Hi all,

As of our 4.1.0 release - on February 4, 2014 - you can specify which administrator(s) get automatic notifications for each process and form/stage. I think we've finally tackled all of the issues in this thread. I hope it adds a lot more value to the notification functionality.

Thanks again for the suggestions and feedback. It definitely has helped with this feature.
-chris

Hi all,

In the upcoming 3.7.0 release, we have made some improvements to the automatic notification system. While we haven't gotten it to the point that you can select which administrators will get a particular administrator notification, we have added the ability to configure notificaitons on a process and stage (LOI, Application, and Follow-up) level. In addition, for administrator notifications, we have added a "Details" option that when selected will add details (applicant contact information, form name, process name, and project name) to the email.

I recognize that doesn't address everyone's concerns, but hopefully it's a marked improvement over the current functionality.

Given the extent of the changes in 3.7.0, we are going to have more training webinars around this release than any we've done before. I would encourage everyone to pay attention to the upcoming announcement and release notes so that you're able to take full advantage of the new functionality.

Thanks again for the suggestions, and I look forward to hearing feedback on the notification changes,

-chris

posted June 16, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

Daren, given that it could be awhile before we get the ability to choose who gets notified, I am in favor of incorporating into the auto admin email what exactly came in, as you suggest. That would be very helpful so admins could know if it is something that is relevant to them and avoid the searching for what new thing came in.

posted December 5, 2012 by Anne Rogers, Mass Humanities

Hi Jacqui,

We’ve had lots of discussion about adding process-specific notification capabilities. It’s something that makes complete sense and we’d like to do but it just hasn’t quite made it to the top of the list of priorities in comparison to other enhancements. In the meantime, would it be useful if we just expanded the current notification to include some additional information such as Organization Name, Form Name, Project Name, etc? We can't make any promised until Chris and his team do some research but that might be something we could do with limited effort while we look at the longer term solution.

posted December 5, 2012 by Daren Nordhagen, Foundant Technologies

Not sure what progress has been made on notification of forms submitted by process or type of form, but this would be very helpful for us. We are coming to notice it may become something necessary to monitor our grantees getting in final reports or 'Follow ups'. Right now we have no idea how often or how seldom them come in as we only get a blanket email saying form submitted, it may be an LOI, an application, or follow up. We would love to see each notification specify what kind of form was submitted.

Many thanks,

Jacqui Lara

The William G. McGowan Charitable Fund

posted October 15, 2012 by Jacqui Lara, The William G. McGowan Charitable Foundation

We would LOVE to have notifications that can go out to applicants of particular processes rather than one email that goes to all applicants who submit to any process. We have various grant funds with different requirements, and we also run an awards program through Foundant. There are just different things that we need to tell different people, and if we could have a notification email that is standard for a particular process rather than all processes it would be really helpful.

posted December 13, 2011 by Leah Suhrstedt, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Here's a quick thought for the group on Raymond's idea of using the new reporting functionality to generate notification emails...

If the reporting framework would let us send out emails as Angie described it would be fantastic. I suspect many GLM users would like to be able to customize individual notifications for their specific situations.

Mary mentioned a slightly different type of notification email. Instead of notifying users about a single event, it could include a summary of events or activities. This might not be helpful for an administrator who wants to look at an application or follow up report as soon as it is received. But it would serve someone who wants to know what applications or reports are in (and maybe what's outstanding) without getting an email every time something arrives.

I imagine the latter is a little more difficult to build (Salesforce's Chatter might be a model - I can describe it for anyone who's interested) but it is really appealing. We have held off on using the evaluation assigned notifications because we tend to process multiple applications at once and we don't feel like we can send evaluators multiple emails saying the same thing at the same time. Having an email that would collect developments like multiple applications assigned to an evaluator would solve that problem.

posted August 3, 2011 by Aaron Spevacek, Foundant Technologies

Our initial run at notifications was definitely a "toe in the water" and intended to engender just the kinds of ideas and discussions happening here today. Many of the notifications are somewhat limited in their usefulness because of the generic "spray and pray" approach. Particularly evaluation assigned notifications and form submission notifications. As we continue to explore the power of our new reporting framework, I anticipate the ability to schedule and send our reports on a periodic basis. Would this type of functionality solve the notificaiton issues to Foundation personnel?

Per Aaron's suggestion, we're looking at just sending some kind of e-mail to applicants for a first release. Then we could look at more specific features around process/form context. I like the idea of this feature actually saving support calls for the Foundation. Great stuff!

posted August 3, 2011 by Raymond Burket, Foundant Technologies

We wouldn't use the enhancement Angie described right now but I could imagine using our processes differently if it were implemented. More helpful to us (and probably more complicated for Foundant to implement) would be differentiating auto response emails by form and differentiating them based on a report field.

Form-specific auto responses would be great because we often have different people following LOIs, applications and follow-up reports. LOIs and applications are usually reviewed first by a grants administrator while follow up reports are usually reviewed immediately by a program officer.

Auto response emails based on report fields would be great because we tend to run all of our programs or priority areas through a single process but have different staff follow different areas (e.g. one staff member follows housing organizations, another follows environmental orgs). It would be great to tell the person following housing that a housing-related LOI was received. I could also see using this feature around the type of grant (e.g. general operating vs. capacity building) or when we know a board member has a specific interest in an organization.

It would also be nice to send form-specific auto-responses to applicants. I think we would cut down on calls to the office if there were an automatic email that confirmed for applicants that their form was received and told them when they can expect to hear from us.

posted August 1, 2011 by Aaron Spevacek, Foundant Technologies

Angie's idea is EXACTLY what we need here. Different people are in charge of different processes. Everyone doesn't need to know about every single form for every process that arrives. And the notification doesn't tell you what has been received. It's a little maddening. We would LOVE this modification!

posted July 28, 2011 by Anne Rogers

Hi Angie, This isn't something we're likely to use, but it occurs to me that maybe the notification could be a once-a-day update thing so that, whether or not it could be set for just one process, it woudn't mean getting an email each time there was a submission.

posted July 28, 2011 by Mary Nicosia, GMA Foundations