Homegrown eRA vs. the Cayuse research suite
With research teams working remotely, it’s essential to do more with less while facilitating collaboration. Most research organizations have had to adjust and update processes, but that’s not easy when systems were built in-house years ago (aka “homegrown”) and require people to be on campus. As a result, many organizations are evaluating new electronic research administration systems. We know that new software is a big commitment, so let’s take a look at how Cayuse and homegrown solutions stack up.
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Differences between homegrown eRA systems and Cayuse
| Homegrown eRA | Cayuse research suite |
|---|---|
| Requires ongoing IT/tech team support | Less reliance on IT/tech team support |
| People and processes are siloed | One central place for everyone to go with role-specific dashboards |
| Systems are disconnected | All pre- and post-award and compliance apps are not only connected, they connect to key systems like your ERP, CITI training, etc |
| It takes months or years to change and update systems to accommodate for regulatory or process updates | Change forms, routing, and alerts in a few clicks. It’s easy to make configurations and for non-technical users to make updates |
| Data is in many different places, so reporting is manual and time-consuming | All research-related data is in one central place, with robust reporting across the entire research lifecycle |
Did you know?
Today’s cloud technology is entirely different from a decade ago, when you were often limited in configuration options. With Cayuse, that’s not the case. That’s why fewer of your peers are using homegrown systems and more are adopting Cayuse.
Percent of institutions using homegrown eRA vs Cayuse research suite
Reducing IT team burden with Cayuse cloud technology
All of your favorite apps are cloud-based—shouldn’t your research administration tools be, too? While homegrown systems require your IT team to build and maintain them, and you often can only use them on-site, Cayuse is one of the only vendors with apps fully deployed and maintained in the cloud. Our cloud approach reduces burden to IT teams through:
- Faster updates and new features: You don’t have to wait for IT to make updates for efficiency or optimization.
- Total cost of ownership savings: Cloud software means fewer internal resources needed to maintain the system. You also don’t have to worry about buying, maintaining, or replacing servers and other hardware with Cayuse.
- The ability to work anywhere: Use Cayuse software anywhere you can access the internet: at home, the airport, or a tropical beach—we won’t tell.
Customer stories
Connect departments and increase transparency with Cayuse
Today, with many departments working remotely, it’s harder to stay connected to your colleagues in another department. This makes it extremely challenging for research administrators on tight deadlines to make submission dates and stay current on new organizational policies and procedures.
Cayuse uniquely offers multiple solutions for every department, while connecting departments and processes with features from the Cayuse platform. For example, users can quickly see a list of duties with the My Tasks feature, and RAs can group users into appropriate departments with the Teams feature.
Cayuse apps like Sponsored Projects leverage powerful auto-routing processes to the appropriate department or person based on a form answer. And you can establish review committees for grant and proposal review processes with Cayuse, saving valuable time and the need to constantly follow up with committee members.
No more disconnected systems
With the release of the Cayuse platform, we have created a seamless ecosystem of connected research applications that connect systems, people, departments, and processes across the entire grant lifecycle.
No other vendor in the space offers an open connected ecosystem through APIs, connectors, and partner integrations at this level. Cayuse products communicate with each other and with your organization’s established HR, payroll, general ledger, and ERP systems, eliminating duplicate data entry and saving time. Ask us about your specific software—chances are, we’ve already done many successful integrations!
Regulatory changes?No problem!
When the government issues a regulatory change, you have to adjust processes and questionnaires, often depending on your IT team to do so. This can take a long time, and if not done soon enough, your organization can risk compliance penalties.
Cayuse reduces this burden for you and your IT team with unique features like Smart Forms that are simple to update yourself. You can quickly drag in a new form and add conditional logic to auto-route based on the answer submitted to match with your established organizational process. Plus, we update the Cayuse research suite quarterly, providing a flexible software solution that requires minimal IT management to unlock powerful new features.
Data transparency and easy reporting
When leadership requests an annual or ad-hoc report, research administrators often feel dread. Reporting with homegrown solutions means manually collecting data from various colleagues, departments, and systems—essentially duct-taping various data sets together. On top of that, it’s painstaking to make the data presentable and easily digestible. Countless hours are wasted.
Cayuse’s advanced reporting capabilities provide powerful, quick access to data while remaining compliant with your organization’s security. That means more time leveraging data (and less time wrangling spreadsheets). See Cayuse’s robust reporting tools in the short video below—you’ll see a small sample of our filtering and extracting data capabilities, plus examples of our in-app reporting and data visualization tools.
See powerful reporting and analytics capabilities
In-app reporting • Data visualization • Data filtering & extraction
