Juice FAQs

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It's important to get familiar with the "Using Juice" documentation on this site to understand not only the tool but also the context of the data in Juice. Before you start generating reports, we recommend you read the FAQs below (and the information in the "Using Juice" section) so you are able to extract accurate information from the app.

1. What is Juice?

Juice is ResearchUVA’s Sponsored Programs Dashboard application. The Juice app is a data analytics and visualization platform, developed to give us up-to-date insight and facilitate data-driven decision-making in UVA’s research enterprise. Juice replaces the Excel file of historic Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) data that was available for download on the OSP website.

We created the dashboard in collaboration with a company called Juice Analytics (http://www.juiceanalytics.com/) and the Juice name has stuck! Sometimes you’ll hear people use “Juice” and the ResearchUVA “Sponsored Programs Dashboard” interchangeably. It’s the same thing.

There are two different applications in Juice - UVA Sponsored Programs Dashboard, which is meant to show the most up to date information and is updated daily; UVA BOV Quarterly Report, which shows static information that reflects quarterly, and year-end information that has been reported to the University Board of Visitors. To toggle between these two applications, use the “My Apps” button located beside the username in the top right corner.

Also, note there are two stacks in the UVA Sponsored Programs application, one for Trend Analysis and one for Detail Analysis.

2. When was the Sponsored Programs dashboard last updated?

We update the Sponsored Programs Dashboard every morning. The date on which data was last updated in Juice will appear at the top right. Expenditures will appear 1-2 days after posting in Oracle.

DISCLAIMER: In collaboration with Schools and units, OSP continues to strive towards obtaining accurate and complete proposal information. In this regard, we have completed a couple of iterations partnering with schools to clean and vet FY17 proposal data. We believe proposal data as it currently looks is a close approximation of reality. We recently launched the ePRF for online proposal routing, which will also greatly improve proposal data quality. OSP will be also be revisiting methodology in FY18 in order to continue to ensure this data is predictable and to move toward industry standards.

3. What does the Monthly view of Proposals represent?

This is a trend chart which shows the number of Proposals submitted each month. The month where this data is depicted on Trend Analysis is based on the Proposal Signature Date.

All the ePRFs go through a formal “closeout” process at OSP to ensure standard data quality. A proposal will not show up on Juice until it has been closed out by OSP.

4. How are Proposal Count and Proposed Dollars calculated?

The following table shows the statuses and categories of proposals used in the calculations presented in Juice:

Types that count as Proposals	Proposal Statuses that contributes to the count	Types that do not count as Proposals	Proposal Statuses that aren’t counted
New	Accepted	Letter of intent/Pre-Proposal	Void
Renewal	Declined	Noncompeting Continuation **	Abandoned*
Resubmission	Pending
Supplement	Rejected
	Withdrawn

At the beginning of FY17, we made changes to the way we capture and report data. Beginning FY17, the entire amount of a multiyear proposal submitted is counted. Prior to this, only the first year of a multiyear proposal would be counted. Additionally, as part of the new methodology, all incremental funding is recorded on the original proposal record. Because of these changes, you will see a big jump in Proposal Dollars between FY16 and FY17 and a reduction in proposal count.

Example: For FY17 and forward, if a PI submits a proposal for a three-year project worth $3M. The Proposal Count is one and the Proposal Dollars are $3M for FY17.

*This Abandoned is a proposal status and is different than the ePRF abandon functionality.

** The way noncompeting continuations have been treated has changed over the years as explained below. The current methodology FY18 and forward follows industry standards and will enable us to accurately report on our proposal activity.

The 3 timeframes and how the noncompeting continuations were/are handled are as follows:

FY16 and prior ---- received a new proposal each year, thus inflating proposal count and only included the dollar amount for that particular year – in Year 2 counted 1 proposal for Year 2 and the amount budgeted for Year 2.
FY17 ---- transition year, started including (catching up) for any remaining years. If in Year 3 for noncompeting continuation of a 5 year proposal, we included the amount budgeted for Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 in the proposal dollars, but only counted as 1 proposal.
FY18 ---- Noncompeting continuations will not count in proposal counts or dollars moving forward, as we are now counting the full proposal dollar amount in the fiscal year the proposal was submitted.

NOTE: In the process of cleaning historic data, if there were older proposals not included in prior years, but are being awarded FY17 or greater, we would show these now in JUICE.

5. What are Award Counts, Award Dollars, and Monthly View of Awards?

The Award Count shows how many awards have received funding in a specific period. Award Dollars shows the respective sponsor funding authority received. The Monthly View of Awards shows the funding increments.

While the methodology of using actuals (sponsor authority received) has remained consistent from FY12 through present, there has been variability in the rules used for assigning awards to a specified fiscal year.

Between FY12-FY16: awards were mostly assigned using the authorized budget start date, however, case-by-case judgments were also made to ignore the budget start date.
FY17: same philosophy as previous fiscal years, however, many awards were included in this year if they allowed pre-award spending in fiscal year 2017.
FY18 – this year, there was agreement from School and OSP leadership, to move to the industry standard for counting award dollars, which is any award received at OSP by the end of June that is ready for account setup will be processed for inclusion in FY18, regardless of the budget start date.

The new methodology, will ensure consistent treatment and counting of awards, enable OSP to provide award data more rapidly, and ensures that there is common understanding in how fiscal years numbers are derived. It further offers an ability to accurately compare (apples to apples) and see the state of research growth over time.

Example: A PI’s proposed three-year project worth $3M is accepted. The project receives funding authority for $800,000 and then another one for $200,000 during the first year.

The Award Funding Increments increase each time an award receives award funding authority. Therefore, at the end of Year 1, the Award Dollars will be $1M, the Award Funding Increments will be two, but the Award Count will still be one.

NOTE: In the process of cleaning historic data, we found that $0 awards were included in the award counts prior to FY17. We took the opportunity to take out the $0 awards from the counts. Therefore, the award counts for FY16 or older may be slightly different from what was reported to the BOV in those past years.

6. What are Expenditure Dollars, and the Monthly View of Expenditure Dollars?

Any sponsored program expense that was posted in the date range selected in the filters will show up in Expenditure Dollars. The monthly view is based on GLDate (or Transferred Date in some terminologies). We chose this date to be consistent with the way other accounts management systems (UBI) record expenditures.

The expenditures displayed are the ones posted in the date range shown at the top

7. What are Immediate and Originating Sponsors?

Some of our Proposal and Awards may have two Sponsors. The Immediate Sponsor is the one that gives us the money directly and the party with whom we have the legal binding agreement. The Originating Sponsor is the originating source of funds. For example, a Federal Sponsor like the NIH could be the Originating Sponsor for a project we are working on with the University of Pennsylvania (the Immediate Sponsor).

8. What are Classification, Categories and Sub-Categories?

We are working to make it easier for people to understand our sources of funding. One way we are doing this is ensuring we have captured detailed information about the nature of our sponsors. Classification is the highest level of definition for sponsor, and includes: Federal Government, Foreign Entity, Foundation, Industry, Local Government, Other Colleges & Universities, and State Government.

Sometimes we need to break down Classifications further, into Categories. For example, Federal needs to be broken down into departments, including the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS), the Department of Energy (DOE), etc.

Sub-categories allow us to break down the categories to provide deeper insight. For example, we can break down DOD into DOD – Army, DOD – Navy etc.

9. What are Organizations, and how are Departments defined?

Organizations are the most granular unit represented in Juice, and Departments are composed of Organizations. The Organizations displayed on Juice represent the Organization that is responsible for the proposal, or award. This information is picked up directly from PRF/ePRF.

Departments are imported from the institutional spreadsheet maintained on the Integrated System’s website, which shows the Organizational Hierarchy maintained by the University. This can be found under “FINANCE LINKS” at http://its.virginia.edu/integratedsystem/

It is important to note that the Organization listed on Juice may not be part of the official hierarchical Organization where many of the investigators reside, therefore queries by Organization may not include some expected proposals/awards. For example, if the Beirne Carter Center is responsible for a proposal/award based on research on Immunology, the proposal/award Organization will be “40505 MD-BEIR Ctr/Beirne Carter” and not an Organization within the Immunology Department.

An easy way to look up Departments and Organizations is by typing a few letters on the filter search box. Another options is to see which Organizations are listed under a Department by selecting the Department of interest in the filters of Detail Analysis stack and selecting Organizations in the first visualization.

The number on the right end of each bar shows the number of Awards received by the Organization in this particular screenshot. Note that only the Organizations which have an award/proposal associated with them will show up on the visualization.

10. What all does the “Trend Analysis” Stack show?

This stack is very useful for the purpose of viewing year over year comparisons, and trending.

The first line chart is based on your selection of time frame/fiscal year. Hovering over the line shows exact values. The following visualization helps you see a side by side comparison over a few Fiscal years. There are various options to select the data you want to view.

These dimensions can then be explored by rankings from year to year and a trend chart of selected dimension(s) by year. Hovering over the line shows exact values. Example: Selecting School of Medicine and School of Engineering by clicking on any box representing these schools, results in the filtered trend chart shown below.

The Comparison Metrics focus allows a user to compare Fiscal Year to Date, Calendar Year to Date, and Current Quarter, each versus their prior periods. These can be refined further by selecting up to 4 periods for comparison. Selections are then presented on the trend chart at the bottom. Both the Fiscal Year to Date and Calendar Year to Date comparisons plot values at month intervals on the trend chart, offering an opportunity for deeper comparison across periods. Downloading the data from such a trend chart makes it easy to do additional analysis and compare a series of months across multiple years (ex. September, October, November in FY15, FY16, and FY17).

Note: as of 7/19/18, FY19 is currently unavailable in the period comparison selection. This will be added in the near future.

11. What does the “Detail Analysis” stack show?

This stack is useful for detailed analysis. The horizontal bar charts show cumulative rankings by Sponsor, Sponsor Classifications, Schools, and Investigators and so on. This stack provides great analysis opportunities with filter selections, and the details table at the bottom provides a peek into data at granular level. The table can be used to answer a question like: “what/who are the top 10 _____ of FY2017?”

In the details table, each row has unique, related data, but this does not mean that each row represents a unique award, proposal, or PI. This data is transactional, and additional grouping/sub-totaling may be required as per user’s judgement.

Effective 05/18/18, the details table download offers additional fields not available in the web interface.

The new direct and indirect dollar fields are available for all years. The computing ID, start date, end date, contract ID, and award purpose code fields were added in FY18 data and will be available moving forward, but will not be available prior to FY18.

12. What are my filter options?

You can explore the filter menu by going into Adjust Filters button at the top right.

The Date and Fiscal year filters help you select the time frame under which you want to view data.

Other filters like School, Department, Investigators, etc. enable you to select specifics.

You can select any combination of filters.

Example: you can make a combination selection like this:

Fiscal year: FY2017, Immediate Sponsor: U.S. NIH Institute of Mental Health, School: School of Arts & Sciences

The Date filter lets you select a range of months, by entering “To” and “From” values, and the Fiscal Year lets you select specific Fiscal Years.

Multiple values can be simultaneously selected within a filter option. Only multiple Fiscal Years cannot be selected on Trend Analysis stack, because Fiscal Years are already being shown side-by-side on this stack.

Example: you can select the top 8 Departments of School of Arts & Sciences.

13. Can I save the filters I applied for future use?

Custom filters are a useful way to save you time and effort. You can save your filter selections for future.

The Adjust Filters button takes you to the filters menu. The small ribbon icon next to it helps you save your selection of filters as a custom filter. You can save filters using “Save new +” button and providing a custom name for it. A delete icon (the trash can) appears on all the filters you save, in case you want to delete them.

NOTE: Filters can be carried over between the Trend Analysis and Detail Analysis views, by using the “Carry the same filters” button at the bottom of the screen.

14. How should I look at fiscal-year data?

When it comes to what counts as awards in a fiscal year, fiscal-year cut-off comes into play. This is due to the fact that the formal fiscal year extends to some degree beyond the period of July to June.* We have a methodology for how we count this information, therefore Juice may show data across months that normally would not appear in a specific fiscal year. For example, it is important to note that by selecting FY2017 (as shown in screenshot below), you are choosing the “closed” fiscal year option, meaning it will include more than just the period between July 2016 and June 2017.

*For more information on fiscal year cut-offs, visit Using Juice.

There are two distinct ways to choose date parameters:

View by actual fiscal year (e.g., FY2017):

Or view the data by actual month/quarter/semi-annual period, etc.:

Remember to take out the filters you don’t need. If you use the above two filters together, the data you will see will be the result of the combination of both filters.

15. How to look up funding activity from a particular sponsor?

The information related to funding received from a particular sponsor is readily available on Juice by using Immediate Sponsor filter in the Detail Analysis Stack. Toggling between Immediate Sponsor and Originating Sponsor buttons shows whether the funds received were pure sponsor funds, or if they were flow through funds from another Sponsor.

Example: Rolls-Royce funded various awards at UVA, some received Rolls-Royce funds, while some received Federal flow-through funds. Screenshots shows how Originating Sponsor information is listed on Juice.

(a)

(b)

NOTE: When there is no Originating Sponsor, the Immediate Sponsor itself is listed as Originating Sponsor so that the visualizations do not look incomplete.

16. What improvements are we making to the dashboard?

We are building Juice and ResearchUVA with and for its users and the systems will continue to evolve with the research community’s input. We have recently included Directs and Indirect (F&A) details, Originating Sponsor details, and created more connection links to view the data in different ways. We are planning to include sub-awards and interdisciplinary proposals/awards in the future.

17. How much are we up?

We are preparing Juice to help us easily make comparisons across timeframes. As of now, the small text in gray underneath the numbers is the comparison of current numbers with the previous Fiscal Year as a whole.

When you apply date filters, the note helps you understand the period of comparison. Such a comparison is useful in making half-yearly, quarterly, or month-over-month comparisons.

18. Is it possible to filter on Proposal/Award titles?

Yes! Although, having title filters on the filter menu is not possible, you can always search for titles in the small search box provided in the Details Table on Detail Analysis stack. The screenshot below shows an example of search for proposals with the word “Tissue” in the title.

NOTE: All titles in JUICE represent the Proposal title, regardless of the focus area of Proposals or Awards. We will be working to modify this functionality moving forward.

19. How far back does the data go on Juice?

Data starting from FY2012 has been added to Juice, to give users an opportunity to view 5+ years of data.

This means data is available for all focus areas-

• All proposals submitted FY2012 onwards*

• All sponsored funding received FY2012 onwards

• All expenditures posted FY2012 onwards

It is important that users refer to the “Using Juice” guide to understand nuances related to the above.

* All the ePRFs go through a formal “closeout” process at OSP to ensure standard data quality. A proposal will not show up on Juice until it has been closed out by OSP.

NOTE: You may notice a few Proposals older than FY2012, they are those which received funding in FY2017 or later. This is a result of changed Proposal recording methodology from FY2017. As per the new methodology, all incremental funding is recorded on the original Proposal record, therefore, all proposals related to funding received in FY2017 or later appear on Juice. If a proposal older than FY2012 receives funding in FY2017 or later, that proposal also gets added in Juice data. (Yes! We really still receive funding on a couple of proposals submitted before FY2012)

In fiscal years prior to 2017, each incremental funding was recorded on a new proposal, and thus no funding was associated with proposals of past fiscal years.

20. Why do I see blanks in some visualizations?

Juice is a daily reflection of OSP activities. Various entities like new Sponsors and new Organizations are being constantly added into OSP systems, via a process separate from the daily Juice refresh. A blank therefore typically represents a new Sponsor/Organization record “in process”.

Example: There is a blank bar in the bar chart showing award count breakdown by Originating Sponsor Classification. This means that there are 3 new Sponsors which are yet to be added in OSP’s records. Once they are added, each of them will be classified appropriately as one of Federal/Industry/Foundation/Foreign Entity/State Government/Other colleges & Universities/Local Government.

21. Is program income included in award numbers?

Program income has been removed from fiscal years 2016 and 2017 and award numbers have been restated to account for the reclassification of previously-included program income revenues. Program income will not be included from 2018 forward. Proposal and expenditure numbers were not restated and remain unchanged.

22. Where do I get help extracting intelligence from Juice?

You can read more about using Juice in the Using ResearchUVA section. If you can't find what you're looking for there, email Osp-infoteam@virginia.edu, referencing Juice in the subject line. Or call Andrew Sallans at 434-924-1665.

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