Piestar – DPx knowledge management | RFx proposal reviews

Piestar, Inc. currently serves and supports 19 programs sponsored by Gates Foundation, NIH, NIST, NSF, USAID, and USDA with over 300 projects throughout 11 universities in the United States and in 75 countries.

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Piestar, Inc. provides customized knowledge management systems to support collaborative data and project management, program monitoring and evaluation, and application and proposal reviews.

Piestar DPx is designed to collect and visualize data, manage projects, streamline strategic plans, maintain compliance, monitor progress, evaluate program impact, and report results.
Piestar RFx is designed to request, collect, review, rate, and select applications and proposals.

Continual improvements, enhancements, and software updates make Piestar systems safe and dependable. Data, projects, applications and proposals are easy to manage with Piestar.

Reports and Analysis

Report to funding agencies and stakeholders.

Piestar 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 provides a simple step-by-step reporting process. Piestar 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. Piestar 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 programs.

Customized Modules

Customize reporting modules for specific projects.

Every project is different. Piestar can adapt to the reporting intricacies of any project with customized modules and reports. Being flexible doesn’t mean sacrificing quality. The Piestar 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 system to meet the specific needs of any program.

Data Cleaner

Clean and correct data entry errors.

The Piestar 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 system remembers which records have been cleaned so all data can be verified for accuracy. The Piestar data cleaner saves program managers an exceptional amount of time.

Automated Email

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

As project and reporting deadlines are added, Piestar automatically schedules launch, reminder, and past-due email messages. The Piestar 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 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 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, requests are received and reviewed online, then sent to funding agencies for approval. Piestar keeps a record of requests and can show recent or upcoming travel for an entire team. Piestar also provides event planning and registration capabilities.

Service and Support

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

Piestar, Inc. 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.

Application & Proposal Reviews

Request, collect, review, rate, and select applications and proposals with Piestar RFx.

It’s easy to request applications and proposals by simply uploading a PDF solicitation document. The solicitation document can be published immediately to start accepting applications and proposals. Custom reviewer assignments and weighted rating rubrics streamline the selection process while keeping scores and documents organized for easy access.

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

The Piestar system, 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 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 Piestar’s real-time reporting capabilities, 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 provides easy collaborative access to useful data.

Program Coordinator, NSF EPSCoR

The Piestar web-based 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 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. The Piestar system makes 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 has been instrumental in helping to improve our application and 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 system has made reporting 10 times more efficient than before we were using it.

Director, USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab

Piestar serves and supports these 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

Ben Claar

CEO & Co-founder of Piestar, Inc.

With over 20 years of professional experience in information technology, software programming, and Web development, Ben Claar leads the Piestar team to create and maintain the best knowledge management systems and proposal review systems for federal and state grant-funded programs. Ben’s mission is to provide the best service and support to Directors, PIs, Co-PIs, and program managers for effective and efficient knowledge management.

Aaron Schroeder

President & Co-founder of Piestar, Inc.

For over 20 years, Aaron Schroeder has worked with program evaluators to streamline data collection and reporting efforts. Aaron has developed customized database systems, web-based data collection systems, and other reporting solutions tightly integrated within comprehensive evaluation plans. Aaron has designed and implemented data collection systems for several federal and state agencies.