Creating a Custom Report
To create a detailed custom report, select the 'Create Custom Reports' option from the Main Menu.
General Information
The Custom Reporting Tool allows users to generate customized reports including data from any of the UNC schools. The searches may be simple or complex, and users determine which data fields the report should display and which specific projects should be included.
The sponsored programs office at each of the UNC institutions is responsible for entering data into the SPARC system. Each institution may provide varying levels of specificity in the projects' descriptor data.
All award figures in the SPARC system are verified with each institution at the end of the fiscal year (June 30). Each institution is responsible for maintaining and submitting the accurate information for their sponsored programs activity. If you have specific questions regarding an institution's data, please contact the institution's Office of Sponsored Programs. A listing of UNC sponsored programs offices is available on the following website: http://www.northcarolina.edu/aa/departments/research/uncoffices.cfm.
Basic Steps
Step 1 - ** UNC SPARC users accessing this tool via the password-protected data entry site should skip this step** All other users, select the institution(s) for which you would like to retrieve data. To select more than one institution, hold down the Control (CTRL) key and click on each desired institution name (all selected institutions will be highlighted). Click the 'Next Page' button.
Step 2 - Select the data descriptor variables that you would like to be displayed in the report. These will become the column headings in the final table. To select multiple variables, hold down the Control (CTRL) key and click on each name (all selected variables will be highlighted). To view the definition of any data descriptor variable, follow the link at the bottom of the page.
In particular, these variables should be considered:
Proposal Number - This is the unique identifier for each project. You should select this variable in order to accurately differentiate among projects.
FICE Code - If you have selected more than one institution, be sure to choose this variable. It will display the name of the institution with which each project is affiliated.
Amount Awarded - This does NOT represent the total amount awarded for a particular project. SPARC tracks the award amounts based on money actually received at each campus. If a project will be funded over multiple years, the SPARC database will contain multiple award amounts, representing various portions of the total award. SPARC will not total these multiple award amounts to display a project total. Instead, to calculate these totals you should select (at a minimum) Proposal Number, Action Date, and Amount Awarded. In the final report, all Amounts Awarded (differentiated by Action Dates) to a single proposal number can be added together to calculate the total amount that has been received to date on the project. Note that this may differ from the Amount Requested if the project is on-going and not all funding has been received, or if the sponsor did not award the exact amount that was requested. Check with the institution or PI for details.
When you have made all of your selections, click the 'Next Page' button to continue.
Search Options
Step 3 - Create your search. You may enter as many or as few criteria as necessary.
Some Common Searches: By Proposal Number, By Date (Application Date, Project Duration, or Action Date), By Amount (Awarded or Requested), or by Keyword.
Keywords may be used in a number of fields including Title, PI Name, Sponsor, or Project Summary. You may type a complete or partial word or phrase - the system will automatically search for all possible variations (for example, 'chem' will return 'chemistry', 'biochemistry', 'chemical', and 'chemist'). Do not type wildcard (*) characters or Boolean operators (and, or, not) into the search boxes.
Some fields offer a pick list of possible data that may be searched in the field. For example, all of the Activity Location fields may be selected from a specified list.
Sponsor Searches -You may search the sponsor field by typing in a keyword, or you may browse a defined Sponsor List (click the 'Pick a Sponsor' link) to select a specific sponsor name. This is not recommended for searches in the current fiscal year, as the sponsor names may not yet have been reconciled to this list.
Joining Criteria (Boolean Operators) - By default, all of the criteria that you enter will be joined with an 'AND' operator. This means that ALL of the criteria you enter must apply to the projects that are displayed in the final report. Be aware that as you include more criteria, there will be fewer results in your final report. If you would like to 'OR' these criteria instead, then you may do so by selecting 'OR' from the pull-down menus to the left of each variable that should be part of the OR statement. For example, to search for a project with 'chemistry' in the title or the project summary, you should type 'chemistry' into both the Title and Project Summary fields and select 'OR' from the pull-down menu to the left of EACH field.
Once you have entered all of the necessary criteria, click the 'Next Page' button to complete your search.
Step 4 - At the top of the next page you will see red text displaying the search you created. Below this you will see the Total Number of Records Returned, followed by the first 10 results of the search. You may click the 'Next 10 Results' link below this table to continue viewing the results on-screen, ten records at a time. You may also choose to download all of the records into a Text (.txt) file which can then be saved or imported into a spreadsheet. See the next section for detailed downloading instructions.
