Piestar – Software for USAID, NSF, NIH, USDA, and NIST Research Project Management & Reporting

Cloud-Based Research Project Management Software

We make managing research programs easier.

Piestar provides research management solutions with customized data & project management, monitoring & evaluation, compliance & reporting, application & proposal review, and systems for collaborative programs.

Piestar serves and supports 33 research programs funded with over $850 million in awards from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH, NIST, NSF, USAID, and USDA throughout 23 universities in the United States and in 80 countries.

Piestar systems make data collection, project management, evaluation, proposal reviews, and reporting easy. Continual improvements, enhancements, and software updates make Piestar systems safe and dependable.

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Piestar has been key in our ability to effectively and efficiently manage a multi-million dollar research portfolio with a small staff and limited resources.

Program Manager, USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

Thanks for all you do for us. Piestar makes my job easier. It’s as easy as…pie.

Director, NSF EPSCoR Program

Piestar DPx, coupled with excellent client support, has provided a user-friendly reporting system that team members around the world can utilize to better manage research projects.

Assistant Director, USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

Piestar DPx helps us meet the needs of a variety of partners in the program – from ensuring donor organization compliance, to management of program details, to giving researchers a platform to monitor project progress – all within a single system.

Project Coordinator of a Feed the Future Innovation Lab

I appreciate the prompt help and responses we always receive in regards to our research program! It is always very helpful on our end.

Director, NSF EPSCoR

With the real-time reporting capabilities of Piestar DPx, I have been able to review information on my phone with team members from a sorghum field, in Africa.

Assistant Director, USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

Piestar DPx provides easy collaborative access to useful data.

Program Coordinator, NSF EPSCoR

The Piestar DPx system has allowed me to access multiple levels of information in one place, whether in my office, on my phone, or remotely while traveling around the world.

Assistant Director, USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

I am impressed with Piestar's ability to customize our reporting system to meet the administrative needs of our management team.

Business Manager of a Feed the Future Innovation Lab

If there were a box to check asking if I like Piestar, I’d check it twice.

Director of a USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

Piestar is truly amazing! It is so user-friendly. Navigating through the impact modules is easy and technical support is top-notch. Information about new Piestar system features is always comprehensive and easy to understand.

Program Manager, NSF EPSCoR

I always feel like I am being heard when I talk to anyone on the Piestar support team. For example, my input about tweaking the one-time email campaign feature to add a field and additional filters was promptly taken care of by the fantastic Piestar support team.

Project Coordinator, NSF EPSCoR

The Piestar DPx Data Cleaner is extremely helpful. I love how the group rows feature allows me to instantly view and edit grouped proposals and publications. Best of all - the copy to all feature! No typing. No copy and paste. So easy!!

Program Manager, NSF EPSCoR

Piestar DPx is a dream come true for me. It really has everything I need. I've been an evaluator for over 30 years and nothing comes close to what the Piestar DPx system can do.

CEO and Senior Science Advisor at Cedarloch Research and e-Norland Group

If it weren't for Piestar, I would have moved on by now. I mean it. Piestar systems make my job so much easier. Before Piestar, gathering data from the programs was a nightmare. Now, it's easy. I probably save hours and hours of time because of Piestar.

Senior International Research Advisor for USAID

Piestar RFx has been instrumental in helping to improve our RFP and proposal review processes.

Program Manager for a USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

Piestar helps us manage our Innovation Lab with greater efficiency, making the most of US tax dollars. The Piestar DPx system has made reporting 10 times more efficient than before we were using it.

Director, USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

Collaborators intent on documenting progress and outcomes recognize the value of a robust knowledge management system. Piestar DPx and RFx are customized platforms with a capacity to evolve as projects inevitably do. From an evaluation viewpoint, Piestar fosters comprehensive and effective measurement.

Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist

Piestar was instrumental in tracking their researchers in their international travels. She said that USAID needed to know ASAP if all of their researchers were back and the travel module made the task super easy!

Associate Director for USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

You can’t manage a USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab without Piestar.

Deputy Director for USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

Piestar not only allows us to collect necessary data for the project’s funding agency, but it also enables us to easily extract and analyze information that can assist with strategic decision making. The platform has some really wonderful features tailored to our project that save time and effort with our management and reporting activities. The customer service and customizations allow us to utilize the product in the way that is best for our needs. Worth every penny!

Director of Research Analysis & Support, NSF EPSCoR

Piestar DPx

Piestar DPx is designed to collect and visualize data, manage projects, streamline strategic plans, monitor progress, evaluate program impact, maintain compliance, and report results to funding agencies and stakeholders.

Reports and Analysis

Report to funding agencies and stakeholders.

Piestar DPx provides a growing library of reports and file exports customized to meet various funding agency requirements and compliance regulations. New reports can be customized to meet the specific needs of each project. A data summary section makes it easy for program leaders to review aggregated impact data. Raw data can be exported as a Microsoft Excel file at any time for a detailed analysis.

Data Collection

Collect, validate, and export data.

Collecting data and project activity information can be challenging. Piestar DPx provides a simple step-by-step reporting process. Piestar DPx simplifies the process with clean, uncomplicated reporting modules to ensure all required details are entered so grant-funding agencies, evaluators, and stakeholders have the data they need.

Project Management

Track data for multiple projects.

Managing large programs with sub-awards and multiple projects is easy with Piestar DPx. Piestar DPx keeps everything organized and tracks details about projects, including: status, award amounts, personnel, objectives, documents, photographs, presentations, files, activities, data, budget expenditures and more. Program managers can report progress against an annual operating plan to ensure positive momentum of the projects.

Customized Modules

Customize reporting modules for specific projects.

Every project is different. Piestar DPx can adapt to the reporting intricacies of any project with customized modules and reports. Being flexible doesn’t mean sacrificing quality. The Piestar DPx system is updated and enhanced regularly, giving the benefit of a widely-used platform combined with the flexibility of customized enterprise software. The Piestar team will customize the Piestar DPx system to meet the specific needs of any program.

Data Cleaner

Clean and correct data entry errors.

The Piestar DPx Data Cleaner is used to edit multiple records at once. Correcting typos and duplicate data entry errors is fast and easy with the Piestar data cleaner. The Piestar DPx system remembers which records have been cleaned so all data can be verified for accuracy. The Piestar DPx Data Cleaner saves program managers an exceptional amount of time.

Automated Email

Save time, effort, and energy with the Piestar DPx email system.

As project and reporting deadlines are added, Piestar DPx automatically schedules launch, reminder, and past-due email messages. The Piestar DPx system sends a weekly status report, showing upcoming email messages. Modify or re-send email messages in just a few clicks, and send custom messages to team members at any time.

Budgets and Reports

Monitor project budgets and reporting progress in real-time.

Directors, PIs, Co-PIs, and program managers can monitor budgets and reporting progress. Budget burn rates keep project finances in check. Piestar DPx makes it easy to measure reporting progress and ensures all team members submit their reports on time. Plus, it’s easy to emulate users of the system to view or edit data.

Outreach Activities

Schedule outreach activities or events and track involvement.

Engaging the community can be an important aspect of a successful program. Piestar DPx tracks event details and accepts imported files of attendees, photographs, videos and records of how event activities contribute to project objectives.

Travel and Equipment

Request, receive, process, and approve travel and equipment requests.

Funding agencies usually require approval for international travel and certain equipment purchases. With Piestar DPx, requests are received and reviewed online, then sent to funding agencies for approval. Piestar DPx keeps a record of requests and can show recent or upcoming travel for an entire team. Piestar DPx also provides event planning and registration capabilities.

Service and Support

Receive immediate service and support from an experienced team of software engineers.

Piestar provides continual improvements, enhancements, and software updates to Piestar systems. All users of Piestar systems receive unlimited storage for data, documents, files, publications, presentation, photos, and videos. Documentation, training modules, and technical resources are included with subscription to Piestar systems. Piestar servers are hosted in the FedRAMP-authorized AWS GovCloud, which meets federal regulatory and compliance requirements.

Piestar RFx

Piestar RFx is designed to request, collect, review, rate, and select applications/proposals.

Apply

Apply for funding opportunities.

The application process is easy. Applicants just need to create an account and complete a simple online form to upload their applications/proposals.

Review

Review applications/proposals.

The review team has all applications/proposals in one place for easy reviewing and rating. After the review team manager assigns reviewers to applications/proposals individually or by category, the review team rates with a weighted scoring rubric for each application/proposal.

Select

Select applications/proposals.

Selection of applications/proposals is effective and efficient. Review teams can safely and securely provide direct applicant feedback and export any or all reviews to Excel.

Piestar serves and supports these research programs.

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sorghum and Millet

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for the Reduction of Post-Harvest Loss

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Horticulture

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut Research

About Us

We love what we do, do what we say, serve well and always rise to a challenge. We care about software quality and enjoy serving and supporting the teams using our systems.