Access in Microsoft Teams
Power BI can be added by clicking the three dots highlighted below in the left-hand menu and then selecting the app from the library.
Once you have added the app into Teams you will now have a Power BI Icon in your left-hand Teams Menu and can right-click to pin it to your menu moving forward.
Click on the icon to open you will find your report by selecting Browse and then Shared With Me.
Access via your Browser
You can log in to Power BI by following this link . Select browse from the left hand and the report will appear in the Shared with me folder in the left-hand bar.
Who can access the reports?
Pro-Vice Chancellors of Faculty, ADRs, Directors of School and operational colleagues.
How do I request access?
If a colleague outside of these roles needs access, please send us an email to request with details of the role they are in and the business requirement for the data.
Power BI gives you a dynamic real time view of applications and awards moving through the system.
There are 6 tabs included in the report: 4 that contain an overview of specific stages in the GaP process and 2 detail tabs that you can drill through to from the overviews.
- Applications in progress: See all applications in development from PI Draft to Internally Approved
- Application detail: A summary view of all applications included in the tabs above with headline detail
- Submissions: All applications submitted in the current year, with the ability to see a year-on-year comparison and toggle back to see previous years
- Submitted externally: All applications at the status of Submitted Externally with an option to toggle the data to see those submissions that are Successful but have not yet moved into the Award Pipeline.
- Awards in progress: See all award costings currently in progress this includes all award categories including Awards Not Seen at Application, Transfer Ins, Extensions, Supplements and Supplement and Extensions.
- Award detail: A summary view of all awards in the tab above with headline detail
Unlike the reports issued to Faculty off system these reports do not currently contain Co-Investigator detail. This is available in the Faculty report folder within GaP split between applications and awards.
Where can I find information on the Pre- and Post-award processes in GaP?
Discover the pre-award process: Grants and Projects (GaP) Procedure.
Discover the post-award process (PDF, 148KB) to see the costing types that are created for awards.
How often are the reports updated?
The data is updated on an hourly basis from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. To see the last time, it was updated click the arrow to the right of Data updated date in the top bar.
The dashboards visualise the data within GaP that you would normally access through the system reports and are designed to reduce the need to export data and to enable us to have a better view of how projects are progressing through the system.
The dashboards are interactive and you can set personal bookmarks for the views that are most useful for you.
Navigation is the same on all tabs so this guide will focus on the Applications in Process page but you can apply the same approach on every page.
Filters
The list of filters down the left side of the page will change all the graphics and the headline bar to just show the option/s selected. You can select multiple filters from the left-hand menu.
All the filters contain a drop-down list which you can see by clicking the arrow, tick the box next to the option you want to filter by in the list and to select multiple options hold down the Control key [Ctrl].
To clear the selection and return to the default option hover your mouse over the arrow and the rubber will appear above it click on that and the filters will be cleared.
Setting a bookmark
Once you have selected your filters to a particular view if this is something that you will want to see often [a particular investigator or funding type] you can set a Bookmark.
Select the filters that you want to set and navigate to the bookmark symbol towards the right on the blue bar above your report.
Once there click on the arrow next to Bookmarks above the headline figures at the top right of the screen. Select “Add a personal bookmark” option and give your bookmark a name.
When you have named your bookmark, you have the option to make that your default view.
If you chose this option, you can still clear filters as we did above to see the full data and can set up multiple bookmarks to move easily between different views. If you no longer require a bookmark, you can delete them at any point.
The default view is set to show the applications by Faculty but by clicking the buttons that visual will change to reflect the breakdown by either Funding, Classification or Activity.
Interactive visuals
You can click into any of the areas of the three visuals – for example into a month on the Application Deadlines – and the other two visuals will change to display the number of applications in that month.
The visual below shows the Applications by Project Status graphic in its standard view on the left and on the right when a particular month is clicked upon – with the applications with a deadline in that month appearing in dark blue.
Clicking on any of the fields in the Applications by Project Status or Application Deadlines visuals will have the same impact with all applications in that category highlighted across the dashboard.
Drill down within visuals
You can also drill down into the data in the Tree Map and the Application Deadline Visuals using the arrows that appear above them. To see the options hover your mouse to the right of the title of the visual.
The single down arrow turns on the drill-down option – with this option selected if you click on any individual area of either visual it will display the level of data below.
For example if you click this button and them into UK Research Council it will update all visuals to show only those in that category and the tree map will show the funders within that category. To return to the level above click the Up arrow to the left. This also works with the two options below.
The double down arrow changes the view of the tree map to show the level of data. For example it will show the individual funders rather than the funder categories. If selected on the Application Deadlines it will show days of the month rather than the month. The other visuals will remain showing the full data.
The trident arrow changes the view of the tree map to show the level of data below as with the option above but also retains the top-level data label. For example the data would be labelled with both the Funding Body Type and Funder name.
To clear your selection from the tree map, click the up arrow that appears in the bar to the right of the title or just above depending on your screen size and the default view will return. If you have clicked into a field within the other two visuals clicking on any white space within the graph area will also clear the selection.
There are three other symbols that appear above all the visuals:
The pages symbol will copy the visual to your clipboard to allow you to paste it into a document or email. This copy will include a hyperlink to Power BI and time stamps the export with a note of any filters applied.
If you hover over the filter symbol it will display any filters that are being applied to the visual. This is a good check if you are going to copy and use the visual that it contains the data you want to use.
This symbol expands the visual to full page size. This is especially useful if you have drilled down within the Tree Map to a lower level within the data. For example to school level.
At the far end of the bar there are 3 dots which open a list of options when clicked on.
This menu contains some advanced features including the ability to add a comment, chat in Teams and re-sort the data that we aren’t planning to utilise at this point but you can explore these features over the next 2 weeks and feedback.
This list also contains a very useful option to Show as a table. This option will open the visual in full page with a data table underneath.
Accessing data behind the visuals
On any of the fields within the 3 visuals you can right-click, and a menu will open with a range of options.
We have already looked at the Show as a table option and as with the Menu above there are features here that we won’t address directly at this point but you can explore whilst trialling Power BI.
The key function in this list is the ability to Drill Through which will open to the detail behind the applications included in the data.
Click on the arrow next to Drill through and click on the appropriate option depending on whether you are on the Applications or Awards in Progress tab.
In the example below I have drilled through the projects at PI Draft status and the system automatically takes you into the Application Detail tab where you can see the key information on the data behind the visuals. To move back to the Applications in Progress dashboard click on that option circled in the left-hand menu.
Refreshing Data
To rest any filters and load updated data on any of the 4 detail tabs click the highlighted arrow on the top right of the blue bar.
This will open the pop-up below and you can clear any filters or views you have applied.
When you have drilled through to the data behind the graphics the system shows you just the records in your selection. For instance, if you right-clicked on Bid Development in the Applications in Progress tab you would only see the records in that status on the detail list when you drill through.
To clear a previous selection when on a detail tab press the Clear button at the top left.
What support materials are available?
There are 6 detailed guides available:
- One for each of the overview tabs describing the data contained and tips on navigating the screens.
- One for each the detail tabs; Application and Award detail.
Alongside this is a film produced on the launch of the initial reports that provides an in-depth walkthrough of the Application and YTD Submissions Tab. The navigation and interrogation covered by this film also applies to the newly added award data.
Is training available?
The GaP team are available to provide sessions for individuals and groups that cover navigation and content. You can send us an email to arrange.
We will soon be launching bookable GaP clinics with three 20-minute slots available each week on a Wednesday afternoon one of these sessions can also be utilised if you have specific questions around the reports.
