PIPER Newsletter | Issue #1 |
UC San Diego | Research Administration | November 2025
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Welcome to the First PIPER Newsletter! |
PIPER (Portfolio Insights, Projections, and Expense Reconciliation) is a suite of financial reporting and forecasting tools created in Anaplan. It empowers faculty and fund managers to better manage their portfolios by bringing together data from Oracle, UCPath, and Kuali, while allowing research administrators to add notes and create projections directly within the tool.
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Research administrators across campus have emphasized that manual financial reporting is time-consuming and error prone. PIPER addresses this pain point by facilitating reconciliation, standardizing reporting, and reducing reliance on Excel-based shadow systems. The result: more time for strategic support, improved accuracy, and continuity when staff transitions occur.
UC San Diego thrives on interdisciplinary collaboration — and PIs often work across multiple departments. PIPER offers a consistent, reliable format for portfolio reporting, ensuring clarity no matter where funds are managed.
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- Strengthens trust and accuracy in financial forecasts
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Standardizes and simplifies portfolio reporting
- Provides faster clarity on burn rate and runway
- Reduces dependency on spreadsheets and manual manipulation
- Improves continuity during staffing turnover or coverage gaps
- PIPER enhances partnership with faculty — giving them confidence in the decisions ahead
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With the various PI Portfolio views, faculty can easily see:
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- Total portfolio balance and runway
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Burn rate analysis
- Transaction detail for transparency
- Details behind projections and assumptions
- Financial impact of decisions in real time
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Myth Busting: The Reality Behind PIPER |
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Q: Is PIPER replacing Oracle? No. PIPER is not a replacement for Oracle. It leverages existing systems (Oracle, UCPath, Kuali) to provide enhanced forecasting and decision-support capabilities.
- Q: Who can use PIPER? All research administrators across UC San Diego — including Academic Affairs, Health Sciences, Marine Sciences (SIO), and Research and Innovation — will have access.
- Q: When can I access PIPER? The project is currently in an invite-only cohort training phase. Campus-wide rollout is expected in Spring 2026, following successful testing and feedback from early users.
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What’s Next: Rollout & Training |
Training is being delivered in phases to ensure adoption feels supported, not rushed. Fund Managers and PIs are participating in small, focused cohort training before broader campus access begins. We are sequencing training so that fund managers are ready to support faculty the moment they enter the tool.
Upcoming milestones include additional cohort training through winter, development of asynchronous learning materials, creation of Blink pages as a reference guide, and continued office hours support for people already using PIPER.
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Questions or feedback? Email the PIPER project team at piperteam@ucsd.edu.
Look out for upcoming newsletters and Office Hours invitations to continue learning about PIPER and its rollout schedule.
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