Aims Grant Management Software

The Netherlands Fund for Performing Arts (NFPK+)

The Client

The Netherlands Fund for Performing Arts+ (Nederlands Fonds voor Podiumkunsten - NFPK+) brings together all the performing arts disciplines into a single organisation that considers the entire chain, from creating and producing to programming and audience-building.

The Dutch Funding Organisation makes awards to professional arts organizations and individuals using a peer assessment process. The Netherlands is home to many companies, ensembles, orchestras and creators respected around the world. There is a well-equipped and well-distributed network of venues to exhibit the entire range of disciplines. NFPK works to retain and enhance what is already good and to help streamline those areas that require improvement.

This naturally presupposes the existence of a well-functioning funding structure.

Grant Management Solution

NFPK decided to implement Quest’s AIMS Grant Management Solution to provide more efficient and effective ways to deliver services to grant applicants.

The AIMS System will be used to gather information from artists and organisations which is fed into the AIMS database where all information on each client is centrally stored and easily retrieved. Each Grant Application will follow an electronic "workflow" to ensure all applications are processed and assessed fairly and in the same way.

The new Grant Management solution will provide NFPK staff with “information at their fingertips”, and will as a result, offer more efficient communication with artists and organisations.

NFPK+ will use the new software to ensure closer contact with the sector and improve transparency, accessibility, visibility and administrative procedures. In doing so, it will seek to strike the right balance between continuity and a satisfactory degree of flexibility.

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Natural England

The Client

Natural England (NE) is a UK Government agency operating under the remit of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). NE delivers the Government’s programme of financial incentives to farmers and land managers for the protection and enhancement of the natural environment. Natural England were awarded the rights to manage and administer the “Access to Nature Grant Scheme” by BIG (who manage the distribution of Lottery funds).

This was a new scheme for Natural England and they wanted it to function efficiently and effectively while minimising the administration costs. A new grant management system was therefore required to enable NE bring its grant services closer to the public they strive to serve. With this in mind, AIMS was chosen as their preferred Grant Management Solution

The Solution

The “Access to Nature Grant Scheme” can be applied for on-line by organisations and individuals via a two-phase process. An initial electronic application is submitted by the applicant which is appraised by NE and accepted / rejected. The accepted applications are then invited to submit additional forms on-line where they give further detail of their projects. These projects are then appraised and those accepted move forward in the workflow. As each project reaches certain milestones they are assessed and if approved, are paid some or all of the allocated funds.

Each Grant application has its own payment schedule, while each item on the schedule can have specific conditions attached. Conditions are set so that the application must either meet, fail or the condition can be waived. AIMS is configured, using its workflow based financial stages, to generate commitments (soft, and/or hard) and links to the financial system.

BIG, who supply the funding and outsource the administration, required a detailed “report” on a regular basis. The “report” was developed using an XML file of every application (both accepted and rejected), project outline, organisation, status, funding request, approval, etc.

Project Structure

IBM managed the overall project and provided the entire infrastructure required (server, hosting, database, etc.). Quest provided AIMS software including implementation team, module development, all configuration and training. Formal project go-ahead was given in December 2007 followed by a series of prototyping sessions which were concluded in January 08; user acceptance testing started in mid May 08 and the system was available for go-live in June 08. The system went live in August 08 in time for the first call of the Scheme.

The entire implementation was achieved by configuration of AIMS with the only software development aspect being the BIG “Report”. This was a new requirement for BIG, and NE were the first Lottery funding administrators to produce the file – with a number of changes, clarifications and redefinitions ongoing during the development and testing process. This module was a bespoke development for Quest but extracted the data from existing or configured items from within AIMS.

 

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Arts Council England

 

The Client

Arts Council England is the national development agency for the arts in England, distributing public money from Government and the National Lottery. Much has changed within the organisation since it was formed following the merger of the ten independent Regional Arts Boards in 2002, however underlying this has been its unswerving commitment to delivering value to its stakeholders. Between 2006 and 2008, Arts Council England will invest £1.1 billion of public money from government and the National Lottery in supporting the arts.

The Challenge

In 2004, Arts Council England sought to purchase and implement a Single Grant Management System (SGMS), which would operate across its 9 English regions. The system, which would be browser based, would supersede the various systems being used within the council across its different regions and would fulfill the following 4 high-level requirements:

• Provide a Central Contacts Repository
• Manage and automate the entire grant process across the regions
• Contain powerful MIS and Reporting features
• Have the ability to integrate with the existing financial system - Oracle Financials

Grants Management Solution

Arts Council England already had a team of Business Analysts and Developers working on a prototyping approach prior to identifying AIMS as their preferred solution. The system's inherent flexibility allowed the council to configure AIMS to meet all of its business requirements without the associated costs and risks involved in designing and building a bespoke system.

The council's developers were trained in AIMS technology, enabling them to implement their prototype within the AIMS architecture, which was subsequently adopted as the standard for all future schemes.

Once familiar with the environment, the council's business analysts quickly mapped their business processes, rules and client organisation structures to the system. Quest's development and implementation team dovetailed with their counterparts on the Council's project team, while Quest's senior Project Manager was based on-site, three days each week for the duration of the project. This collaboration ensured the project was completed in the fastest and most effective manner.

The first phase of this enterprise-wide system went live in July 2006, while the remainder of the 800-strong user population came on stream the following October - on time and within budget.

 

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The Sports Council for Wales

 

The Client

The Sports Council for Wales is a Welsh Assembly Government sponsored public body responsible for developing and promoting sport and recreation across Wales. The Sports Council for Wales employs around 180 staff - these include Head Office and regional staff, as well as those working at its national centres, the Welsh Institute of Sport in Cardiff and Plas Menai National Watersports Centre, near Caernarfon. The Sports Council for Wales is headquartered at the Welsh Institute of Sport in Cardiff.

The Challenge

The Council, which is jointly funded by both Lottery and Exchequer contributions, administers over 10 different grant programmes and had been using a largely manual process to manage its business processes. This meant that data was held on a series of disparate data repositories across the organisation, with fragmented administration and no single database for the management of grants and any information pertaining to these.

Grant Management Solution

In 2004, the Council commissioned an independent consulting organisation to review its requirements. This review not only covered the preparation of the organisation for a new automated system, but also to rationalise the number of processes involved in the administration and management of its grants programs. This review was duly completed and after a detailed search of the market, followed by a competitive bid process, the decision was taken by the Council to purchase AIMS.

Some of the key areas the system addresses or will address include:

• Providing users with the ability to see at-a-glance what applications require attention (via AIMS inbox) as well as completing check-lists and producing standard letters
• Providing on-line access to applicants to complete application forms and view the progress of their application
• Allowing users to determine if clients have applied for, or have received grants from other schemes as well as search for applications, people or organisations by scheme.
• Allowing authorised users to view all documents associated with an application without having to request hard copy files.
• Evaluating and approving grants and payments on-line.
• Providing automatic reminders to users when set dates have passed without action and ensuring tasks and applications remain in the users inbox until dealt with.
• Ability for users to assign tasks to other members of their team whilst on holiday

The Management System, which was implemented in less than 6 months, and within budget is being used extensively across the Council, providing a central data repository for grant contacts as well as offering a collaborative working environment for management and staff.

 

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Department of Community, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs

The Client

The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs has responsibility for the promotion and conservation of the cultural, social and economic well being of the seven recognised Gaeltacht regions across Ireland. In addition the Islands Section is responsible for promoting the sustainable development of the populated offshore islands in particular and to seek to ensure the provision of adequate levels of services for islanders.

The Challenge

To deliver on its mandate the Department needed to provide a standard and consistent response to grant applications, and it was decided to utilise an electronic system to maintain client data and support processing, sanction and payment of grant applications. System interfaces needed to be in Irish and provide for the entry, display and reporting of characters as used in the Irish Language.

Grant Management Solution

The Department took the decision to implement Quest's AIMS system, on the basis of its suitability to their requirements. All documents received or produced in relation to cases are stored electronically and are available for viewing and printing.

The system assists users with the processing of applications, and offers the capability to support a largely paper free environment. It ensures timely responses to applications and queries by informing and reminding users of their tasks and the due dates, as well as providing up to the minute management information reporting.

AIMS allows multiple users to work on the same case simultaneously, while at the same time allows each user to view activities occurring on the client record. Users are able to:

• Register requests for applications and update client details
• Process grant applications and access scheme details
• Search and retrieve client records, and view previous applications
• Record Approval decisions and inform next level of management for authorisation
• Prepare payments (pre-payments, instalments and final payments)
• Record 'record of events' (telephone conversations, meetings, inspections)
• Scan relevant documentation and produce required correspondence, reports etc.

Not only has the system allowed the Department to measure how well it is performing, by providing statistical data on various aspects of the Gaeltacht regions, but it has also provided sufficient flexibility for future modifications to be made easily to existing schemes, as well as allow additional schemes be added at a later date.

Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg

The Client

The FNR sees itself as one of the main drivers of high quality research in Luxembourg. In order to fulfil this role, it aims to steer public research through its research programmes and tackle structural issues through its various other instruments.

For the FNR, the chief role of public sector research is to provide valuable knowledge and guidance in relation to the aspects that are important for Luxembourg’s economy, society and its environment. The objective of the FNR is thus threefold: to invest in human resources, in institutions and in knowledge.

Contract Award

The objective of the present contract award is for the supply and implementation of an integrated, high performance, operational and user-friendly Information System, including software licenses, for the Management of Funding Programmes at the Luxembourg “Fonds National de la Recherche”(FNR).

The need to develop an efficient and integrated Grant Management System (GMS) with an online application service stems from the fact that there are increasing volumes of funding programmes and projects to be managed in the future at the FNR, due in particular to a reform of the national PhD and Postdoc Grant scheme (AFR) which will enter into force by law in 2008 and which will entrust the FNR with the management of the PhD and postdoc.

Grant Management Software

In January 2009, FNR decided to implement Quest's Grant Management Software – AIMS. The system was found to meet all of FNR's “On-line Grants Service” and "back office" requirements as well as offering the flexibility to allow new schemes to be added or existing schemes to be modified without the need for expensive re-programming.

Main expectations of the FNR towards the new IT System concern a complete operational service for typical online grant management, on the basis of predefined processes, including budget management and overall reporting and statistics.

AIMS was developed with “Communities of Practice” (COPS) in mind. The system therefore gives a common working forum to everyone involved in the granting process, which in the case of FNR included Researchers, External Reviewers, Principle Investigators, Administrators, Scientific Research Organisations, etc. The software will enable FNR to operate an inclusive working environment bringing the Research Community together in an integrated on-line community.

The future GMS will cover the three major funding activities at the FNR:

• The AFR research-training grants for PhD and postdoc

• The multi-annual research programmes

• The research accompanying measures