I'm on board with this one, too!

Our situation is that we create internal documents for audit purposes--e.g., Grant Closeout Memoranda that require Program and Financial staff to add additional comments at the end of a grantee's project, documenting the reasons for closing the grant.

Internal followups would be *very* useful for us for two reasons:

1.) I'm building merge templates that will pull the basic organization & grant information into document headers, but for the documents in question, the information needs to be provided by staff after we're done with external followups but before we're ready to execute the "Close Grant" process. So for now, we'll have to create the document with mostly blank fields, which staff will have to individually complete in Word. This has already proven to be inefficient, and the only mistake-proofing the merge template will provide will be for the basic grant/grantee info (~5% of the document content).

2.) The current functions of assigning items and having the system send automatic reminders of due dates, etc., would help ensure in this context that each person who needs to contribute internally would do so in a timely fashion, and would nix the possibility of omission, multiple file versions, etc.

Thanks!

I'd like to vote for this multiple times! I conduct informal check-in calls with our grantees, and I'd like to be able to capture my notes and run reports. The grantees aren't required to do anything formal for these calls, so I don't want to make them fill something out.

Love this idea! It would help us tremendously! We have some organizations that we give donations to and they do not need to submit follow ups to us, but I need to remember to upload a document later, or follow up with them on something. We have to keep these internal 'to do' items in a different program and it would be great to integrate them here.

It would be super helpful if follow up forms could be assigned internally. We are starting to use progress reporting/interim follow ups to check in with organizations and take notes during those conversations. Assigning a follow up internally would provide accountability internally to make sure those conversations/check ins happened.

It would also be great it we could mark follow ups as "incomplete" or "abandoned". Right now we delete the follow up and make a note in the "request comments" area, but it would be helpful to differentiate from a report that we decided we no longer needed vs. a report that was never submitted and is still overdue vs. a submitted report.

I agree - This appears to be inline with what our organization would find valuable. We conduct site visits and have to write our reports through an external source and attach to the grantee's file. Having an internal form that we can complete and becomes part of the file like a Follow-Up does would be a more efficient use of our time.

LOVE the idea of an internal follow up form!

I agree - this seems like essential functionality. Having to run a separate report limits the usefulness of the dashboard.

I like this idea. Often times I have grantees send me follow up information via email or mail. Or they will send pictures, etc. that are too big to put in a report but should go along with it. Also, for renewal grants, I have an application that asks reporting questions for the previous year's grant as well as questions for the next year. This would enable me to atttach this application to the previous year's grant as a report without having to log on as the applicant.

posted September 11, 2012 by Amy Moore, O.P. & W.E. Edwards Foundation