Glad to help in any way. You all have done so much for us!

Wow - thanks for the quick feedback! I'll share this with our client success team as a suggestion for other users. And we'll keep looking for ways to further improve this functionality.
-chris

Mary, I agree with you totally. I like your idea of the combined PDF. There is an easy (but not totally cost-free) way to edit a PDF. If you have Adobe Online Services, you can convert a PDF to Word or Excel. You can also edit the PDF to the degree that you can place sticky notes or highlights or text boxes, etc. on the PDF itself to make comments or highlight something. I have a personal account and I pay $9.99/mo for it. It is absolutely worth it to me. I've been converting documents for my office for two years and they're amazed.

I love this new feature. We've decided to upload a combined PDF of the previously submitted document (with a big slash across it in pen) and the new document. That way we preserve the original submission, and our panelists aren't deceived as to the applicant's general understanding and ability to execute the project, but have sufficient info to make a decision. My only worry is if we ever want to edit those documents again we will only have the PDF... so we may choose to upload the original Word or Excel docs as Request docs in some cases. But - this is still a HUGE improvement! Yay 5.0!!

Hi all,

As of 5.0 GLM - which was release March 7 to production - you should now have the ability to edit an applicant's response (including uploading a replacement file) without having to move the entire application back to a Draft status. Note that when you edit a question in this scenario, your name and the date you modify the response will show up under that answer to you and other Administrators.

We did not add an option to maintain the original document and to have a "revised document" field, nor is there a marker or anything to let the applicant know about the change. There is definitely value in those suggestions, but also some complexity that would have added time and risk to the 5.0 release (which was already a large enough effort). I'll create some new idea lab items for each of these.

Thanks again for the suggestions and good discussion around this topic. I hope the new functionality is useful and valuable to you going forward!
-chris

YES!! This issue is extremely relevant for us. We don’t
release applications back to draft because we only want specific changes from
the applicant, and don’t feel it’s fair to give them “more time” on their
application than those applicants who did not make errors. On the other hand,
we don’t want our panelists to be oblivious to errors, since significant errors
in themselves can be an indication of an organization’s lack of capacity to
follow through with projects. We spend a LOT of time either rolling applications
back to draft or substituting documents in PDFs created from merge templates. This change would actually be at the top of MY list, if I had any sway. So glad that Bob suggested it and that Chris brought it to the forefront.

I love Barb’s suggestion of an “updated/revised document” field
right beside the original. This would be useful in follow-ups, too, not just
applications. Like Barb, we are also using request docs as a workaround, but
they aren’t easy to bring into merge templates, since all request documents are
attached to a merge in one fell swoop. If there were an “updated/revised
document” field beside each upload, then I could bring that field into the
merge template and it would show up right after the original.

As for the fear of misuse, our applicants already have no
way of knowing what we upload as request documents (unless we choose to share
them), sub out in merge templates, or what other information we provide to
evaluators (we provide a packet of staff analysis). Applicants don’t have
complete control as it is. So it doesn’t bother me to have this overwrite,
especially since I assume that applicants would also be able to see that an
update had been uploaded. Maybe instead of an automatic email to the applicant (or
in addition), the request on the applicant’s dashboard could have an !
(exclamation point) or other notification showing that there had been changes.
IN FACT, I would love if such a notification showed up when I added comments
under various fields. I’m still not convinced that applicants ever see those
comments.

We are only in our second grant cycle using GLM and we've come across this issue, too. We've been using the Request Documents area to store any revised or updated documents. However, we then hit the barrier of the evaluators not having the info at their fingertips within the application.

Is there a possibility that we could add an "updated/revised document" upload functionality next to the original document upload? That way, the original could be left untouched and the updated document link placed right next to it. As much as I would like to have the applicant upload additional documents after submitting the application, there are many reasons (some echoed by others here) why it is best that our foundation have the control to upload any additional documents.

I echo all the reasons above for wanting the ability to upload updated documents to an application. We often have committees who want to request documents after they have met to discuss applications and waiting for applicants to do it adds another level of time/complexity. If we had the ability to add things in the application without having to reset the status it would assist both the applicant and the evaluator. We are finding that we have many not so tech savvy folks using the system and the simpler we can make it the better. Thanks

I am marking applications complete or incomplete right now, and often there are small mistakes that I prefer to fix on my side without having to contact the applicant, give them a deadline to make the change, etc.

I would very much like to be able to upload files to a submitted application form without logging in as that applicant. This would save me a fair amount of time.

EDIT: I wanted to add that another reason why this would be useful is so that I could assign applications to evaluators right away and then upload any corrected files later as necessary (I know I could use Request Documents but it's not the same). The VAST majority of our applicants' errors have to do with uploaded files, not the written responses in the application itself.