GAMS Staff-Leanne Every and Paul Kelley

Connecting Researchers with Technology

Leanne Every and Paul Kelley work together to make sure the technology applications in the Research Area run smoothly. In particular, they work on the Grants Application and Management System (GAMS), which helps researchers, Grant Accountants and internal staff manage grants for pre-award, post-award and grant billing tasks. Leanne and Paul are committed to providing UMass Amherst researchers with a user-friendly tool that allows them to prepare, manage and track their proposals and awards efficiently.

Paul is responsible for the technical system and database administration, maintenance and updating of GAMS as well as setting the direction for the new functionality with the GAMS software vendor. Leanne is responsible for assuring that the system abides by sponsor and internal institutional rules and the proper creation of GAMS on-line budgets and proposals that are ultimately submitted electronically to sponsors. Leanne works directly with end-users on GAMS proposal and budget building tasks and has developed several GAMS training courses.

The system was adopted about 12 years ago as a result of the campus's participation in a university consortium made up of Oklahoma State University, North Carolina State University, University of Southern California and University of Michigan (other consortium participants: University of Illinois, Penn State University). The original goal of developing the software was to deal with the creation of federal grant applications electronically (EDI). GAMS was adopted at UMass Amherst to assist faculty with the budget rules and regulations both pre and post award. Leanne says, “GAMS is intended to be a workflow tool as well as a budget tool.” Paul points out how the program is useful to researchers as it is intended to correspond with sponsor and institutional rules, “It provides less erroneous budgets and allows for easy collection, storage and retrieval of data.”

The responsibility for making sure GAMS meets these expectations falls to both Leanne and Paul. Leanne is the Director of the Systems Division in the Office of Grants and Contracts Administration (OGCA). She oversees the technology applications within the office. Leanne has been with OGCA for 22 ½ years, originally coming on as a database manager. She gained experience with databases during her work in agricultural areas at Oregon State University. Before that, she received her Bachelor's in forestry from University of New Hampshire and also worked in private industry and the federal government until she realized that she had a talent for technology. “I realized that information technology is what I am good at and so I shifted my professional focus.” Leanne has helped OGCA transition into almost all facets of computer technology, including using email and real-time online databases.

Paul started out as the Site Director for GAMS at UMASS under the Office of Research Affairs. Since that time the GAMS application has evolved to being a post award mission critical application with direct interfaces to PeopleSoft Finance and PeopleSoft Human Resource applications. Paul's main responsibility is the technical implementation of GAMS. As a systems and database analyst, he maintains and runs GAMS on campus. Previously, Paul worked for a software company in Salem, MA. Of that experience he says, “I learned a lot about programming, technical software implementations and project management. It has really allowed for a logical transition to my work with GAMS at UMass Amherst.” He also worked as a software implementation consultant for Ernst & Young. He earned his Master's degree at the Western New England College.

Leanne and Paul work with several constituencies to ensure that everyone's needs are being met, including the Controller's Office, the President's Office, Human Resources and other UMass campuses. Leanne says, “Our jobs are based in service because we need to make sure that all of these offices are getting what they need.” Paul also points out that GAMS is a 24/7 web-based software application supported by the Office of Information Technologies. They provide server based services from security to hardware technical support.

Both Paul and Leanne are excited about newly-launched capacities in GAMS. This month, GAMS has been linked directly to the Grants.gov system in a way that allows the two programs to interface. Paul says, “After, many years of working with the various agency electronic proposal systems, it is satisfying to see Grants.gov as the ONE portal for receiving the proposals.” This application will allow a smooth data transfer between faculty Grants.gov proposals and the federal government agencies that require Grants.gov submissions.

Paul has also been working hard on getting a new grants billing feature to go live this month. The application imports PeopleSoft expenditure transactions and allows for a the creation of a sponsor billing form in a PDF format. Leanne says, “These changes are big time for GAMS, we've been working hard to get these things off the ground and it is nice to see them come to fruition. There is a lot of value-added with these applications. We'll be able to go through the administrative process faster and we will have a more standardized product.”

Currently, there are about 300 GAMS users on campus. This number will almost double with the introduction of new functionality as well as mandatory electronic submission through Grants.gov. GAMS training sessions will continue to be offered for new and advanced users to help researchers make the transition.

For training materials and more information about GAMS, visit the Electronic Research Administration website. Questions about GAMS or its new capacities? Contact Leanne Every (413) 545-5892, director of the systems division, or Paul Kelley (413) 545-3837, project manager for GAMS.