MARS

A tool for managing research award projects for investigators, departmental administrators and project staff

MARS is an application that supports research award management at Oxford aimed at principal investigators, departmental administrators and project support staff. It combines information drawn from R12 Oracle Financials, X5 and CoreHR in a new in-house built web application, with an easy-to-use visual user interface.

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From Oracle R12 (updated weekly)

  • portfolio of current research award projects with project dates and investigator names
  • direct costs by top task and expenditure category, displayed in a graph
  • overheads, displayed in a graph
  • graphs toggle between actual amounts and run rates

From CoreHR (updated monthly)

  • names and FTE of staff who are directly paid from the project

    From X5 costing and pricing (updated nightly)

    • investigator FTE allocations
    • Project reference codes (GoPro, X5, funder and department references)

    Dashboard – combines information from Oracle R12 and X5 costing and pricing

    • upcoming key dates
    • overall overheads for the department, displayed in a graph
    • application pipeline of upcoming projects
    • success rates

    From Oracle R12 (updated weekly)

    • portfolio of current research award projects with project dates and investigator names
    • direct costs by department and collaborator, with expenditure category, displayed in a graph
    • graphs toggle between actual amounts and run rates

    From CoreHR (updated monthly)

    • names and FTE of staff who are directly paid from the project

    From X5 costing and pricing (updated nightly)

    • Project reference codes (Funder and department references

    Project data can be enriched with key dates, website links and free text notes.

    Please note that data from Oracle R12, X5 and CoreHR cannot be changed within MARS. Any changes need to be made within each system.

    Access to MARS

    There are three types of MARS users:

    • departmental user managers
    • standard departmental users
    • project users (investigators and project support staff)

    Departmental user managers are set up by the MARS helpdesk, and grant access to both standard departmental users and project users in their department.

    All users have read-only access to data in MARS.

    Please note: Staff in Divisional Offices who require access to MARS are set-up by the MARS helpdesk as standard users for the departments in their division. These staff need to complete the MARS 'Standard user – Divisions' request form, obtain authorisation from their Divisional Secretary/Financial Controller and email the completed form to mars@it.ox.ac.uk

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    Each department should have one or two departmental user managers. These departmental user managers should be sufficiently senior so they can grant access to standard users.

    To be set up as departmental user manager, please complete the MARS departmental user manager request form, have it approved and emailed to mars@it.ox.ac.uk by your head of administration, head of department or similar senior role.

    This page describes how to grant access to standard departmental users and project users: MARS help website

    Please note that standard departmental users will see all your department’s data, while project users only have access to specific projects, selected by yourself.

    Your departmental user manager will be able to grant you access to your project(s). If you do not know who your departmental user manager is, please contact your Head of Administration and Finance (or equivalent). MARS displays information from three different source systems, R12, X5 and CoreHR. If you have questions about data in MARS please go to your departmental contact for the relevant source system.

    MARS logo

     

    LOG IN TO MARS 

    VISIT THE MARS HELP SITE

    MARS helpdesk

    mars@it.ox.ac.uk

    01865 (2)80089

    See also