Data-Blog

About the Projects & Gifts Datamart

WashU building construction

Overview

The Data and Analytics team has added financial and budget data for Capital Projects, Non-Capital Projects, and Gifts to the data warehouse in order to strengthen analytical and reporting capabilities for the university.

This datamart has been designed to provide a broad view of Financial data, including Budgets tied to Capital and Non-Capital projects. There are many benefits to having this data in the warehouse; for example, analysts could generate key metrics that cannot be achieved through the source system, or track unspent dollars on Projects and Gifts.

The Projects and Gifts data source packages in Cognos empower report authors to create analytical reports at a monthly summarized level. See the Projects & Gifts package description page for more information.

Key Terms

Understanding a few key terms can help you analyze this data:

  • Projects are funded by creating a journal at the time of project creation (unless it is funded by an external revenue source).
  • Non-capital projects include clinical studies and other non-capital projects such as agency funds, faculty startup, bridge funding, internal grants, and other types as identified by the project group. These are created on a department level.
  • A Capital Project is a project with a specified purpose to build, add to, improve, or maintain a capital / business asset. Capital Projects include both construction projects (i.e.: new construction, renovation, repair, and renewal projects) and IT projects.
  • Budgeting is the process of preparing detailed projections / estimates of future spending amounts. Once prepared and approved, the budgeted amounts are used as a guide or road map in controlling the next year’s business activities.
  • The gift worktag is used to account for gifts from donors (endowed and non-endowed) and quasi-endowed funds.
    • Gifts are further defined by Type and Classification.
      • Gift Type:
        Restricted Purpose
        Unrestricted Purpose
        Student Aid
        Student Loan
        Awaiting Designation
        Capital Project
        Gift-in-Kind
        Significant Bequest
      • Gift Classification:
        Pooled – gifts in the pooled endowment and separately invested endowed gifts
        Spendable – gifts that are not pooled and can be spent
        Undetermined – gifts where the donor has not yet determined the purpose or if it will be Pooled or Spendable
        Non-Pooled Investment – external trusts, life income gifts and separately invested gifts

What kinds of things can one do with this data?

The Budget dataset holds dollars that will be available for various reporting needs for departments to use, including budget lines tied into Projects and Gifts data. Users can generate summarized reports of budget lines and journal lines to see actual dollar amounts, as well as budgeted amounts and budget expenses.

Additionally, this dataset is tied to locations (Space data) so that users can see which project the amount is being spent on and which location. Named professorships are also tied to Gifts data across schools.

Visualize the data

See diagrams of Projects, Gifts, and Budget data on the main datamart overview page.

Resources

Projects & Gifts package descriptions

Projects & Gifts Datamart Overview page

Request access to this data