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  1. 6 votes

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    Chris Dahl supported this idea  · 
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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    Given the diversity of needs we heard at the sessions we had around QuickBooks integration at Summit in October, we're not going to be working on a QuickBooks integration in the foreseeable future.

    However, we will be looking at ways to improve making payments in the system as we definitely realize that can be a pain point.

    This is not to say we will never look at integration with QuickBooks, but until we work through more features that will benefit more of our client base, it's hard to justify doing this work.

    Thanks again for all the suggestions and input.
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm looking forward to hearing from other users so we can continue to understand what users would consider and so we can work to prioritize this feature.

    posted September 5, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Nancy, Kristen, and Carolyn,

    Thanks for taking the time to add your input. At this point, no direct interface between GLM and an accounting system exists (though some folks are manually exporting data and importing that data into their other systems).

    We are tentatively exploring an integration with QuickBooks. One of the questions we need to address is if this integration needs to be bi-directional. From what we understand, this integration is most valuable if it goes both ways. Another outstanding question we need to investigate is around the willingness of clients to move to QuickBooks online if they are currently not using that solution.

    I'd definitely be interested in your input. While we believe there is value in this feature, we want to make sure it's something that a good percentage of users will be able to take advantage of. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

    posted July 17, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

  2. 1 vote

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Cadence,
    We released 5.11.0 to Production last night (Tuesday, Feb. 2), and this change is in there. Please let me know if there it meets your needs. And we'll keep working on improving the email communication options and flexibility in releases later this year.

    Thanks again for you suggestion and patience,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Cadence,

    Thanks for the suggestion! This must have been something we just overlooked. I'll have my team do some investigating, and we'll see if we can get this addressed before too long.

    Thanks,
    -chris

  3. 19 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Karina and Vonda,

    Just wanted to let you know that a "withdrawn" option has been suggested in this Idea Lab item: "Need a Withdrawn Category".

    There's been a fair bit of discussion on it, and it's something that is on our longer-term product road map. We will probably be doing a revision of statuses as a whole - not just adding a Withdrawn one - as there are other suggestions for additional statuses as well.

    Thanks for taking time to make this suggestion!
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi everyone,

    I don't have an update on this suggestion directly, but I wanted to try to get more feedback around a somewhat related idea - adding an option for applicants to "Abandon" a request (here). I recognize that it won't address the need for a "Withdrawn" status, but it is something that needs more input.

    Thanks in advance for your feedback,

    -chris

    posted September 3, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

  4. 3 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    This suggestion touches on a couple different ideas that have come up at various times. First, having more "statuses" for a request to be in. I've heard requests to add "Withdrawn" / "Abandoned by Applicant" (for requests that an applicant wants to have withdrawn from consideration), "Rescinded" (to handle cases after a grant has been made but then needs to be, well, rescinded for whatever reason), "On Hold", as well as others. I'll keep the "Failed to Complete" or something similar on the list with these others.

    Second, more than a few users have asked or commented on making organizations that are "out of compliance" more evident within GLM (other Idea Lab threads include: flag an organization and alert that an applicant has an active grant).

    Both of these themes are on our product road map and come up periodically for internal discussion. Updating our handling of statuses is a fairly major undertaking, and it's not something we currently have planned for a specific time frame. Flagging an organization and/or alerting an applicant are less work, but we won't be considering them until we have first done some work on the GLM user interface. This should make it easier to do a better job of flagging / alerting users within the system.

    Thanks for the suggestion and comments. Ideally, some more folks will comment on this thread. Generally, the more comments there are, the easier it is for us to understand the suggestion from more perspectives and make sure we ultimately have as good of an implementation as possible.

    -chris

  5. 1 vote

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Mariko,

    I just wanted to let you know that this change went out in our 5.9.0 release. Basically, when an applicant clicks the "Apply" link in the left navigation menu, the access code will clear out and they will see the list of all unrestricted processes. Sorry I missed updating this thread, and thanks again for the suggestion.

    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Mariko,

    Thanks for pointing this out - definitely not the best user experience, and I can see where it could be confusing. I don't think we've heard much about it as typically applicants with an access code are probably only trying to apply for the given process.

    At this point, my thought is that if someone clicks on the "Apply" link in the left hand side, the list of unrestricted processes should appear (and the access code would be cleared from the code box).

    Let me know your thoughts on that approach,
    -chris

  6. 65 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    First - we're trying to make a number of incremental improvements across the board. Second, I agree with the suggestion. Our first - and in my mind, more important step - is to capture more information regarding changes to organization information, so that it is more readily available to administrators. Once we can do this, we'll be looking at additional options for applicants to update organization information (primary contact, creating contacts, etc.).

    Thanks for the discussion,
    -chris

  7. 29 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    From what I'm reading, there are a variety of opinions about the usefulness of adding Denied (or Closed) requests to the Dashboard. It seems like the biggest motivation (the "why") is simply to get a better picture of overall request management - is that fair to say?

    For some folks - say those who only deal with a few hundred (or less) requests a year - this wouldn't be too bad to do. However, we also have users who have tens of thousands of Denied, Closed, and Abandoned requests each year. If simply showing a "count" for each was acceptable, this *may* be something we could look at. However, the impact of making it possible to view a list of these is pretty significant, and in the worst case, could consume a lot of server resources that are shared across clients. Therefore, I'm hesitant to add this without a pretty compelling use case.

    Again, you all are the experts on the grant-making side, so I certainly respect where you are coming from. I do want to make sure, though, that whatever we decide to implement really has a high value to a fair number of users.

    Thanks in advance for any additional feedback,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    I definitely can understand why people want to see declined and closed requests. I don't want to add items for folks who don't use them, but it would be nice to accommodate people who want to see additional categories.

    I'll bring this to our product team and see what the different perspectives there are in terms of priority. If it's not that risky / challenging to add the ability for these categories to be added on a foundation-by-foundation basis, it could be something we look at sooner than later. If it looks like a fair bit of effort, though, it probably won't be prioritized too high given other features / enhancements on the list.

    Thanks,

    -chris

    posted April 29, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Marla,

    Thanks for the feedback. I'll keep this on our radar and hopefully will hear back from other folks who have some opinions on this. Given the fact that this change would be highly visible, I'd definitely like to hear from as many folks as possible.

    -chris

    posted April 10, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    First, thanks for the feedback. Just to clarify - are we only talking about Denied requests, or would this include Closed and/or Abandoned (probably in their own categories on the dahboard)? I ask because the initial topic mentions "Denied", Marla mentions "When a grant is closed, it disappears from the dashboard" and Michelle, I didn't see anything specific in your comment. It might seem a bit nitpicky, but the details are really important - and believe me, we even have trouble with them in our internal discussions. So if you could add some details around exactly what is meant, that would help.

    That said, at this point given other work we have lined up, this is really not a high-priority item for us. However, as I get a better understanding, I can bring it to our product team and we can determine priority and level of effort.

    Thanks,

    -chris

    posted March 27, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

  8. 79 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    A couple things ... first, some of the work we did this spring with the 5.0.0 release was a prerequisite for looking at this feature. Second, we are currently starting some user interface work that we feel is another prerequisite.

    As is evident by this thread, there are definitely folks who recognize the value of this functionality. While we are not at a point to start implementing this, we are continuing to look at the things that this would impact, including the additional complexity it would add to the user interface, reporting, merge documents, configuration, etc. While we have a lot of the individual pieces in place (and it might therefore make it seem like this shouldn't be that hard to do), we have to consider the impact it would have on the system.

    Thanks for your feedback, and we'll continue to consider when, and how best, to look at this in more depth.
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Thanks for all the valid input. I've added this to our product backlog. Given other efforts underway and given the complexity of this change (as Raymond noted, Follow-ups are definitely more "ad hoc" than other forms), it's not likely we'll be able to do much in the near-term. However, as we continue to refine how processes can be configured, we will definitely keep these suggestions in mind.

    It's challenging (and frustrating) because it's one of those things where we have a lot of the pieces in place to implement this. Without some significant re-work, though, we just can't wire those pieces together to achieve the desired functionality. We certainly try to design things in a way to keep us out of situations like this, but it's not always possible.

    Thanks again,

    -chris

    posted July 20, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Gloria,

    I've only heard this idea mentioned in passing a few times, so at this point it's not very high on our priority list. Part of the reason is that there is some complexity around what the approval or denial of a follow-up report means. While the assignment of a follow-up report to a reviewer would not be hard, this idea has implications for workflow, statuses, and reporting. With an application, it's pretty straightforward - a denial means the application doesn't get approved / funded. But with a follow-up report, I can see there being different interpretations of what a denial, in particular, would mean.

    As we move forward in 2013, there are some things we'd like to improve in terms of the evaluator and board member experience in using GLM. If we get more definition and hear more from users about a significant need for this feature relative to other things we are working on, it's something we could take a harder look at. If you have time and feel it's a high enough need, please expand on how you see this working beyond just the assignment portion (which is probably the simplest part).

    Thank you for the suggestion, and have a safe and happy New Years!

    posted December 27, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

  9. 25 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Thanks for the feedback, Lauren. From what I'm seeing here, and after talking to you a bit at You Fly We Buy recently, it seems like there are 2 types of "batch payment." The first would simply be to create a payment for the full grant amount with a certain date. The second would be more of a grid-like interface where people could enter a payment amount, date, check number, and comments.

    We'll definitely keep this on the road map, though before we can consider it in more depth, we'll need to address some significant user interface improvements.

    Thanks again,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Lisa and Kara,

    From what I understand, Lisa, it looks like your payment process would be very much in line with what I outlined in my overview above - correct?

    And Kara, could you provide a bit more detail. You mention being able to ""pay" in one click after I've set all the payments up" ... does that mean that the process and requirements I outlined above would work in your scenario? Or are there some things more unique that we'd need to consider?

    While I certainly understand there'd be some big value in this feature for some folks, at this point, it's not a feature on our short-term road map. This is partly because we've not heard it being a big challenge for that many users, and in part because we aren't exactly sure how it would need to work to make the workflow easier for everyone who would want to use it.

    If possible, please add some more details around how you'd use it - and if anyone else has some detailed workflow comments, please chime in. I know that it can be frustrating that it takes a bit for some of these features to get into the software (we use a lot of software applications in our jobs here and certainly have some pain points too), but really understanding the desired functionality is critical if we are to implement something that truly meets your needs.

    Thanks again for taking the time to comment and add your suggestions,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Kishawn,

    We don't have a "Batch Pay" option. When a payment is made, we collect the amount, payment date, check number, and comments. With this much data that will be unique across different payments, it's hard to make this a batch function.

    If you have an idea on how this could be a batch function, I'd be interested in hearing it. I'm guessing the only way it really makes sense is if the payment amount matches the grant amount, no check number is collected, the payment date is the same for all, and the comment is shared, and I'm guessing this is relatively rare for most folks. I could be wrong, though, so please feel free to update this with more details when you get a chance.

    Thanks,

    -chris

    posted April 29, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technolgoies

  10. 9 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Joan, Mary, and Cindy,

    There are a number of suggestions about expanding the information we track at the organization level, including this one. We haven't tackled any of these yet, but they haven't fallen off the radar. I understand how adding an AKA field for the organization would be helpful, but rather than adding a field at a time - which each time can impact exports, reporting, merge documents, etc. - we'd like to find a better overall solution so we can address the need for as many users as possible, as well as provide more flexibility on an ongoing basis. In addition, while I think improving the organization profile is important, we've been continuing to try to improve more core parts of the workflow. It's never easy prioritizing potential improvements to the system, but I hope you've seen ongoing improvement.

    So the concept of capturing more organization information and improving functionality around the organization and its profile will remain on the product road map, but it isn't something we'll be tackling in the near term.

    Definitely appreciate the feedback on the importance of this idea, and if there are more details you'd to add, please let us know.

    Thanks,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Joan and Mary,

    Thanks for the idea. I can definitely see where this would be useful. that said, it's not something we're considering doing in the short-term. I know by the dates of your posting that this isn't a "new" idea, but we're working through a number of features and major changes over the next few months. I will make sure this makes it onto our product roadmap, though.

    Thanks

    posted July 20, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

  11. 37 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    The Follow Up Past Due notification is now in Production as of the 5.8.0 release on Oct. 20. As I've noted, we'll continue to look at adding a notification for Payment Installment reminder.

    Thanks again for the suggestions and feedback.
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi again,

    Our 5.8.0 GLM release is currently in our Demo environment and includes a Follow Up Past Due notification that will go to the owner of the past due follow up. It'll work like the Follow Up Reminder notification, so shouldn't be too much new anyone needs to learn for it. It's tentatively scheduled to go to production next Tuesday evening, October 20.

    We'll continue to look at the payment due notification.

    Thanks again eveyone for the input and discussion on these ideas.
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    We are looking at adding an overdue follow-up notification in our next major release. Our thoughts are that this would be sent out the first day after a follow up is due (assuming of course that it's not been submitted). This would be something we could change - i.e. if you wanted to give them a couple days of a grace period, we could change it from one day overdue to three days or something, but it would have to be the same for all the overdue notifications. It would be very much like the follow-up reminder notification in that you could assign it on the Process Manager page to whichever follow-ups you wanted to.

    Going forward, as we can rework the user interface a bit, I'd like us to be able to allow you to customize the # of days for all the follow-up notifications. However, for now, trying to make that fit and be intuitive in the existing screens is just too tough.

    Thanks again for the feedback!
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Karen,

    We have also discussed an automatic email that would go out when a Follow Up is overdue. This would go to the person responsible for filling out the Follow Up. We'll probably be trying to do that before too long.

    A notification that would go to a particular administrator to say that any report is overdue is a bit more complicated, and probably not something we'll do anytime soon. I'll keep it on the radar, though.

    Thanks,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,

    This seems like a relatively popular request - I appreciate everyone weighing in.

    I think the biggest challenge this will be determining the recipient(s). While it's relatively easy to build it so that the payment reminder email is sent to all administrators, I'm guessing that won't be the right solution for a lot of our clients with multiple administrators and multiple processes.

    One option would be to have it as an option when creating an installment. However, that seems like it would require an extra click (or more) for every installment. It also doesn't address cases where a one-time payment grant might have a payment date in the future (i.e. a month after it was approved).

    Another option would be to try to add it as a notification option on the "Update Process" page (like where the "To Administrators (when Submitted)" notification is). My concern with this approach would be how to make it clear it's for payments. Would it make the most sense to put it under the Decisions > Approval form? This approach would allow the administrator(s) to be selected on a per process basis.

    I will bring this up for discussion internally and see what we can come up with for options. In the meantime, if you have some feedback on the options above, I'd appreciate hearing it.

    Thanks!
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Kristen,

    Thanks for the suggestion. Do you see this as an email notification, or more like a page that could identify these simply? I think for people with very many installments, emails would start to get "noisy" ...

    If you could provide some more details of how you would use this, we could discuss it with other clients and I could see where it would fall on our product roadmap.

    If anyone else has comments on this functionality, I'd love to hear them.

    Thanks,
    -chris

  12. 1 vote

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Karen,

    Thanks for the suggestion. While GLM today is not a purely "responsive design" web application, it has run fine on most mobile devices (I've even used my smart phone to access it on occasion). That said, over the next 6-12 months, we are working on changes that will allow us to convert it to a more pure responsive design.

    However, regardless of what we do on that front, one of the challenges with GLM is that for a lot of users, it's a very data-intensive application. There is not a lot we can easily do to make displaying hundreds of applications that great of a user experience on a smart phone, for instance. And by the same token, trying to fill out a hundred question application on a smart phone is not going to be that great of a user experience.

    So in summary - we will be making improvements in line with your suggestion, but there are some limits on what we will be able to do.

    Thanks, and let me know if you have any further questions,
    -chris

  13. 3 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi April,

    Thanks for the question. We haven't considered creating a "closed" bucket on the dashboard for a couple reasons. This is mainly because for most people, a "closed" request is one that they won't be accessing very often. Adding yet another bucket to the dashboard would clutter it a bit for something that is of limited value to most users. Also, most clients would have hundreds of closed requests, and many others would have thousands or tens of thousands, so clicking on the "closed" bucket and going to a list of all those requests would be a slow and not very good user experience. Finally, closed requests can be accessed via the Search Requests and Decisions page, and probably in a more efficient manner than they could via the dashboard.

    All that said, I'd be happy to hear from you - or others - regarding the motivation for the question. It's possible I'm just missing something :-)

    Thanks,
    -chris

  14. 6 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Kimberleigh,

    Thanks for the suggestion. Basically what you are suggesting is the addition of HTML capability to the GLM emails. While it isn't that technically difficult, if it's not done well, it could negatively impact spam scoring, which would then have an adverse effect on email delivery. In addition, not everyone receives the HTML version of emails, so it's still important that the plain text part is sent as well.

    That said, we are currently looking at swapping out the email delivery system we use in the next 3-6 months. The newer system should help with email delivery rates in general. While we won't immediately be adding HTML capability, we will be starting to more actively research it.

    -chris

  15. 4 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Cadence,

    Great suggestion, and one we've both talked about internally and have heard from other users. At this point, while adding HTML capability to our emails isn't that technically difficult, if it's not done well, it could negatively impact spam scoring, which would then have an adverse effect on email delivery. In addition, not everyone receives the HTML version of emails, so it's still important that the plain text part is sent as well.

    That said, we are currently looking at swapping out the email delivery system we use in the next 3-6 months. The newer system should help with email delivery rates in general. While we won't immediately be adding HTML capability, we will be starting to more actively research it.

    Thanks for taking the time to make this suggestion.
    -chris

  16. 18 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Gayle,

    You're absolutely right that the applicant's status page is, at least for a lot of applicants, pretty lengthy. When we initially designed this part of the system, we simply didn't anticipate that applicants would have so many requests to a given funder.

    I'm hesitant to just start collapsing each of the requests as that could be confusing for some folks as well. But I have been talking to a number of users about some potential redesigns of the applicant's dashboard. What I would prefer to do is to step back and look at the overall intent and functionality on that page and come up with a design that addresses not just the issues with the number of requests, but also things like being able to more easily see which requests need follow ups submitted, which have been closed and can essentially be ignored, etc.

    As we make some changes to the user interface (UI) over the next 6-9 months, we should also start to have more screen real estate to use to implement a better applicant dashboard.

    If you are interested in weighing in on potential redesigns, let me know. We obviously can't run every change past every user, but in cases like this where the change could be more significant, I really want to make sure we get some input first.

    Thanks,
    -chris

  17. 8 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Chris-Ann,

    Thanks for taking time to make this suggestion. Because there can be multiple follow-ups for a given request, it's not as simple as one would think to display the ones marked "Complete."

    Some of the changes we are currently working on to improve the report field functionality should help position us to better address some of the feature requests we have for follow-ups:
    ability to batch assign themability to review themprovide a better applicant experience around themI'm not sure what we'll be trying to work on first, but they will be getting some attention in 2015.

    Thanks again for contributing to the Idea Lab.
    -chris

  18. 4 votes

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi all,
    I don't disagree, but at this point, we're really limited on the UI side. It's something we'll explore as we are able to do some UI rework.

    Thanks,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Lynn,

    Both of these roles are now available in Demo, though you will need to contact your CSM to have the Grants Manager (Admin Lite) role added to your site. I realize these don't exactly meet your request needs, but they should give you some options, and with a bit more experience, we may be able to extend reporting access to board members.

    We'll have these in Production by tomorrow (July 9). Let me know if you have any questions,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Lynn,

    We've discussed adding an Admin Lite and an Auditor role. With these roles, they will have access to reports. We are not going to be able to make reports truly "read only" - people in these roles will be able to create new reports.

    We've also discussed exposing the reporting tool to Board Members. Again, given our limited control over some of the details of the reporting tool, if we did this, the Board Members would be able to create reports. I think you're right in that most board members (or folks that are not in the software very much) will not be good at creating reports - however, giving them access would allow them to view the reports you have created.

    With both of these, it probably comes down to setting expectations with your board and other users around what they should and should not do in the reporting tool.

    I'll try to let you know when the Admin Lite (we'll probably call this "Grants Manager") and Auditor role are available to preview in Demo.

    In the meantime, let me know if you have additional feedback or questions,
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Lynn,

    Thanks for the suggestion and for posting to the new Idea Lab. And thanks for providing some details around which reporting functionality you feel would be sufficient (i.e. standard and saved reports).

    This is something we've discussed internally a few different times. It's not yet made it on to the short list in terms of priority, but as we continue to address some more immediate functional needs, and as we have continued to improve the reporting functionality, I believe it will make sense for us to revisit in conjunction with improving the board experience.

    Couple questions for you:
    Do you think "staff evaluators" should have access?
    If we were to add an "Admin Lite" and/or "Auditor" role, would you want them to have reporting access? In these cases would "standard" and "saved" reports be sufficient?

    Thanks in advance for the feedback. I would also like to hear from other users in case there are different needs out there.
    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Andy,

    At this point, we are looking at improvements to reporting, but they mainly are around being able to get more data out of the system (i.e. form questions, not just report fields) and to make it easier to customize the data and filters. I certainly agree that some of the things you mention make total sense, but one of the challenges of using 3rd party software is that we have to depend on them for some of the requested functionality.

    -chris

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    Chris Dahl commented  · 

    Hi Jen,

    Thanks for the suggestions - they certainly make sense. Due to the highly customized nature of our users' data, our main focus for reporting has been to allow users access to their data in a relatively straightforward and efficent manner. And due to the complexity of writing a reporting engine, it's one of the few pieces of our solution that we didn't write ourselves.

    Earlier this year, Daren and I met the vendor whose product we use. After explaining the part of the reporting solution we're using to meet our end-user needs, and after noting some of the issues we've had with it, they said that the feature we're using was really designed more for online data analysis rather than output. They did say they've been surprised by how many of their customers have expressed some frustration with the output, and they did say it's something they have on their product roadmap to improve.

    That said, it's not something that will be dramatically better anytime soon. In the meantime, as we balance priorities for 2013, reporting will continue to receive focus. In the near-term, that focus will be on improving the efficiency of reporting. However, as we continue to do more custom reporting engagements, we are investigating and learning more about how to make some limited improvements to the output. And as we learn more, we'll be trying to roll those into the more generic reporting solution where it's feasible.

    Thanks again for the suggestions - and have a safe and happy new years. All my best for a great 2013,

    -chris

    posted December 27, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies

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