Frequently Asked Questions: PT/PAM Go-Live

RADAR will be retired on Aug. 7, 2023. From Aug. 1-7, RADAR will be view-only — you will only be able to look up historical information (entered prior to Aug. 1). RADAR will be offline from July 28 to July 31, for data migration into RED.

All data needed for pre-award, post-award, audit and public-records request purposes will be available in RED. This will include:

• All awards and executed agreements, including Testing Services Agreements and Fabrication Service Agreements with an end date of July 1, 2016, or later;
• All proposals submitted from FY2020 to present, including non-funded proposals; and
• All ‘File Only’ records (e.g., master research, joint faculty, collaboration and data use agreements).

If a record that has continuing administrative value for the purposes above somehow slips through the cracks during data migration, you can contact SPARCS and they will either retrieve the information or move the record to RED, as appropriate.

For reporting needs that require capturing long-term sponsored projects data within or beyond the ranges described above, you’ll use the Sponsored Research Activity Reporting (SRAR) system, powered by SAS Visual Analytics.

To look up information on individual projects, you can simply query records in RED. You’ll be able to search for projects in various ways, including but not limited to by sponsor, PI name or ledger-5 account number.

To generate reports, create comparisons, etc. based on data from multiple projects, you’ll need to use the Sponsored Research Activity Reporting (SRAR) system, powered by SAS Visual Analytics. SRAR will include all data from both RADAR (historical) and RED (active). SRAR will support trend reporting, including date-limited and multi-year reports.

For most users, yes. However, RED will capture more proposal content in fields instead of attachments, so RED security is based on RADAR’s attachment access rights. 

All researchers have full access to the records on which they are named. 

Others may use the Sponsored Research Activity Reporting (SRAR) viewer to find information about projects by sponsor, researcher, college, department and other criteria. 

For non-researchers who require access to sponsored programs records in RED, including attachments, please email SPS@ncsu.edu with the OUC (2-digit, 4-digit or 6-digit) and a brief description of the business need. 

If the records you can see in RED don’t get you what you need, the Sponsored Research Activity Reporting (SRAR) viewer might be able to help.

If neither SRAR nor RED has what you need (for example, a document from a project that wasn’t converted to RED), SPARCS might be able to retrieve the information for you. Please email SPS@ncsu.edu with a brief description of what you are looking for. PI name, sponsor, sponsor award number and RADAR reference number are especially helpful if available. 

For further support and training, visit go.ncsu.edu/red-sp-training, contact red-training-team@ncsu.edu, or call the SPARCS Helpline at 919.515.4267.

Training resources will be available online at go.ncsu.edu/red-sp-training. Additionally, there will be opportunities to attend facilitated training (e.g., via Zoom) sessions leading up to and after the launch.

Visit REPORTER to register for virtual or in-person training sessions on the new systems.

If you need help in a more timely fashion (during regular business hours), call the SPARCS Helpline at 919.515.4267.

PINS will be integrated with RED and will continue to serve as the university’s proposal routing system until the eventual implementation of RED’s Proposal Development (PD) module. Please continue to route proposals and agreement requests through PINS; these will be imported into RED as they were into RADAR.

Cayuse 424 will also remain available to campus users until the PD module has been implemented.

Beginning with the 2023-2024 RPT cycle, the list of grant activity known as the RPT Report will be available here. Watch this video to learn how to generate and print a PDF of the new RPT Report, powered by SAS Visual Analytics.

The Proposal Tracking (PT) module houses records of proposals, including those that were never awarded. The Post Award Management (PAM) module houses records of awards.

PT is technically part of the “Proposals” module in RED, which will eventually include both PT and Proposal Development (PD) — the equivalent of PINS. So you may never or rarely see the words “Proposal Tracking” actually used in RED.

And while, depending on your role, you may not need to ever personally use PT, PAM will still rely on it behind the scenes to function properly.

RED is being implemented in phases; the implementation of PT/PAM is part of a larger effort known as the Enterprise Research Administration (ERA) project. The goal of the ERA project is to streamline sponsored programs administration by implementing an enterprise-level system — which integrates the lifecycle of the research administration processes, from proposal development and submission through award management, financial administration and closeout — that is effective for all. Visit our About page to learn more.