges & Universities

• What does it mean that something is in or out of the MTDC base?
  • The Modified Total Direct Cost (MTDC) base is the base which most federal awards use to calculate indirect costs. Certain accounts are excluded from the MTDC base and do not generate indirect costs, while those that are in the MTDC base do.

• Why is an award still appearing on this tab when we have already received an award extension notice or continuation for this grant?
  • This dashboard pulls data directly from PeopleSoft, including the award end date. The award end date for this award has not yet been updated in PeopleSoft, but the award will no longer appear on this list once the end date has been updated. Updates in preaward systems such as Huron and Kuali are not yet available in SPARC Research.

• We received a budget increase on an award, so why is it showing as overspent?
  • This dashboard pulls data directly from PeopleSoft, including the award budget. The award budget for this award has not yet been updated in PeopleSoft, but the award will no longer appear on this list once the budget has been updated so that total expenditures no longed exceed the budget. Updates in preaward systems such as Huron and Kuali are not yet available in SPARC Research

• What is Institutional F&A?
  • This is the campus negotiated indirect cost rate, which represents the maximum potential reimbursable cost rate of facilities and administration that the campus incurs on direct costs. The administration portion of the Institutional F&A rate is capped at 26%, so even if an award reimburses the full negotiated F&A rate, there is still an unrecovered cost that the campus must fund from other sources.
• What is Recovered F&A?
  • This represents the agreed-upon F&A reimbursement rate billable on direct costs, which vary by sponsor and award. Certain sponsors or program types cap F&A rates, and will not fund an award if their capped rate is not accepted by the institution.
• What is Unrecovered F&A?
  • This represents an estimate of F&A costs the campus is incurring that are not being billed or reimbursed by the sponsor based on the difference between the Institutional F&A rate and the Recovered F&A rate. The actual amount being borne by the campus is larger due to caps on the administrative portion of the federally negotiated indirect cost rate.

• What does the Research Support Fund Distribution tab show?
  • This tab shows how recovered research support funds are distributed to campus departments based on the Facilities Admin Offset setup within PeopleSoft.

• How are Research Support Funds identified?
  • Research support funds are identified based on the UMass Financial Statement Fund Revenue Tree for funds that fall under the Recovery of Indirect Costs revenue line. Campuses may alternatively refer to these funds as Research Investment Funds.
• Why is there only one row of filters?
  • The second row of filters is specific to the award setup within PeopleSoft. Once funds have been distributed to the Research Support Funds, the link to the originating contract is lost, so the contract-related filters are no available on these tabs.