Make the "Edit" on the Follow up Reports Bigger, Bolder or more obvious. Grantees can't see it!
Grantees are frequently asking where do they enter their follow up reports. It's just not obvious on their Dashboard.

Hi Michele and Pele,
Thank you both for your thoughts full feedback. We have heard this request before, and are looking at how we can make the follow accessibility and editing easier for applicants.
Do you believe increasing font size would be enough? Or do you have other thoughts on how to make this stand out to your applicants?
Best
Sammie
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Kraig Everard commented
How about using the same icons that are shown on the evaluator dashboard? 'Start' with the red exclamation point, 'Continue' with the yellow exclamation point, and a green checkmark but instead of 'Update' it would say 'Submitted.' It occurs to me this might be easily added since those icons already exist within the system.
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Liz McClure commented
We get this multiple times a week. Making it a button would help a ton, changing it to Complete Form or Start Form would also help. I even include a screen shot in all of our email communications to recipients that circles where to go on their page and they still can't find it.
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Michelle Parrish commented
I am constantly proxying in as applicants, taking dashboard screen shots with highlighted red circles around the "edit" hyperlink, and emailing them the photo. They simply overlook it.
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Michele Schmidt commented
Yes - make it bigger and bold- change it to "Complete Form" as suggested below. Make it a button. Do anything to make it more visible. I receive more phone calls and e-mails from Grantees on this. I have it specified in my e-mails to Grantees that you have to Click on the "Edit" (in blue). It's just not obvious enough. This seems to be an easy, simple fix. When can something be implemented?
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Michele Schmidt commented
Yes, I think this would help - making the Font Bigger or Making it a Button. I'm always having to send additional instructions on how to Edit this form. I actually thought this was already in the works..... It seems making it a larger font would be an easy fix for now.
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Catherine Koenen commented
Yes I agree with changing the link name from "Edit" to "Complete Form" or something similar.
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Anonymous commented
This is my most frequently flagged issue from grant recipients. I have put together an email with a screenshot showing a picture of the dashboard with the teeny tiny edit button highlighted so they know what to look for. Would rather not have to send this email several times a day after the grant decisions go out.
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Sara Cryan commented
SLM User - I name our Follow Up Forms as an action word in front of what they are supposed to complete so for example "Complete Scholarship Recipient Form" or "Write Thank You Letter".
I think it would make more sense for our recipients to just be able to click directly on the Follow Up Form Name and get rid of the Edit/View column. Then when they hover over the Follow Up Form Name, a little dialog box would appear saying "Complete/Edit/View Form" similar to when you hover over the pencil icon to edit the user information. It would be even cooler if when you hovered over the form it would:
-Show complete when it is first assigned and has not been opened;
-Show edit when it has been opened but not submitted yet; and
-Show view when it has been submitted. -
Michele Schmidt commented
Hi Sammie, I see 2 issues: The small blue link on right side of screen is not obvious. Make it a bold blue print or button? The fact that you have to "Edit" the Follow Up form doesn't help, however, I add specific instructions in the reminder email to look for the Blue Edit link on Right side of Follow Up Form. It seems more appropriate to "Complete" the Follow Up Form as others have noted below.
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Jessica Saavedra commented
I agree, I have to specifically tell people click on the blue edit link to the far right side of the form title
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Anonymous commented
Please make the link to the follow up questions for users more obvious than the current "Edit" button that is on the far side of the request listing. We assigned our grant reporting as follow ups and then received many questions from users unable to figure out how to access the report questions. Thanks.
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Lacey Sortman commented
We frequently need to direct folks to look right or expand their browser to see "Edit" links on the right side of the home screen.
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Michele Schmidt commented
People have a hard time seeing the "Edit" under Follow Up Reports. Can you make it look like a button or more Bold or something??? It's not real obvious.
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Mariah Williams commented
Sammie -
I think a highlight behind the text (like what is behind under consideration on this page) for the forms they are allowed to edit would help it pop against the forms that are just "view".
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Pele commented
To clarify, when I said "this form" I meant the applicant dashboard.
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Pele commented
This form flummoxes users. I think that there is not enough hierarchy in the design of the text guiding their eyes. For example, the word process is bold; my users don't need to see the process at all. They need Project Name and Report Name to stand out. Also, the Edit link is so small they don't notice it. Perhaps turning the name of the form into a live link (which would perform the same function as the link on the right - edit or view) would help.
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Dana Jeffery commented
I like the idea of clearly separating the requests as you describe Chris, and would definitely encourage going ahead with something like this as we have to guide some folks through their dashboard if they have a lot going on there.
I also struggle with explaining what is in their "request section" and the follow up for some reason is not obvious enough for them. It seems invisible -even though it has it's own little box within the request section!
I wonder if it is possible to change the view of the request section to be more consistent.
I developed a sample of sorts, that has the Process name and Request Title in the main bar and then broke out the request by the stages and then follow ups were not separated in it's own box. Unfortunately it looks like I can't upload my sample in the idea lab like we used to. I will gladly send the image if there is a way... -
Chris Dahl commented
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for taking time to make this suggestion. We actually used to have it say "Complete", but we got a lot of negative feedback on that as well. Even if we make it a button, I'm not sure that it would be that clear.
Our slightly longer-term solution is to try an overhaul of the applicant dashboard. This is dependent on us first spending some time working on improving the user interface, but what I envision is an applicant dashboard that more clearly indicates "in process requests", "decided requests", "follow ups in process", etc. I'm not 100% sure on what that would look like, but I think we have some real opportunities to improve the applicant experience.
I look forward to being able to make some changes, though it will probably be in the 6-9 month time frame. Thanks again for the suggestion!
-chris -
Lisa Rhynes commented
My small town applicants have a really hard time finding that teeny tiny blue "edit" word to click on for the Follow Ups. Can you either change the word to "complete form" or make it a button to click on.