Setting Permissions for Report Fields
Our Foundation just started using electronic grant agreements for our Winter funding cycle. We came to the realization that grantees can edit several important report fields such as amount funded. We think it would be wonderful it Foundant would be able to make it so that only administrators of grant agreements can edit these important boxes or possibly set permissions so that if a grantee did try to change the amount in the box they would need a special password. We realize that the odds of someone changing the amount funded is slim, but we would not like to tempt anyone with the idea of doing so!
posted June 4, 2012 by Jessica Leuthold, Martin Family Foundation
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi all,
This was released to production GLM as part of the 5.0.0 release. If you have additional feedback regarding this functionality, please create a new "idea" item.
Thanks - and I hope you find the new functionality valuable.
-chris -
Chris Dahl commented
Hi all,
In the next 10 days, the overhaul of the report field functionality should be in our Demo environment. This will include the ability to make questions read-only by the applicant on various forms, and will add a number of nice permissions/visibility options to questions.
Please keep your eyes out for emails and system notifications within GLM!
And thanks for your comments and patience - I realize this has been a long time coming.
-chris -
Katie Kaufmann commented
I was just stopping in to check what the status is of the "read only" permission. This became a big issue when we exported our year end report and I noticed that grantees had edited their award allocations (which we want to show them but don't want them to edit.)
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Helen,
As part of the redesign of the report field functionality we will be adding some capability to add fields to the page where you make the Approval / Denial of the request. We are still a few months out from having something concrete in place, as we get closer, we'll be letting people know so they can get a better idea of the changes coming.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
-chris -
Helen commented
I like this idea too, but would go further. Please give us the option of adding the fields in the Decision area to the top of the Grant Agreement, so we don't have to enter data like Decision Date, number of installments, and amount per installment twice.
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi all,
I just wanted to provide an update that we are going to be looking at updating the report field functionality in the next 6 months. It will take some time to figure out exactly what we are going to be able to do, but improving the permissions is definitely on the list.
I will provide more updates as appropriate.
Thanks,
-chris -
Thai Ha-Ngoc commented
Just another vote to prioritize this feature. We're moving to an electronic grant agreement follow-up form and would like to display the Name, Project Description, Grant Start/End Date, Grant Length, and Amount Awarded report fields as read-only. Thanks!
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Mary Giraulo commented
Sounds great to me - I'd likely use fields in that way myself if it were possible. This nicely allows customization of follow-up forms per grantee, without having to create multiple follow-up templates in Form Builder (the archive section is already getting a bit overcrowded, and we've only been using it since May...)
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Mary Giraulo commented
Just ran into another situation in which read-only status is crucial: grantees are changing their project titles without permission. This causes confusion later in identifying the grant that was given, and is a possible way for grantees to change their project activities without our knowledge! It's also problematic because our board formally approves the specific project titles... if they are to be changed, it should only be by administrators.
Project title is an automatic required field in all forms throughout Foundant (but required in editable form, since there is no read-only status yet) and so grantees have access to this in their follow-up form. Since we assign multiple follow-up forms throughout the year (7 in one program), this means I will be constantly re-fixing project titles - if I even notice the change. I really hope this is something that can be fixed sooner rather than later.
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Katherine commented
Hi Chris,
I'm still in the early stages of learning my way around the Foundant system as I've only just joined our team, but I wanted to add my voice to this thread as it has very quickly become clear to me that adding in the read-only functionality would be immensely helpful!
For instance, we'd like to be able to use report fields to set objectives & targets with our grantees during either the application or evaluation phase and then have those objectives show up in the body of their Follow-up reports w/language to the effect of "In your grant agreement you agreed to objective x. In the past 6 months, what progress have you made toward achieving that target ..."
Definitely gets my vote for prioritizing!!
Thanks,
-Katherine
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Jim,
When we implemented this feature, we discussed eventually exposing exactly the functionality your post describes, so thanks for validating we were planning in the right direction :-)
At this point, we still have some minor issues we need to work through with the basic feature before we will feel comfortable making it more generally available. That said, as we do make more progress on it, we'll continue to keep in mind how useful it might be for our clients.
It'd be great if other folks could weigh in and let us know if they feel this would be useful. As we get more specific comments and interest in a proposed idea, it makes it a lot easier to prioritize it.
Thanks again for the suggestion, Jim.
-chris
posted August 18, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
Chris - great that ease-of-use for report fields is on the development list. I am especially happy to hear that in the future we may be able to more the order/placement of how report fields show up in forms. I love how pwerwful they are but not so in love with some of the ways they are "clunky" to use!
Thanks as always.
Meredith Huffman
posted September 16, 2013 by Meredith Huffman, Genuardi Family Foundation
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi all,
Thanks for the good discussion around this topic. Report fields are pretty powerful, but in their current implementation, they are also not the easiest-to -use feature of the system.
We currently have an internal initiative around doing a major overhaul of report field functionality. We want to keep the powerful and useful aspects of them, but make them easier (and faster) to administer, more flexible (i.e. in terms of placement on forms), and more configurable (such as "Read-Only" at different stages).
Given the scope of this effort, though, and the amount of planning and design that needs to be done, we'll be working on it while we continue implementing other high priority features. I hope to be able to discuss this a bit more at our upcoming Summit, as well as see the discussion here continue (and hopefully involve more users). As we get more detailed in our internal design, we'll be working to share our ideas with users so that we can get some good feedback before we actually start implementing the changes.
Thanks,
-chris
posted September 14, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
Perhaps a simple place to start would be to make all report fields "Read-Only" to the Applicant/Grantee as soon as the grant is marked approved, while still leaving an administrator the ability to change the content of all report fields? It seems reading through the prior comments that the concerns are mostly about changing the information after a grant is approved via follow-up forms. Further, if there is some concern about a grantee changing the info during the application process prior to approval, the report field can just be left out of any relevant stage in the process or made internal only.
Kate
posted September 8, 2013 by Kate Shirah, John Rex Endowment
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Ideas commented
Whoa. I wasn't aware that the fields in the follow-up form could be edited by the grantee. I agree with the need for a Read-Only designation. (By the by, the read-only narrative fields in submitted applications LOOK like they can be edited - which is confusing. The look of the field should change when it can't be edited - for example, the buttons and radio buttons and drop-down menus become grayed out - but the narrative fields currently stay white...)
posted September 6, 2013 by Mary Giraulo, United Arts of Central Florida
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Ideas commented
I'd like to concur with Jessica, Meredith, and Dana that we need to have a "Read Only" feature. We currently include the Grant Number and Grant Amount fields in our Follow-Up forms, and both are editable by the user/applicant. This makes me very nervous. It would be nice if these fields could be "Read Only" much like the Due Date field that is assigned to the Follow-Up -- it's grayed out so it displays the information, but the applicant can't edit it.
posted March 20, 2013 by Tom Wickersham, Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Dana,
Thanks for the specific feedback. We'll keep this in mind the next time we look at the Report Field functionality. Addiing an additional "Read Only" setting for each stage is probably the simplest approach, but it means more clicks for people when they are trying to configure report fields on the Process Manager, so we'll have to think this through.
On a side note, the leaves on some of the trees outside my window have started changing, so I can only imagine what New England's starting to look like :-)
-chris
posted September 27, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
I like the idea of "Read Only" as an option. We see the issue when an applicant is completing their "Follow Up" report (which to us is the Final Report or Grant Report).
We had included the Project description, which we felt was helpful when a grantee or the administrator is reviewing the follow up. Although what we wee happen is, the grantees change the information from what it had been and replaced it with a variety of other (sometimes irrelevant) information. We later changed this report field to Internal, but somehow the remainder of the form seems incomplete or missing something when a grantee goes in to complete the form. I think it would be good for the grantee to see the information as it once appeared, but having it greyed out so that they cannot alter it is helpful.
posted July 31, 2012 by Dana Jeffery, Ben & Jerry's Foundation
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Jessica and Meredith,
Thanks for the suggestion.
Jessica, when you say “we came to the realization that grantees can edit several important report fields such as amount funded” ... at what point are grantees editing them (follow-up, etc.)? Is this something that could be addressed by not displaying the report field to the user at that stage (i.e. using the "Not Included" option)?
If for some reason that won't work, it sounds like you want an additional “state” – say “Read Only” – added to the Process Report Field area so that at a given stage, users can just view the value of the field (I would assume that even “Read Only” fields can still be edited by Administrators) ... does this sound correct?
Meredith, when you say "grant report" are you referring to what GLM refers to as "follow ups" (sorry - still getting some of the terminology right in my mind)? I probably am not understanding Jessica's request well enough ... why do you say this feature would be valuable to you as well? Is it mostly because the Board would then be able to see it? If not, is there something else I'm missing?
Report field functionality is a bit complex, and it’s not on our near-term roadmap, so I’m not sure when we might be able to look at this particular suggestion. However, if we can get a bit more information, we can make sure it is part of our “report field improvement” discussions. And as we get a bit more information from you and others, we may be able to look into it sooner.
Thanks,
-chris
posted June 22, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
This would be very valuable for us as well -- great idea, Jessica.
In the mean time, I'll offer that what we do is make the grant amount an internal field that first appear on the application but carries through to the grant report -- so we can see it but applicant can't However, I think that also means that Board level reviewers (who are not administrators) cannot see the internal field. So your idea of being able to assign permissions would be great.
For example -- an administrator could enter/change the grant amount, it could be viewed-but-not-changed by board evaluators, and invisilble altogether to applicants.
posted June 4, 2012 by Meredith Huffman, Genuardi Family Foundation