ECN ~ Robust DSC
Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN)
Project: ROBUST DSC
Marcel maintains that a coordinator of an FP7 project benefits most from using software tools. Reporting to the EC is simplified and a coordinator has a complete overview of the project as well as insight into the data of all the partners. ‘Using the tools makes it “fun” to be an FP7 coordinator.’
EU-xpert, the scientific reporting tool
EU-xpert is easy to use for both coordinators and partners. In an e-mail sent to the partners, Marcel van der Linden phrased it thusly: ‘With the EU-xpert tool, individual partner representatives can be assigned a specific space (an edit box) in the web-based report document. The actual reporting can be done by typing or pasting text from MS Word into the edit box. Tables and illustrations can also be inserted.’
EU-xpert reduces the number of versions to a single version. Partners enter their texts centrally instead of each partner creating his or her own Word document for their own section, which involves different versions at different stages and sending them at different times.
EU-fin, the financial reporting tool
According to Marcel, the main advantages of EU-fin lie in financially monitoring the project and generating the obligatory FORM-C data.
While the data is entered by all the partners, EU-fin enables coordinators to create reports with great flexibility. ‘Knowing the Excel pivot table helps you to better understand this functionality.’ This allows the coordinator to view those cross-sections that might require managerial action.
Besides facilitating flexible reporting, EU-fin can also generate the obligatory data for the FORM-C reports, which are sent to the EC. It is important to realize that in EU-fin the figures are calculated first and are then entered into the FORM-C layout. A partner Marcel had contact with was working the other way around, thus doing more work than was required. The FORM-C is printed from EU-fin and can be an aid when completing the EC FORM-C document.
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