Cayuse Supports Communication and Efficiency at the University of Southern Mississippi

Challenge

The University of Southern Mississippi is an R1 public research university system spread along the Gulf Coast, with a main campus in Hattiesburg, another large campus in Long Beach, and five smaller research sites. While smaller than many R1 universities, with expenditures and grants totalling around $100M, researchers across USM conduct essential work in fields including biological, ocean, and environmental sciences, social work, psychology, and disability studies.

USM’s Research Information Systems and Grant Analysis department, part of the Central Office of Research Administration, manages systems, reporting, and grant analysis for the University’s pre-award, post-award, and IRB programs. As the office’s Assistant Director put it, the work that the office does is similar to translation work: “either translating between pre-award and post-award or translating between the central office and faculty and staff across campus.”

In the past, one of the office’s biggest challenges involved communication difficulties. “Departments just didn’t talk well, or communicate well with one another,” the Assistant Director recalled, highlighting how this issue caused confusion and project delays. 

To make matters more difficult, the University’s research and administration faced resource limitations, resulting in fewer staff members to handle growing workloads. While the University’s existing financial software helped to manage some award data, the system’s lack of a research focus meant that several aspects of grant management either could not be addressed or required awkward workarounds. 

“There was just no way to continue manually processing every piece of information faculty needed, because with limited resources, we had limited staff.”
Assistant Director of RISGA
Office of Research Support and Development

With several aspects of the research lifecycle like proposal management siloed and processed through manual methods like email handoffs and PDFs, administrators understood that a comprehensive research management software platform would be crucial to maintaining continued growth and success.

Solution

After considering vendor options, the University adopted its first proposal management software system. Unfortunately, there were several issues with the vendor and software from the start, including poor communication, dishonesty regarding the platform’s capabilities, and an unwieldy user experience. 

Discouraged but not defeated, the team sought another vendor to replace their initial choice. After meeting with Cayuse and seeing demos of the Research Suite, they knew that they had found the right vendor for their needs.

“One thing that we saw with the Cayuse Platform,” the Assistant Director of the Central Office of Research Administration noted, “was that it all integrates; you can give people various levels of access to where they can see what they really need to see without having to ask or beg, or just assume that they’re never going to know the information.” This aspect of the platform would be tremendously helpful for improving the University’s communication difficulties.

“The biggest Cayuse selling point for us was a system that was easy to use, transparent, and encouraged people to be able to do things on their own.”
Assistant Director of RISGA
Office of Research Support and Development

Additionally, they were impressed by the solutions’ straightforward user experience, and how, “when you log in and see your task, the software shows you all the things you need to do: the certifications you need to sign, the routing you need to approve. It’s very straightforward, clear, and concise… you’re seeing everything you have access to without having to do a search and click a bunch of buttons to get there.”

Ultimately, the University implemented the Cayuse Platform, Sponsored Projects, Proposals (S2S), and Human Ethics. This presented an exciting opportunity to rethink and streamline existing workflows and modernize everything on one platform for better efficiency, transparency, and accessibility.

Results

Since implementing Cayuse, the University of Southern Mississippi has seen several significant benefits, including streamlined processes, increased transparency, better communication, improved organization, easier reporting and budgeting, time savings, and, perhaps most importantly, happier faculty and administrators.

“The happiness of our faculty is really the greatest thing we have gotten so far… I go out and train our faculty and staff, and they all say, ‘oh, this is really easy.’ That’s our biggest return on investment: faculty satisfaction.”
Assistant Director of RISGA
Office of Research Support and Development

Streamlined processes

Cayuse’s straightforward form creation and configurability meant that the team could reassess workflows for optimization and to ensure all requested information was truly necessary. This was particularly helpful when implementing Cayuse Human Ethics for IRB management, where teams that hadn’t previously worked together were now incentivised to collaborate on refining workflows to avoid redundant data entry or time-consuming revisions.

“The way Human Ethics is formatted and the initial forms we built have really gotten people to ask new questions about whether we need certain fields and where we can do things differently.”
Assistant Director of RISGA
Office of Research Support and Development

Beyond Human Ethics, the team also continues to identify opportunities for positive workflow changes and update processes accordingly. Collaborating with Cayuse users at other institutions through events and the Cayuse Community also helps compare and contrast workflows to inform ongoing adjustments.

Improved organization, transparency, and communication

The centralized Cayuse Platform and cross-app integrations have helped to keep data and information accessible across USM’s research lifecycle. This means faculty and administrators can spend less time searching for documents and confirming their accuracy.

“All the options Cayuse gave us have taken away extra outside PDFs and emails; we’re taking everything from outside of the system and getting one clear picture… Everything’s in one place, not everywhere.”
Assistant Director of RISGA
Office of Research Support and Development

Role-based application access and dashboards also keep all stakeholders properly informed at all times. PIs, deans, and finance teams can now check on and update the status of active proposals, projects, requests, and more with a secure SSO login at any time, significantly reducing requests that would normally go to staff at the Central Office of Research Administration. 

Easy access to the Platform and its contents has improved communication and accountability. Assignments previously handled through emails that could inadvertently disappear are all readily visible, with immediate alerts to reduce processing delays.

The Cayuse Platform and connected applications also provide a single record of all research activity, ensuring continuity in the event of turnover or disruptions and improving audit-readiness.

Simplified reporting

With their data centralized on Cayuse and accessible through exports and API integrations, the team at USM can now perform easier, more detailed data visualization and analysis for building better reports, faster. 

Not only does this save a significant amount of time traditionally spent requesting and verifying data, but it also helps ensure that reports are as up-to-date and informative as possible. This means teams have a much easier time presenting their progress to stakeholders to support program funding and organizational decision-making backed by data.

“There’s so much data available for us on the back end… we’re able to give our colleges and schools reports to show them everything coming out of their disciplines.”
Assistant Director of RISGA
Office of Research Support and Development

Time savings

From budgeting to submissions, routings, and reviews, Cayuse has helped staff and faculty at USM save significant time on administrative tasks, freeing more hours every week for higher-priority work.

Where the old system required several adjustments and iterations for each budget entry and update, Cayuse’s researcher-first design means budgets can now be entered correctly at the start instead of being forced to fit into different formats for different stages of budget management and reporting.

Additionally, smartforms ensure applications are completed faster and more accurately, negating the need for time-consuming revisions, while automated handoffs and notifications get responses and signatures without administrators spending valuable time sending reminders. Overall, this adds up to more accountability, better deadline enforcement, higher success rates, and more time back in everyone’s workday. 

A partnership with Cayuse

Finally, the USM team noted that Cayuse has been a reliable partner throughout and beyond implementation. They report that all communication has been timely and honest, with their Cayuse contacts working hard to ensure everyone is on the same page about the software’s capabilities.

“Everybody’s been there for us, and everyone’s been a great partner.”
Assistant Director of RISGA
Office of Research Support and Development

With Cayuse in place, researchers and administrators at USM feel well-served and very positive about their increased capacity for growth. Cayuse’s streamlined workflows, centralized data ecosystem, and consistent support will help ensure effective collaboration and continuity no matter what challenges and opportunities arise in the future.