Institute of Museum and Library Services Grants Management System
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an independent Federal grant-making agency dedicated to creating and sustaining a nation of learners by helping libraries and museums serve their communities. IMLS hired Infostrat to develop a system for grants management. With both a web front end and a Windows smart client.
BACKGROUND
PROBLEMIMLS staff receives thousands of applications each year for over a dozen programs that they administer. Before Infostrat got involved, IMLS staff relied primarily on a paper-based process along with an aging Wang system with an archaic, difficult interface. Due to the inadequacies of the Wang system, most staff used their own private Microsoft Access databases to manage their own data. The result was that the data collected was inconsistent, scattered in multiple places, and difficult to access and summarize. It required a manual fire drill by IMLS management to get up to date information on current status for current applicants and award status.
SOLUTIONInfostrat started by conducting thorough requirements analysis with IMLS staff to determine the data fields that needed to be captured across the broad spectrum of programs that IMLS administers. Once we obtained consensus on the data required, Infostrat developed an easy to use set of data forms using Visual Basic for capturing the information needed on the people, institutions, and reviewers involved throughout the entire grant management process.
Data was then migrated from the old Wang system as well as the private Access databases into the new system, based on Microsoft SQL Server. The resulting system, called the Applications and Awards Management System (AAMS), enables people to enter data from paper application forms into the system. The system provides the ability to manually or automatically create objective review groups of qualified reviewers. Reviewers score the applications based on established criteria uniquely configured by each Program Officer.
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Business ProfileInstitute of Museum and Library ServicesSolution at a GlanceCreated a client/server system for grant management and a web-based application for reviewers to score applicationsTechnologies involved .NET Framework ASP.NET Visual Basic Microsoft Office Visual Studio.NET SQL Server 2000 Infostrat developed a web-based reviewer scoring application where reviewers can go to enter their scores and comments against this criteria and it automatically is saved in the AAMS client/server system. Based on these scores, Program Officers can then determine which applicants will be granted awards. The system provides the ability to administer the payments and create required reports after an award has been made. The system also includes a large spectrum of status reports required on a wide range of areas. Finally, the system provides a rich ad hoc query tool for finding subsets of data and for exporting the result set into Microsoft Excel or character delimited files. The system uses SQL Server 2000 as the database repository. The rich client was built using Microsoft Visual Basic. The web-based reviewer scoring system was built using the Microsoft .NET architecture. IMLS participates in the Grants.Gov initiative whose mission is to provide one centralized location for applying for grants across all of the Federal government. Applicants who apply for grants through the grants.gov website will have their data automatically migrated to the AAMS system through an established XML interface, thus skipping the step of converting data from paper forms. ___________________________ These case studies are provided to illustrate the capabilities of Infostrat in delivering solutions on the Microsoft platform. They do not represent an endorsement of Infostrat or Microsoft Corporation by the customer.
Infostrat developed a web-based reviewer scoring application where reviewers can go to enter their scores and comments against this criteria and it automatically is saved in the AAMS client/server system. Based on these scores, Program Officers can then determine which applicants will be granted awards.
The system provides the ability to administer the payments and create required reports after an award has been made. The system also includes a large spectrum of status reports required on a wide range of areas. Finally, the system provides a rich ad hoc query tool for finding subsets of data and for exporting the result set into Microsoft Excel or character delimited files.
The system uses SQL Server 2000 as the database repository. The rich client was built using Microsoft Visual Basic. The web-based reviewer scoring system was built using the Microsoft .NET architecture.
IMLS participates in the Grants.Gov initiative whose mission is to provide one centralized location for applying for grants across all of the Federal government. Applicants who apply for grants through the grants.gov website will have their data automatically migrated to the AAMS system through an established XML interface, thus skipping the step of converting data from paper forms.
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These case studies are provided to illustrate the capabilities of Infostrat in delivering solutions on the Microsoft platform. They do not represent an endorsement of Infostrat or Microsoft Corporation by the customer.