Announcing the Launch of FRED: the Financial Research Expenditure Dashboard
We are pleased to announce that starting today, Thursday, October 19th, Department and Grant Administrators will be able to access and utilize the Financial Research Expenditure Dashboard (FRED). This dashboard is designed to aid DAs in expense monitoring and projecting.
FRED provides DAs with an at-a-glance view of all the grants they manage, allowing DAs to quickly check status, note upcoming financial-related deadlines, view salary cost distributions, transaction and commitment details. FRED has a robust system to perform salary and expenditure projections for DAs to forecast grant spend with their PIs to make educated decisions.
Why Use FRED?
Monitoring expenditures on grants and forecasting spending is a key but complex responsibility for Department Administrators. This tool, developed by and for Department Administrators, with technical aid from CIDA and Sponsored Programs, simplifies this process.
- Standardizing processes across the University: A University-wide tool will help with continuity during employee absence/turnover, reduce duplication of effort, and allow Sponsored Programs to provide metrics and flags to be used by DAs.
- Time Savings: Having an automated dashboard should remove hours of work for the DAs every month who were manually updating spreadsheets (shadow systems).
- Proactive Grant Management: Reviewing projected spend with actuals against the budget will make grant management easier. DAs will also be able to research any discrepancies all in the same tool.
FRED Training Resources
FRED Technical Guidance and Best Practices
On this page, you will find written and video instructions for using FRED, including a step-by-step guide on how to use the new tool and expense monitoring principles. With this guide, you will be able to interpret the information FRED provides, apply it to your work, and take your next steps in managing your award. Topics include:
- General navigation and PowerBI Knowledge
- Overview of FRED’s capabilities
- Details on the information FRED can tell you about your awards
- Editing your projections in excel
- How to answer complex award questions using FRED
- Managing over or under spending, carryover, and no cost extensions
- Types of employees on a grant and how they are treated in projections
- Projection considerations and frequency
- Award management actions
As we learn more about the needs of DAs, this document will be updated with more detailed instruction, so please reach out with your questions and consult this evolving document as you use FRED.
Office Hours
Representatives from CIDA and Sponsored Programs will be available to answer any questions you have about using FRED. Department Administrators will receive an invitation to join these office hours and can choose which days to attend.
Office hours will be hosted on:
- October 30th at 2 PM
- November 2nd at 11 AM
- November 7th at 1 PM
- November 13th at 10 AM
- November 16th at 1 PM
To attend an office hour, please follow the link for the session you would like to attend to register and add it to your calendar. You are welcome to join more than one session.
FRED Walkthrough Recordings
A virtual information session hosted on Thursday, October 19th was recorded and is now hosted online. This information session includes a live demonstration of how to use FRED and discussion on best practices around expense monitoring and forecasting.
View the FRED Information Session RecordingQuestions or Feedback
If you have any questions or feedback regarding how to use the tool or best practices, or if you run into technical issues, please use our FRED Contact Form and we will respond as soon as possible.
Testimonials
“I am now finally beginning to put things together and am getting results that tie very closely to what I get in my BW-based shadow system… my system and FRED are beginning to come into phase. I’m so glad that all of the hard work your team has done is working with real grants in real departments!”