Every proposal is a manual fire drill.
Sponsored programs offices at mid-sized institutions are managing growing proposal volumes with the same manual processes they've used for 15 years. Routing by email. Budgets built from scratch. Compliance checks done by memory. The result is overtime before every deadline and errors that don't get caught until submission.
Proposal routing requires 5–7 manual email approvals, with no visibility into where a proposal is in the chain
Budget templates are populated by hand from scratch for every submission, creating errors and version control chaos
Compliance pre-checks (COI, debarment, FCOI) are done manually by sponsored programs staff hours before deadlines
Deadline escalation depends entirely on individual staff awareness — missed deadlines happen because nobody got the alert
Subrecipient monitoring and risk assessment are tracked in spreadsheets with no connection to the grants system
What automation delivers.
Proposal routing time
With automated approval workflows
Budget prep time reduction
Via automated data pre-population
Missed deadlines from notification failures
With tiered escalation system
Saved per submission on prep work
Via sponsor requirements automation
Six automation modules for the full pre-award lifecycle.
Proposal Routing Automation
Automated routing workflows that move proposals through department chair, dean, and sponsored programs approval without manual email chains. Full audit trail. Real-time status visibility for all stakeholders.
Huron/CERES · Outlook/M365 · Banner
Budget Pre-Population
Automated budget template generation that pulls salary data from HR, fringe rates from finance, and indirect cost rates from the negotiated rate agreement. Eliminates manual data entry and version control issues.
Huron · Banner Finance · Workday HR
Compliance Pre-Checks
Automated COI disclosure verification, debarment screening, FCOI policy compliance, and export control flag detection — all completed before a proposal enters the final review queue.
Huron · SAM.gov API · Internal COI system
Deadline Escalation & Alerts
Tiered alert system that notifies PIs, department admins, and sponsored programs staff at 30/14/7/3/1 days before submission deadlines. Automatic escalation when required approvals are pending.
Huron · Grants.gov · M365 · Research.gov
Subrecipient Risk Assessment
Automated subrecipient monitoring that pulls financial audit data, checks debarment status, and generates risk tier classifications. Monitoring plan templates auto-generated based on risk level.
Huron · SAM.gov · Federal Audit Clearinghouse
Sponsor Requirements Extraction
Automated parsing of RFP/FOA documents to extract key requirements, deadlines, page limits, and formatting rules. Checklist generated automatically for each submission.
Grants.gov · Research.gov · Sponsor portals
Related Research Services
Let's map your proposal workflow.
30 minutes is enough to identify your highest-impact pre-award automation opportunity and give you a clear picture of what's possible with your existing Huron/CERES instance.