Uploaded documents viewable by applicant
It would be great to be able to share uploaded documents with applicants. I am talking about documents not part of a form but still related to a specific application. Specifically, I would love for grant partners to be able to see a copy of their signed grant agreement. These agreements are the only paper documents we still keep and we often receive requests for information in these documents. Agreements have original signatures of both our President and the grant partner's leadership and include reporting dates, grant restrictions, program budget and goals. These agreements are uploaded to individual applications in GLM but applicants are not able to see these uploaded documents. Is it possible to allow uploaded documents to be viewed by approved grant partners with active grants?
posted March 21, 2013 by Erin Baird, Allegany Franciscan Ministries https://d2r1vs3d9006ap.cloudfront.net/s3_images/964473/Untitled.png?1380504722
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi all,
I'm happy to say that this functionality has been implemented and is available with our 4.1.0 release on February 4, 2014.
Thanks again for taking time to add your suggestions and feedback - it's really made a difference in the development of this functionality.
-chris -
Chris Dahl commented
Hi Mary,
First, we fixed the quirky experience you had (as an admin) when uploading an organization document and marking it as viewable by the applicant. We also added some text above both the request documents and follow-ups to more clearly indicate they were uploaded (documents) and assigned (follow-ups) by the administrator.Second, I don't disagree with your comment about the visibility of the organization documents. At the same time, though, I'm concerned things might get pretty cluttered for an applicant with a number of applications, follow-ups, and request and organization documents. At some point, as we step back and look at the overall presentation of the applicant's dashboard, I think there will be a better opportunity to improve their experience.
Thanks again for the feedback.
-chris -
Mary Giraulo commented
Oh, right! I forgot about that. Well, for me, I would rather have the organization documents on the dashboard - I want to be able to upload their latest insurance and 990 so they know they don't need to re-submit it for each grant application or report that they send me (we always include the question "send us the latest insurance/990/etc"). But... if all I have to do is tell them to click another link to check what documents we have, I guess I can do that. :)
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Mary,
Thanks much for taking the time to look at the feature.
In regard to the organization documents ... this is maybe an area of discussion, but for now, it should only be an option if "View Organization History" is checked for a user (or if that is given to all users) ... and the organization documents will only be on the Organization Summary page. Let me know if that makes sense.
And yeah, I think making it a bit more obvious that those are "Documents related to your request" or something would help make it more obvious to the applicant ... we'll take a look at it, but an overall improvement of the applicant experience would help with this as well.
Thanks again for the feedback.
-chris -
Mary Giraulo commented
Thanks for fixing the error Chris - I was able to get in and look around this time. :)
DOCS UPLOADED TO ORGANIZATION
The checkbox beside "Show Applicant This Document" was missing before uploading the document. But after I uploaded the document, a checkbox and the word "Something" appeared - assuming that was "Show Applicant This Document," I checked it, and - success - the icon for Applicant Facing appeared. However, when I logged in as the applicant, the document was nowhere to be found on the dashboard. Not even when I logged in as the primary contact.
DOCS UPLOADED TO REQUEST
This worked and looks great (shows up in a grouping right under the assigned follow-up forms if any). I think it would work for our purposes; it would just be a little confusing for the applicant the first time around, figuring out which are the forms he/she needs to submit and which are the documents UA has uploaded - since there's no header to identify either grouping and the bars above each grouping are the same color. But I'm sure that's one of the things you are aware of since you're working on ways to improve the applicant experience. (And one of those things: the approved grant amount should be visible on the applicant's dashboard...)
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Mary,
I apologize that you weren’t able to log on to Dev. One of the changes we are making for the upcoming release involves a minor change to authenticating users. I had spot-checked a number of users, but evidently we hadn’t finished updating all the accounts when you tried to log on earlier. However, you should be able to log on now and give it a try.Thanks, and again, sorry about the log on issue,
-chris -
Mary Giraulo commented
But super excited to check it out! :)
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Mary Giraulo commented
I tried to log on (same username and password) and got a server error:
Server Error in '/' Application.
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.
Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".
<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->
Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.
<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi all,
I wanted to let you know that we have the “Applicant-facing document” feature in our Development environment. I’m not sure if you’ll have time to look at it, but if you do, please let me know if you have any feedback.We’ve temporarily allowed access to the Development environment. You should be able to go to your production GLM site, and just change the leading “www” to “dev”. Your same username and password should work. Once you log on, if you go to the Request Summary page for a particular request and upload a “Request Document”, you should see a checkbox option to “Show document to applicant.” If you select this, the document will be viewable by the applicant. You’ll also get a “person” icon next to the “Type” in your administrator view of the request documents.
To see what the applicant will see (simply the Description and Name of the document), you can just proxy in as the applicant for the request your testing on. Our development environment isn’t always 100% stable as we’re actively updating it much more frequently than production, but usually it’s stable enough to test.
Please let me know if you can look at this, and if you have any feedback or questions. Thanks,
-chris -
Chris Dahl commented
Hi all,
We currently have this under development. Key points include:
1. Marking a document as "Viewable by applicant" for supporting documents for both Requests and Organizations.
2. The only way that organization supporting documents would be viewable by applicants is if "View Organization History" is set to true.
3. The request supporting documents would show up on the applicant dashboard underneath the request.
4. These documents would still be viewable by Staff and Board members.Let me know if that makes sense. We hope to have this in our development environment soon, at which point I will ask some of you to take a look.
Thanks,
-chris -
Chris Dahl commented
Mary (and all)
Thanks for the additional input. This isn't a high priority enhancement for us at this time, but it is something that I'll add to my discussion list for our upcoming Summit in October.
In the meantime, as we're discussing our roadmap, I'll keep this on our candidate list. If this doesn't look like a significant effort from the development and testing side, it may be something we look at adding to an upcoming release if there is extra time. It definitely is one where the logic is not that hard since we've done similar work, but it is a bit more challenging from a user-interface perspective as we would want to make it really clear so that folks didn't accidentally mark something as viewable by the applicant when they should not have.
Thanks again,
-chris
posted September 14, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
Good points Mary.
posted September 9, 2013 by Erin Baird, Allegany Franciscan Ministries
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Ideas commented
I can see myself using this in (at least) two ways:
Applicant left something out of the application, and I allow them to submit it via email. I know I could roll it back to draft, but then the applicant has ability to change anything in the application, and it looks as if they never made the mistake (unfair to other applicants). I'd like to be able to add the document and make it viewable to all. I'd even like this to become part of the Print Packet - it could show up at the end, with cover page like the applicant's uploads...
Applicant has a change in their project after the award, and I approve it via email (sometimes with supporting documents). Those supporting documents (updated budgets or narratives) should become part of the record, viewable to all (though not part of the print packet, necessarily).
posted September 6, 2013 by Mary Giraulo, United Arts of Central Florida
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Ideas commented
We primarily use the staff evalutors users not board members. No need for us at this point to differentiate the permisisons between the two.
posted July 12, 2013 by Erin Baird, Allegany Franciscan Ministries
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi all,
Whew ... so at least it sounds like we are all on the same page :-)
That said, I'm not sure where this will fall priority-wise. I will definitely bring it to our Product Team as follows:
Users would like the ability for an Administrator to upload Request supporting document(s) such that:
- They are viewable to Applicants
- They are viewable to Staff Evaluators and Board Members
This assumes that the Administrator can set the permissions for each "Request Document" to "Applicant".
Would any of you like to set the permissions do differentiate between Staff Evaluators and Board Members?
Thanks,
-chris
posted July 8, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
Chris-
Yes, I think Linsey, Amy and I are on the same page.
"I'm assuming that any document you shared with an applicant should still be viewable by other Administrators, as well as Board Members and Staff Evaluators (assuming they can see the request), correct?" YES
Erin
posted July 2, 2013 by Erin Baird, Allegany Franciscan Ministries
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Ideas commented
Chris,
Sorry for the delay in resopnding. Your responses match my desire for the documents to be viewable by everyone. To give an example, we occasionally have updated goals sent to us that I would love to make a part of the record that could be seen by applicants and other staff that access the records. This is most helpful because we ask them to report on how they did on the goals stated in the appliation and if it is a new person at the organization they might not have the history and could end up reporting on the wrong goal.
Thanks as always for your great work!
Linsey
posted June 26, 2013 by Linsey Sauer, The Russell Family Foundation
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Ideas commented
Hi Erin and Chris,
Being able to attach a document for the applicant's view is something we could really use.
As part of our grant review process our evaluators make on-site visits and prepare on-site visit reports. We would like to be able to share the on-site visit reports with the applicants through the system.
Additionally, we share evaluator scores/comments with the grantees. As it is I have to print and send hard copies or e-mail these documents to the applicants.
We also conduct staff monitoring visits, which have an associated report. It would be great to be able to provide this to the applicant for their view within the system.
Thanks!
Amy Palmer, Director of Grants Admin, Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, Florida
posted June 25, 2013 by Amy Palmer, Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Erin
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I know administrators can upload documents to a request ... my earlier comment was more about making sure this is what you meant, and that you and Linsey were on the same page (I'd be disappointed to implement something that only met the needs of one of your foundations). It was also to let you know that some of the functionality (i.e. Shared Documents with roles for each document) was moving us in a direction to potentially be able to support functionality that would allow an administrator to share a document with a particular role.
I'm assuming that any document you shared with an applicant should still be viewable by other Administrators, as well as Board Members and Staff Evaluators (assuming they can see the request), correct?
Thanks,
-chris
posted June 20, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
Chris-
There already is the ability for the administrator to add documents to a request. I current upload award letters, copies of checks and grant agreements here. What is needed is making these documents viewable by applicants. Not sure what is involved in making this happen.
Thanks for listening.
posted June 20, 2013 by Erin Baird, Allegany Franciscan Ministries