Portfolio Case Studies
ORIA
The Office of Research Integrity and Assurance (ORIA) at Cornell University recently implemented a new online application designed and developed by Sanmita Inc. The application began as an effort to increase the efficiency and accuracy of ORIA's yearly report to the USDA concerning the University's research facilities and research subjects. After searching for vendors that could help ORIA streamline their USDA reporting process, the team leader at ORIA, Amita Verma, contacted Sanmita based upon recommendations from other Cornell University staff members.
Previously, ORIA had to collect an Excel file spreadsheet from each Facility Manager, with information regarding lab subjects. As each Facility Manager created and updated his or her own file, each file was different from the other, creating extra work for the ORIA team in consolidating their final report. Additionally, the ORIA team then had to communicate back and forth with Facility Managers to confirm or fix data. The entire process took months.
Sanmita was asked to create an online application, developed in ColdFusion and Oracle with CUWeb Authentication for security, that would enable the ORIA team to manage an online database for the research facilities and Facility Managers. By creating the database online, the most current and accurate information could be accessed remotely by all authorized users and the annual report for the USDA could be created in much less time with fewer errors. Additionally, the ORIA team could use proxy log-ins to correct small errors in data rather than spending additional time requesting such changes from Facility Managers and having to wait for their response.
This project was the first attempt for Sanmita with an agile project management model. The agile nature of the project had its challenges, mostly in maintaining a project schedule and scope. However, the agile model also allowed the project to evolve throughout the implementation process to better meet both the anticipated and the unforeseen needs of the client as well as to respond to user generated feedback. After developing the initial architecture for the USDA census reporting database, the ORIA team realized that the database could help them with other reports, such as the annual AAALAC report. Sanmita was happy to help ORIA extend the functionality of the original application to meet these needs. Additionally, Sanmita and ORIA are planning to extend the application functionality once more, by creating a monthly reporting system to help the Facility Managers track their research subjects from month to month.
Other challenges for the project included importing the master data into the new database in specific patterns so as too maintain the data integrity and production system access for Sanmita into the Cornell University systems. By working closely with the ORIA team and their Cornell Information Technology associates, Sanmita was able tosatisfactorily resolve these issues. Sanmita has even developed a project process to avoid the production system access issues in the future.