Infonetica Ltd

Pre-Award Research Grants & Funding Software

"Pre-Award" is a cloud-based research project grants and research funding management platform. It includes features such as funder profiles, project costing tool, research funding application / proposal workflow management, grant application document management and more. Users include Grants Administrators, Research Development Offices at research-intensive universities, hospitals and independent research organisations.

Features

• Overview of proposals / awards in pipeline with automated classification
• Build grants / funding applications / proposals using custom templates
• FEC, facility unit costing, HR/Finance data into grant applications
• Incorporate funder rules into grant forms
• Set faculty based review and approval workflows with automated alerts
• Differentiate proposals and awards and track success rate
• Customise and manage funder profiles / funder database
• Create and configure interactive forms and workflows
• Define overheads, inflation rates etc to auto-calculate project costs
• Report and audit portfolio status and KPIs with role-based dashboards

Benefits

• Seamlessly manage Pre-Award processes
• Efficiently prepare proposal budgets for new projects
• Improve research grants success rate through effective management
• Visibility of funder rules and submission deadlines reducing missed deadlines
• Significant time savings for Grants / Funding Administrators, Principal Investigators
• Optimise cost recovery through efficient practices and accurately costed proposals
• Eliminate paper and email correspondence
• Reduce workflow complexity
• Easily access all documentation and updates
• Easily generate reports and track performance with full audit trails

£40,000 to £50,000 a licence a year

• Education pricing available
• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at Russell.Pridmore@infonetica.net. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

890465149497575

Contact

Russell Pridmore
0208 334 6900
Russell.Pridmore@infonetica.net

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
• What software services is the service an extension to: Infonetica's Research Management Platform known as "Research Flow"
• Cloud deployment model: Private cloud
• Service constraints: None
• System requirements:
  • Internet connectivity
  • Web browser

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Tickets are classified into 4 groups depending on the nature of a ticket and the severity of the incident. The response rate is dependent on the severity. A table detailing response rates and escalation routes is included in the contract.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), 7 days a week
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: We provide training to system administrators to build forms and workflows as well as to manage and use the system. These training sessions are provided at the start of the service and subsequently additional days are available on a needs basis at a cost of £1,100 per day. The system is very intuitive such that historically users have not needed any training to use the system. In addition, we offer telephone, email and support via an Online Jira platform for any system related queries or issues. Clients would also have a single point of technical contact as further support.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: We provide training to system administrators to build forms and workflows as well as to manage and use the system. These training sessions are provided at the start of the service and subsequently additional days are available on a needs basis. The system is very intuitive such that historically users have not needed any training to use the system. In addition, we offer telephone, email and support via an Online Jira platform for any system related queries or issues. Clients would also have a single point of technical contact as further support.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: "On termination or expiry of the Contract, or any Service being provided to the Customer under the Contract, ; the Customer may request a release of the Customer Data in Native Format as stored within the Software, within 30 days of termination, using the Data Release Request form which will be supplied by Infonetica at the end of the contract."
• End-of-contract process: "Upon contract termination, Infonetica will collaborate closely with the University to ensure a smooth exit. Should the customer submit a Data Release Form (which will be provided by Infonetica at the end of the contract term), we will providing a copy of the system data in SQL.Bak format ; ; Within 28 days of receipt of the Data Request Form, Infonetica can return to the customer all confidential Information of the customer. Customer data from the service will be provided in the native Format.; ; Once the University acknowledges the receipt of the returned data, Infonetica will expeditiously delete the system data from the live site. The data will be unrecoverable. ; ; No additional charges are applied to the University unless there are additional requests."

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: None
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Using the API, users can export data to and import data from other systems. The API can consume as well as output in XML or JSON data.
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: PDF
• API sandbox or test environment: Yes
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: System administrators can customise and configure forms, workflows and branding to suit their organisation and processes. They can also customise screens and dashboards for various user types. Administrators and reviewers can customise their personal work area.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: All customers run in their own resource pool. While the system is capable of utilising excess resources if required, we can also clamp the resources to ensure a single customer does not impact other users.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Applications / proposals / projects, users, reviewers and storage.
• Reporting types: Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Managed by a third party
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• Equipment disposal approach: A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Users are able to download their documentation, current Pre-Award proposals, awarded grant/funding documentation and/or unsuccessful applications at anytime. This includes data they submit. At the end of the contract, clients can receive an extract of their data in the native format on request.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats:
  • .doc
  • .pdf
  • JSON
  • XML
  • HTML
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats:
  • XML
  • JSON

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: "Service Availability during standard working hours = 99.9%; Service credits can be claimed the following month where during a month overall availability fell within the following ranges:; Availability during a given month: 99.8-98.1% = 0% service credit; Availability during a given month: 98.00% = 3% service credit; Availability during a given month: 97.00% = 5% service credit; Availability during a given month: 96.00% or less = 8% service credit"
• Approach to resilience: All servers are virtualised and clustered. It is designed to be self healing so a working server will always take over from a failed server. We maintain a second facility that keeps a realtime copy of the Data and ensures the whole service is resilient from any hardware failure right through to entire data centre failure. Hourly backups with 90 day retention ensure partial data can be restored from a partial corruption or error.
• Outage reporting: A customer dashboard displays overall SLA levels for the past 12 months.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password
  • Other
• Other user authentication: Pre-Award supports standard forms authentication out-of-the-box.It also supports various forms of Single Sign-on including ADFS, Azure and Shibboleth. It also supports authentication directly through LDAP. We also offer dual authentication for institutions who have chosen a single sign-on system. This will allow both internal and external reviewers to access the system.
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: We have tightly controlled privileged account access. Support require permission from clients to access their account through the management interface of the site. ; ; Support have no direct access to back-end systems and data. Direct management of internal systems controlling the data is tightly controlled by 2 senior employees.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: Between 6 months and 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: Between 6 months and 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: Other
• Other security governance standards: Cyber Essentials Plus
• Information security policies and processes: We have a full ISMS set of policies and processes covering all aspects of our Security and operations. This can be provided on request.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: We maintain a fully secured source control and change management system. All changes undergo peer review before being committed. Deployment of changes is only possible after committing them. We prioritize frequent small changes over significant bulk updates. In the event of a substantial change to the solution's security, we initiate a fresh penetration test.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: Aside from regular penetration testing, we operate enterprise grade Malware and intrusion detection. This analyses our logs and services looking for vulnerabilities that match criteria supplied from common threat notification services. These services include IBM, Cylance & Alienvault OTX reports. Patch management systems are in place to ensure critical updates are immediately deployed with Bi-Weekly patch reviews of non critical updates.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Both our Malware detection and Security Management systems detect threat activities from application behaviour or logged events. If a potential compromise is detected, both are capable of tracing back the source of the compromise which helps identify what that compromise had access up to it's prevention or termination. Potential compromises are investigated as a top priority and we have a full Incident response process to ensure we respond internally and notify users of any breach within the the ICO guidelines.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: We have a full incident management process detailing incident grading and response times. This can be provided on request

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Equal opportunity

  Fighting climate change

  As a cloud-based service, our Pre-Award grants and funding application and administration system offers reduced electricity consumption, higher utilisation rates across the cloud infrasrtucture and reduced reliance on infrastructure than any on-premise application

  Equal opportunity

  We are an equal opportunities employer with a diverse team. We have active equal opportunities policies for topics such as anti-discrimination, our equitable recruitment and selection process, and flexible working. One of our Core Values, which we use as a selection criteria for recruit, assess performance against, and demonstrate consistently, is 'Respect' which we define as including 'treating others as equals'.

Pricing

• Price: £40,000 to £50,000 a licence a year
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: A free instance of the service with limited users and user roles for a period of 6 months. Set-up support and customisation may be charged depending on complexity.

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at Russell.Pridmore@infonetica.net. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.