Grant Aims and Deliverables Tracker

Grant Aims and Deliverables Tracker is a PlanMagnet concept for science and research teams working under a funded award. It lays out each specific aim of the award as milestones on the award timeline, lists the deliverables and progress-report dates the funder expects, and puts people and bench progress beside each aim, so a principal investigator and a research administrator look at the same picture of the award.

In a research lab, the aims written into a proposal and the work happening at the bench drift apart quickly. Experiments are recorded in a lab notebook, effort commitments are kept somewhere else, and the award's milestones sit in a document that is opened again when the annual progress report falls due. By then it is hard to say which aim slipped, whether it slipped for lack of people or for scientific reasons, and what honestly belongs in the report.

The illustrated award page sits under Milestones in the Projects area. Its header names a sample four-year award on indoor air chemistry, with badges for the current award year and the annual progress report due date, above tiles for milestones on track, milestones at risk, items due in the next 90 days and open roles on the award. A specific aims timeline runs across the award period with a Today marker and places each aim's work as a bar labeled completed, in progress, at risk or pending. A Deliverables table lists each deliverable with its aim, due date, status, linked LabsOfScience experiments and committed effort from CrewFoundry. The highlighted at-risk deliverable shows an experiment still in analysis and an effort-gap badge, which answers two questions at once: the aim is behind, and it is short of people. A Progress report panel holds a checklist of report sections and a button that compiles a draft from the milestones.

The concept builds on PlanMagnet's milestones and is designed to work with two other Burdenoff products. Each award is designed to be set up as a CrewFoundry project, so the effort committed to each aim comes from CrewFoundry capacity data, and each deliverable is designed to show the state of its linked experiments in LabsOfScience, where the bench work is recorded. The compiled draft is designed to gather accomplishments, participants and products from the same records, and it is meant to be reconciled with the institution's official grant systems before anything is submitted. The award, dates and figures shown are sample data.