SAMPLE PROCESS ROAD MAP
SET UP GRANT
PROGRAM

CREATE FORM
/ GRANT
ROUND

ASSESSMENT

DECISION /
ALLOCATE
FUNDS

REPORTING

ACQUITTAL /
APPLICANT
REPORTING
1.
2.
3.
4.
Map out your processes (see sample work plan & consider stages)
Add users to your account (Account Settings)
Create & name program (Account Settings)
Create financial period, funding source and budgets (can be done later,
needs to be done before you record final decisions)
5. Become familiar with applicant site and how it works
1.
2.
3.
4.
Create draft Application form
Test form on test private grant round
Create/copy/edit form until you are 100% happy with it
Set up stages and tasks – what stage would be your initial stage? Pre-eligibility perhaps?
5. Create your public grant round and publish (linking an initial stage is
optional)
6. Link grant round/applicant site to your organisation website. Ensure information on your website is easy to find and is clear and concise
and query contact information is available.
7. Applications begin to come in.
COMPETENCY
1&2
COMPETENCY
3, 4 & 5
1. Create assessment form/s. This could be pre-eligibility and/or full
COMPETENCY
assessment
6, 7, 4 & 11
2. You can begin your pre-eligibility checks and complete first part of
assessment as applications come in, you do not necessarily have to wait
until your round closes
3. If you are using external assessors, set up your relevant stages & tasks and
then move the applications to the correct stage.
4. Communicate with your assessors, add them as users with access to
relevant stage and forward the help guide for assessors. Assessors begin
assessment
5. Ready to make final decision! Create recommendation report for meeting
1. Set up budgets (if not already done)
2. Record final decision against each application (Approved or Declined)
3. Allocate funding amounts
COMPETENCY
2&8
1. Send Successful/Unsuccessful letters and agreements (this can be done
by setting up a letter template through reporting or by simply extracting a
report of the data you need in Excel and running a mail merge)
COMPETENCY
11 & 10
1. Create acquittal forms (add email address into BCC confirmation email in
form settings)
2. When you are ready to give your applicants access the acquittal form
attach it to their application, set due date and time (acquittal tab on the
application)
3. Once acquittal is submitted, review acquittal and mark task as complete
COMPETENCY
9&4
SMARTYSKILLS: TRAINING
What do I need to get started? It can be daunting starting up a new
system and moving to online but SmartyGrants is here to help!
How to use this SmartySkills Pack?
This training guide has been designed as a road map forward to get you
to where you need to be. SmartyGrants enables Grantmakers to centrally
manage all aspects of the lifecycle of a Grant Program. Getting yourself
familiar with the concepts of the system and across these competencies
will save you much time and stress throughout your grant cycles.
This guide will assist you to achieve the following competencies within SmartyGrants:
Competency
Page:
1
Map out processes
3
2
Set-up and Navigation
5
3
Forms
11
4
Stages and Tasks
22
5
Grants Rounds
25
6
Applications
28
7
Assessment
31
8
Recording Decisions and allocation of funds
34
9
Acquittals
36
10
Contact directory
37
11
Reporting
40
12
Mailouts
46
13
Appendices
48
Where to go to find help?
A full suite of video tutorials are available to help you get the best
out of the system at your own pace and around your relevant time
frames. The tutorials are built to match the competencies outlined
in this guide and each competency lists the relevant tutorials. After
watching the tutorial, a checklist for each competency has also
been provided to ensure that you cover off everything as you work
your way through building your program.
A sample process road map is also provided. This should be used as a guide and should get
you well and truly on your way to successful online grant giving!
Please note: this is a generic sample process map. You should map your own process and
amend accordingly.
If at any point you need assistance the SmartyGrants support team are waiting on stand-by. Our
support desk operates 9:00am - 5:00pm AEST, Monday to Friday and can contacted either via email [email protected] or phone +61 3 9320 6888 (Australia) and +64 4 889 3068
(New Zealand).
Australian Institute Grants Management (AIGM)
If you would like any assistance in looking at your processes,
building, refreshing or reviewing your Grants Program, the
Australian Institute of Grants Management (AIGM) is a
great source of tools and resources, each split into the
different stages of your grant lifecycle.
Organisations, which use the SmartyGrants system, are
provided with a free 10-user membership to the AIGM
when signing up.
The tools & resources section of the website is an all-in-one
grant-making framework. The online templates, and health
check tool are designed to walk you through the process of
building, reviewing or refreshing a grants program. It can
provide you with the tools to make decisions in setting up your grants or prompt discussions for
improvement and evaluation of your current/past processes.
For more information visit: http://www.aigm.com.au/aigm/tools/
Sample Work Plan
The SmartyGrants team have tried to make your grant making life as simple as we can. We have
provided a very basic sample implementation work plan for you (See appendix A) or alternatively
you can download an Excel version from:
http://help.smartygrants.com.au/display/help/Sample+Work+Plan.
A worksheet exists for each relevant section and we hope this proves useful. Please note this is a
generic sample plan that should be amended to fit with what your processes are. Save your
downloaded version and amend to your liking.
§
§
Be clear on your process! By far our experience shows that those who understand their own processes have a much smoother ride. See Appendix A for a Sample Workplan 2 COMPETENCY 1: MAP OUT PROCESS
Mapping out your particular processes and how the
lifecycle of your program/s works will not only give you
and your colleagues a clear understanding of what lies
ahead, it will identify what needs to be done and by
whom in order to deliver your program efficiently and
effectively.
How?
A basic example of what you may want to consider and
include in your mapping is outlined below:
Goals & Governance
-­‐
-­‐
-­‐
Establishing Goals
Program Design & Guidelines
Eligibility Criteria
Record Keeping
-­‐
Record Keeping System
Creating/Promoting Applications
-­‐
-­‐
Applications Forms & Process
Promotions
Decision-making
-­‐
-­‐
Assessment of Applications
Decision-making
Advising Outcomes
-­‐
-­‐
Successful Applicants
Unsuccessdul Applicants
Agreeements & Payments
-­‐
-­‐
Contract Negotiations
Making Payments
Monitoring
-­‐
-­‐
Progress Reports
Managing Performance Issues
Acquittals
-­‐
-­‐
Reviewing Acquittals
Reviewing Projects
Evaluation & Dissemination
-­‐
-­‐
Evaluating Program
Sharing Lessons Learned
Each of the above items are included in the all-in one grantmaking framework on the
AIGM website. You will find helpful resources such as tips, tools and templates availble for each
item. To learn more visit: https://www.aigm.com.au/aigm/tools/ 3 Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
Map out process
Consider policy decisions (see sample work plan or AIGM framework)
Update grant Application Process (if necessary)
Update grant Assessment Process (if necessary)
Update grant payment process map (if necessary)
Update grants acquittal process map (if necessary)
Draft applicants communications strategy
Visit the Smartygrants Help Hub and check out the video tutorials page and the help
guides for applicants and assessors. This will assist you to know where you can go to
easily find information when the time comes. Either click on the green help button
when logged in or visit http://help.smartygrants.com.au.
Notes:
4 COMPETENCY 2: SET-UP AND NAVIGATION
To make the most of all that SmartyGrants has to offer, you should first familiarise yourself with
how we organise information. This will help you to become comfortable with navigating through
the system and understand what each area of the system does.
Its important to note that the application form is the main source of all your data collection.
Information collected from your application form feeds into various parts of SmartyGrants. Any
form that is added (e.g. Assessment, Acquittal) is attached to the application, along with
recording funding, decisions and any additional information.
The data collected from all programs is accessible via icons that sit at the top of screen. Each of
these icons takes you to a specific location within the system allowing access to data that has
been collected across the account.
5 Account Settings
An “Administrator” controls the account settings area of the system. The following
areas can be found in the account settings and should be considered at as part of
your set-up:
Lets’ take a closer look….
Applications & Contacts
Program/s
As a grantmaking organisation, you may run various grant programs for
different types of community activity. For example, your organisation may
run a Cultural Diversity Grants program along with an Environmental Grants
program. In SmartyGrants, you create a Grant Program for each. A Grant
Program acts like a folder containing all of the Program's Applications, Grant
Rounds, Forms, Tasks and so on.
Standard
Fields
The Standard Fields settings page will give you a listing of current Categpries
and Standard Fields you have available, as well as access to any archived
fields.
From here, an 'Administrator' user has the ability to keep control over what
Standard Fields are available to all users who have access to the account.
This list of fields controls what fields are available for use. This list will create
a common data schema for your organisation.
An Administrator has the ability to create custom standard fields specific to
your organisation. It is important an Administrator has a thorough
understanding of what a Standard Field is and how it will be used across all
programs.
To learn more on Standard Fields see Competency 3: Forms or visit
Standard Fields in the Help Hub.
Contact Fields
SmartyGrants provides default contact fields that cover the key contact
details that you are most likely to use.
These fields are available to you when building a form and when
viewing/editing contact records.
Default fields cannot be edited or deleted, but an Administrator user can
6 archive them if any are not needed in the account.
Custom contact fields can be created specific to your account. They can be
edited or archived, however, if data has been recorded on any contact you
cannot delete them. It is important an Administrator has a thorough
understanding of what a Contact Field is and how it will be used across all
programs.
Contact Types
SmartyGrants helps you to keep track of Application contact details by filing
them into a dedicated Contacts directory. Some examples of contact types
are applicants, contact person, auspices and so on.
You can create as many contact ‘types’ as you wish. The system will only
generate a contact record from using the specific tab for ‘contact fields’
when building an application form. Once an application is submitted, the
contact fields from that form are automatically recorded in the central
Contacts directory.
Smartygrants provides a number of default contact types for your use. If you
require a contact type that is specific to your organisation you can add
custom contact types. You only need to create these relationship types
once through your account settings; after that, each time you build an
application form and select contact fields that contact type will be available.
Choice Lists
Standard choice lists are predefined lists of choices that can be used when
creating multiple or single choice Standard Fields.
Standard choices are the individual choices you want to make available in
the choice list. This allows you to manage the choices that are available over
time, for example, if one of your choices becomes redundant, archiving that
choice within the list results in that choice no longer being offered through
any standard field the choice list is used for.
Each choice list can be used multiple times if necessary, for example, if I
have a choice list containing the options ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, I may have several
standard fields where I want ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ attached as the possible
answers, but I only need to maintain one choice list.
Funding
Budgets,
funding,
financial
periods
The funding and payments area allows you to set-up your funding sources
and budget allocations across financial periods.
These items become available when you record your final decision.
Users can allocate funding amounts, and define which budgets those
amounts are being drawn from. You also have the ability to allocate funding
across multiple financial periods and from multiple budgets.
The funding overview section of the system gives you a quick snapshot view
of your budgets, and payments you have allocated, scheduled, approved
and paid. Quick download reports are also readily available from here.
7 Users
My Account
Within the My Account area you can set your user preferences for the
account. You can set your viewing preferences for the application form as
well as reset your password.
User Access
An administrator has the ability to add new users to the account and set
levels of access. There are several levels of access available, for more
information on access levels see the help hub or click on the link available in
the system when you are adding or editing a user, this will give you a legend
key and guide to levels.
Recent Logins
Recent Logins under the accounts settings section, lists each place that you
are logged in. If you're using multiple browser or multiple computers then
you may see multiple sessions listed here.
General
Applicant
Website
SmartyGrants is an online system and uses URLs (Web Page Links) to
manage your account, your applicant website and your grant rounds.
An applicant website is automatically generated for you when you create a
SmartyGrants account. This link is the link you should use to link from
your own organisation website. This is where your applicants end up
applying. When a Grant Round is made public and published it will
automatically appear on this site. When a grant round closes, it will
automatically disappear from this site. This applicant site will have the look
and feel (skinning) of your own website but is hosted by SmartyGrants.
Applicants may log into this site at any time and a history of submissions in
progress, submitted or new forms (e.g. acquittal) they have been given to
complete are all found through the ‘My Submissions’ area.
You can find your applicant website link and amend information for this page
under the account settings cogwheel in the ‘Website’ section.
Backups
SmartyGrants has a built in back-up system. Backups can be found under
the account settings area of the system which only a user with 'Administrator'
rights will have access to.
SFTP
(Standard File
Transfer
Protocol)
The SmartyGrants team can provide you with access to your backup files via
SFTP. You may find this useful for setting up automatic downloads of your
backups, or for more reliable downloads of very large files. To request
access to SFTP, please contact the team on (03) 9320 6888 or send us an email to [email protected]
8 Key points:
! Only an ‘Administrator’ has access to all areas of acocunt settings.
! A new program should not be created every round or year that you run a round. You should
have one program for the relevant area and a grant round for each year or consecutive
rounds.
! Come
up with a standard list of contact types suitable for all of your program
managers/users. Keep your list simple; for example, avoid similar contact labels such as
having two labels ‘Applicant Contact’ and ‘Applicant Admin Contact’ – what is the difference
between the two?
! Your budgets do not have to be set up from the beginning.
If you know what they are, go
ahead and set them up, if you do not know yet that is fine. You need to set them up at some
point before you record your final decisions and allocate funds (as you will need to define
what budget the funds are coming from).
Download the Guide for Applicants from the help hub and read it. This won’t take long and will give you a good understanding of the steps your applicant will need to go through to complete your application form. You can also download this as a PDF document and save/print it to provide to your applicants. Check out these related video tutorials on set-up & navigation on
the help hub.
Add and Edit Users, Access Levels and Launchpad Account Option
Create a Program
Applicant Site
Set-Up of Financial Periods, Funding Sources & Budgets
9 Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
Familiarise yourself with the system.
Change your password
Add/edit users and set access levels through account settings
Create a program
Set-Up of financial periods, funding sources and budgets (can be done later if
needed)
Familiarise yourself with the Applicant Site – Bookmark it to your browser
favourites
Cross check contact type list and customise to your needs through account
settings
Download the Help Guide for Applicants from the Help hub
Notes:
10 COMPETENCY 3: FORMS
SmartyGrants allows you to create your own online Forms for a range of purposes. Forms are
the key to you collecting information from your applicants and recording additional information
like assessment and administration type information. You build the forms. If there is a specific
piece of information you need to collect or report on, you need to ask it, or create a field for it in a
form which will enable you to record it.
The 4 form purpose types available are:
1
Application Forms
2
Acquittal Forms
3
Assessment Forms
Are the primary forms that your applicants lodge online. You create
your own application forms based on the information you need
from your applicants. For some grantmakers the first primary form
could possibly be an expression of interest form.
Application (External) forms can also be used for collecting
additional information post-submission, such as banking details,
contract variation and so on.
Allow you to accept online acquittals. Like Application Forms,
Acquittal Forms are external and are accessed by applicants
through the applicant website in their ‘My Submissions’ area.
Typically these forms are only available to applicants that already
have an application stored within SmartyGrants. Forms are only
made available to applicants when you attach it to a submitted
application.
Are not available to applicants. They allow you to run your
assessment process online. Grant assessors, whether internal or
external, can fill out their own copy of an Assessment Form. The
form can be set to shared or private for your external assessors,
the shared setting allows them to see each others forms, scores
and comments. The Forms can later be used to steer discussion
within assessment meetings, or as the basis for assessment
Reports.
Can be used for recording any additional information internally.
You build in the relevant fields you wish to record.
4
Administration Forms
For example, if a grant recipient calls to inform you of a variation to
their project or expenditure, you may record this information in an
Administration Form. Alternatively, if you did this as an application
form, then the applicant would be the one to record the variation
details.
Administration forms are never available to applicants or external
assessors – they are only viewable by internal users.
11 Forms are made up of the following four key elements - pages, sections, general content and
questions/fields.
It is really important to become familiar with these and have a thorough understanding of form
elements and question types.
Pages
Pages are logical groupings of related questions, similar to the sections of a
paper-based application form.
For example, you may have a page called "Applicant Details", followed by a
page called "Auspice Details", before proceeding to pages such as "Project
Information", "Budget Information", "Referee Details" and so on.
Forms must have a minimum of one page, but they can have as many pages
as required. The pages you create also create the navigation bar for your
applicants to navigate through the form as they are completing it.
Sections
Sections are used in the form editor for several reasons:
1. They allow you to logically group areas of your form together. For
example, "Budget Information".
2. They give you the ability to move whole sections and questions from
one page to another.
3. They provide you with several layout options.
4. Allow you to set conditional logic on a section/s.
Sections are generally not relevant to the applicant filling in the form but more
for your own use.
Section Label: you can give each section its own label. This helps you to
keep track of what belongs to each of your sections. For example, if I had a
section I was going to obtain project information in, I might label the section
'Project Information'. The applicant does not see the label.
Section Heading: headings separate a page into meaningful sections and
create sub headings within the form. If a heading is applied to a section it will
also be visible to anyone completing the form. Section headings are not
compulsory.
Section Layout: There are four different section layout options you can
choose from 1. The List/Label options define where the question text appears in
relation to the answer area associated with it.
2. The Grid option creates a grid layout, to which you can then add
questions. You also have the ability to define the number of rows
visible on the grid, and whether or not applicants can add more
rows. *It is important you get an understanding of how grids
work and the report layout that grids produce before using a grid
in your form.
12 Section Columns: You can define how many columns each section has, as
well as add questions to each of your columns.
General
Content
General Content is defined as "any extended block of text". General Content
elements are often used for displaying instructions, referring to guidelines,
privacy statements, or explanatory notes for questions. You can also
create hyperlinks within general content, for example, a link to a particular
section of your guidelines or a sample budget.
Question
Types
There are different types of questions available to use in forms, Single
Questions, Standard Fields and Contact Fields. Each question type also has
validation and setting options. It is important to understand how each of
these question types and validations work, we outline these further below.
Standard Fields
A standard field reflects a key field/question for which you want to capture an answer on all or
most of your applications across all programs run through SmartyGrants.
Standard fields allow you to capture common information across applications, irrespective of
what program or forms are used to capture that information. This provides grantmakers with a
means of developing common data schema for the grant information they capture.
It also allows for multi-program reporting, as there is a known set of elements which can be used
in reports, which will be common to all applications and programs.
A grantmaker also has the ability to update/edit the standard responses that an applicant
completes on a form - for example, poor spelling or ordinary project title. This will mean that
reporting can be pulled from the latest updated standard response, however, you will always be
able to pull a report based on the original responses that come through on a form.
Standard field responses can also be fed into other forms, such as an acquittal.
For example:
If I had used the standard field ‘Total Amount Requested’ on an application form, it was
submitted, the applicant was successful and I now want them to complete an acquittal form. If I
build in the standard field ‘Total Amount Requested’ into the acquittal form, when I attach that
form to the application it will automatically pull through the response the applicant had given in
their application form. Standard Fields have an additional ‘Read Only’ setting, this means the
applicant can see what the response was, but cannot overide it.
13 Default Standard Categories and Fields
The SmartyGrants team have given users a list of common ‘default’ standard fields and standard
categories. This list aims to create a common data schema for the whole grantmaking industry.
Default standard fields cannot be deleted, if there are any you do not wish to use, simply archive
them.
Categories provide a simple way to group common standard fields together, such as key ‘Project
Details’. These are grouped together and visible when building a form or building a report
template.
See Standard Field Settings on Help Hub to learn how to create/edit Categories.
A list of of the default categories and fields are provided below:
Category
Field Label Name
Question Type
Question Text
Project Title
Short Text
Project Title
Brief Project Description
Long Text
Short project
description
Project Start Date
Project End Date
Total Amount Requested
Date
Date
Currency
Start Date
End Date
Total Amount
Requested
Total Project Cost
Currency
Total Project Cost
Amount Requested Year 1
Currency
Amount Requested
Year 1
Amount Requested Year 2
Currency
Amount Requested
Year 2
Amount Requested Year 3
Currency
Amount Requested
Year 3
Project Rationale
Long Text
Why does this work
need to be done?
Project Activities
Long Text
What are the planned
activities?
Beneficiaries
Long Text
Who will benefit from
the project?
Expected Outcomes
Long Text
What are the expected
outcomes of the
project?
Measures of success
Long Text
How will you know if
these outcomes have
been achieved?
Question Hint
Project Essential
Details
Project Expanded
Details
Provide a short description (100
words recommended) of your
project - what are you out to do?
What is the total financial support
you are requesting in this
application?
What is the total budgeted cost
(dollars) of your project?
What is the amount (in dollars only)
of the total requested funds
committed in the first year?
What is the amount (in dollars only)
of the total requested funds
committed in the second year?
What is the amount (in dollars only)
of the total requested funds
committed in the third year?
Describe the specific issue or need
you want to address (200 words
recommended)
Briefly list (bullet points) the
specific activities that will take
place and where they will take
place (200 words recommended)
Describe the estimated number,
gender, age and location/region of
those participating in the project
(150 words recommended)
Describe three things you want the
project to achieve in terms of
benefits for participants and/or
others (200 words recommended)
Describe three changes you will
see if the expected outcomes of
the project occur (150 words
recommended)
14 Category
Field Label Name
Question Type
Question Text
Project Acquittal
Completed activities
Long Text
Describe the planned
activities that have
taken place in this
reporting period.
Project Changes
Long Text
Actual Outcomes
Long Text
Have any changes
been required to the
implementation of the
project?
What have been the
outcomes of the
project to this point?
Levels of Success
Long Text
How successful have
you been?
Lessons Learnt
Long Text
What did you learn
along the way?
Question Hint
List the specific activities that have
taken place including where and
when they took place and who
participated and benefited from
them (150 words recommended
Describe any changes from the
original proposal and the reason
the change was required (200
words recommended)
Describe three things the project
has achieved in terms of benefits
for participants and/or others (200
words recommended)
Describe three changes that have
occurred as a result of the project
achieving its outcomes and if/why
such change is sustainable (250
words recommended)
Describe some improvement areas
and/or reasons for success and/or
challenges. How will the things you
learnt inform future projects? (200
words recommended)
Custom Standard Fields
There may be questions/fields specific to your organisation or your grant program that you will
ask/collect over years that has not been included in the list of default fields made available. You
can create your own custom categories and fields in order to assist in adding your own
organisational common schema. Once a standard field has been used, you do not have the
ability to delete it, but it can be archived.
See Standard Field Settings on Help Hub to learn how to create/edit Standard Fields.
Standard Choice Lists
Standard choice lists are predefined lists of choices that can be used by either multiple/single
choice Standard Fields.
Standard choices are the individual choices you want to make available in the choice list. This
allows you to manage what choices are available over time and you have the ability to archive
choices within that list that should no longer be offered through a standard question field.
See Choice List Settings on Help Hub to learn how to create/edit Choice Lists.
Updating a Response to a Standard Field
A response that has been entered/received via a standard field can be edited or updated.
For Example:
An application is submitted, but the Standard Field 'brief project description' has several
spelling errors. Every time I run a report I do not want there to be spelling errors. I can update
the spelling errors through the applications 'Summary' tab and fix the errors. This means if I run
a report based on the Standard Field responses I will always receive the latest update in my
report (spelling mistake free). You will always be able to run a report based on the original
version that was submitted by the applicant.
15 'Brief Project Description' is just one example, editing the response applies to any Standard
Fields.
Read Only Option
Standard Fields have an additional ‘Read Only’ setting, this means the applicant can see what
the response was (if there was one), but cannot overide/edit the response.
For example: If I had used the standard field ‘Project Start Date’ on an application form, it was submitted, the
applicant was successful and I now want them to complete an acquittal form. If I build in the
standard field ‘Project Start Date’ into the acquittal form, when I attach that form to the
application it will automatically pull through the response the applicant had given in their
application form. This would be visible to the applicant, but they could not amend the field. If
‘read only’ was not applied, then the applicant could update the standard field response, and this
would overide the response upon submission.
Contact Fields
SmartyGrants helps you to keep track of contact details by filing them into a dedicated Contacts
Directory. Some examples of Contact types are applicants, project contact person, managers,
auspices and so on, you can also create additional custom contact 'types'.
Contact records are automatically populated in the contact directory area when an
application form has been submitted, the only contact records that will be created are
those that use the dedicated 'Contact Fields' when building your application forms. You
can also add or edit Contacts into the directory manually.
The following is a list of default Contact Types. An administrator can customise these in the
account settings area.
Contact Types
Applicant
Contact Fields Categories
Basic fields
Contact Fields
Name
Applicant Admin Contact
Applicant CEO or equivalent
Applicant Contact
Applicant Organisation
Applicant Project Contact
Auspice
Auspice Contact
Organisation
Department
Position
ABN
Summary
Addresses
(Primary, Office, Home,
Mobile, Other)
Auspice Organisation
Auspice Project Contact
Phone Numbers
(Primary, Office, Home,
Mobile, Other)
Head of Org
Partner
Email Addresses
(Primary, Office, Home,
Mobile, Other)
Websites
(Primary, Office, Home,
Mobile, Other)
Partner Contact Person
* Please note that Contact Name has an inbuilt option to allow for either an individual or an organisation to be added as
an applicant. This can be changed using the layout option in the form editor.
16 Single Questions
You will still have questions/fields you would like to build into a form that are not necessarily a
standard field or contact directory fields. The following lists all question types available that can
be built in as stand alone single fields:
Display
General Content
General Content is any extended block of text. General
Content elements are often used for displaying instructions,
refer to guidelines, privacy statements, or explanatory notes
for Questions. Hyperlinks can also be set within general
content.
General
Short Answer
Long Answer
Number
For questions requiring only a short answer. Usually best for
answers from one word to one sentence.
For questions that may require a detailed answer. Applicants
can write as short or as long an answer as they need,
dpendent on whether a word limit is applied.
For questions where you want responses to be in numerical
format. Applicants will only be able to enter numbers (not
beginning with '0').
*Please note: this means a number cannot start with ‘zero’.
For example, if you used this question type and your
applicant typed in '08754' the response would come
through to the system as '8754'. However, if the applicant
typed '80754' it would come into the system as '80754' as it
is a legitimate 'number' format. If you anticipate that your
applicants may need to type in a number beginning with '0'
then you are best to use the 'short text' question type.
17 Currency
Date
File Upload
For questions where you want responses to be in currency
format. We currently support dollars, which will appear with
a $ symbol and Indonesian Rupiah, which will appear with a
Rp symbol.
Allow applicants to either enter a date, or select one from a
calendar display.
Allow applicants to upload one or more file attachments to
their Application. (Maximum 25mb, recommended size no
bigger than 5mb)
Choice
Single Choice
Multiple Choice
Drop-down List
Allows the applicant to select one (and only one) of a list of
options you provide..
Allows the applicant to select one or more answers from a
list of options you provide.
Allows the applicant to select one (and only one) of a list of
options displayed in drop-down list format.
Contact
These questions should be used for any contact details you want to request in your form
but DO NOT want a contact directory record created for:
Individual or Organisation
Name
Position
Address
Can be either an Individual or Organisation, you can offer
the option of both.
Position title
Option to select 'Primary Address' and 'Address Type': e.g.
office, mobile or home.
ABN
Accepts the Applicant's ABN and retrieves their full tax
status from the Australian Business Registry.
Accepts the Applicant's New Zealand Charity Registration
Number (CRN) and retrieves their full registered details from
the Charities Register Office.
Accepts the Applicant's New Zealand Business or Company
Number and retrieves their full registered details from the
Companies Register.
Individual applicant/organisation address. Option to select
'Primary Address' and 'Address Type': e.g. office, mobile or
home.
For land lines, mobile phone numbers or fax numbers.
Option to select 'Primary Phone Number' and 'Phone
Number Type': e.g. office, mobile or home.
Website address. Option to select 'Primary Contact
Website' and 'Contact Website Type': e.g. office, personal
or other.
*Charities NZ Registration
(CRN)
*NZ Companies Register
Email Address
Phone Number
Website
*This lookup field is available in all New Zealand time zone accounts; however, the lookup field
is automatically set to 'archived' under 'contact fields' settings. These fields can be activated in
the account settings.
18 Budget
Budgets are developed in a ‘Grid’ layout within a new section. It is important to
understand how grids are viewed/extracted into reporting. You can see samples on our
help hub.
Income
Expenditure
Income and Expenditure
Customise Budget Grid
Automatically creates a basic budget grid and allows
applicants to provide basic income information in a
table.
Automatically creates a basic budget grid and allows
applicants to provide basic expenditure information in a
table.
Automatically creates a basic budget grid and allows
applicants to provide basic income/expenditure
information in a table.
You can create your own budget grid and customise
the questions you wish to ask.
To do so, create a new section and choose "Grid
Layout". From there, click in the grid to add and label
your questions. For more information on creating grids
see the help hub.
Each question/field has its own set of validation or setting options:
Setting and Validation Options
Question Text:
Label:
Type in your specific question. For example: What is the title of
your project or activity?
A label is for your reference only and will appear in your report
and filters; the applicant is not able to view it.
For example: The question, 'What is the title of your project or
activity?' – might have a label 'Project Title'.
Layout:
Hint:
Word Limit:
Character Limit:
Minimum/Maximum
Amount:
Note: You must give each question a label. If do not, your
report will simply display: 'Un-named Question' next to any
unlabelled question.
You can choose from four different layout options for each
question: Small, Medium, Large and Essay. These layout
options change the appearance of your form, and you can
impose a word limit for each if you wish.
A hint can be provided for questions. Any hint provided will
appear under the answer area linked to the question.
For example: 'Max Word Count: 500'.
You can apply a minimum and/or maximum word limit for any
short or long text questions.
You may apply a character count for any written response
questions. Again, this limits the length of applicants'
responses.
You may apply a minimum or maximum amount/number to any
Currency or Number field question. This sets a validation that
applicants cannot input amounts/numbers outside of the
parameters you set.
Earliest Date/Latest
Date:
Response Required:
Conditional Logic:
Change Type:
Move:
Delete:
You can apply an earliest and/or latest date to any date field
question. This sets a validation that applicants cannot input
dates outside of the parameters you set.
Ticking this option automatically denotes a question as a
mandatory question. Applicants will not be able to submit their
form without responding to mandatory questions.
This option allows you to decide whether a particular section or
page is enabled or not, dependent on the answer to a previous
question. For more information see Working with Conditional
Logic on the help hub.
The ability to change a question from one type to another. E.g.
'Single Choice' to 'Multiple Choice' or 'Short Text' to 'Long
Text'.
Ability to move the order of pages, sections and questions.
Ability to delete questions, sections and pages.
Key points:
! If you want to draw a report that includes a specific bit of data – you need to record
the information or ask the question.
! All program managers should meet and discuss what Standard Fields they will
need and create any additional standard fields necessary through the account
settings.
! Review
the default Contact Fields available and create any additional custom
Contact Fields if necessary.
! Consider the layout of your form, if you were the applicant, could you understand
what is needed? Is it clear and concise? Could you understand what is needed in
the budget? Have you provided a sample budget?
! Which questions need to be mandatory/required?
! Test your form! This can be done using the ‘test round’ option on a grant round.
! Will you still accept paper-based applications? If so, how will you manage this?
§
§
§
Going from paper-based applications to online is a great time to review your
application form and the way you ask questions.
Works out what Standard Fields are needed before you begin building forms.
You need to think about your contacts and ensure that you used contact fields in
your form for the records you wish to create in the contact directory.
Sample Form Templates: Operational form templates that are available from the
Australian Institute of Grants Management (AIGM) website are also available in
SmartyGrants. When creating or copying a form, users can now select 'Copy a sample
form template' and adapt the form to their specific needs. For more information on the
different stages of your grant lifecycle, best practice tools, resources, program health
check and policy templates visit www.aigm.com.au. 20 Check out these related video tutorials on form building in the
help hub.
Form Types; Building a Form; Form Settings; Linking Contacts;
Conditional Logic
Standard Fields
Contact Fields
Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
What forms do you need to create? List them
Review the Default Standard Fields available and list and create any additional
custom standard fields needed through the account settings
Create and Save a Form
Understand differences between each question ‘type’
Check your labels – this creates report label headings
Check your validation settings for each question
Use Contact Fields for contacts you want a contact directory record for
Understand how a grid works and what reporting limitations a grid gives you
Customise you confirmation of submission e-mail
Are your auto-asterisks for required fields enabled in form settings?
Understand the difference between private/shared assessment forms
Test your form on a private grant round
Notes:
21 COMPETENCY 4: STAGES & TASKS
Stages and Tasks are designed to assist you with your workflow throughout your grant
process.
Stages are key events in the lifecycle of a grant round. Each grantmaker uses a
different process; therefore, there are several possible scenarios when it comes to
creating your Stages and Tasks.
Stages and Tasks are critical if you are running your assessment process within
SmartyGrants using external assessors. They allow you to track how your assessors
are travelling. An External Assessor's user account is restricted so that they only see
applications assigned to the particular Stage/s you specify.
Tasks are what need to be done in order to complete a given Stage. SmartyGrants
distinguishes between three types of tasks:
•
Application Tasks are those which need to be completed and will be assigned
for every application that moves to the particular stage.
•
General Tasks are those, which need to be completed only once, regardless of
the number of applications you have received.
•
Application Specific Tasks directly assigned to a specific application from the
application screen.
You set up your own set of stages and tasks according to what is going to useful for
you. The best way to sit and decide what stages you need is to map out your process.
The following are just two typical examples of how you might choose to use Stages and
Tasks throughout your grant cycle process. There are more examples available on help
hub.
22 Key points:
! Map out your process.
By doing this it will invariably work out what your stages
are.
! Each application is assigned to one Stage at any point in time.
! Tasks can be really helpful in assisting you to manage your
applications and
acquittals.
! You manually move applications when you decide to move them.
Just because
there is a stage created does not mean every application has to move through
every stage.
! Is your stage really just a task?
Don’t create work for yourself! You manually need
to move each application from one stage to another, keep it as simple as it needs
to be.
! Stages can be set-up and added at any point in time.
It’s a good idea to set-up for
an initial stage so that you can attach it to the grant round – this means as
applications begin to come in they will automatically be assigned to that stage.
! Once you learn how stages and tasks work, you will wonder how you would have
managed without them!
23 Check out these related video tutorials on stages and
tasks in the help hub.
What are stages and tasks, set up and use.
What is included in calendar; iCal feed to your external email calendars.
Assessment Process, Internal vs External Assessors,
Private vs Shared Forms, Set-Up
Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
Map out your process if you have not already done so
Understand the difference between a stage and a task
Create a stage
Create an application task
Create a stage task
Move an application to a stage
View calendar
Complete a task
Run a task default report
Notes:
24 COMPETENCY 5: GRANT ROUNDS
A Grant Round is a period of time during which your community can apply for a grant in
a given Grant Program. For example, you may accept Environmental Grants between
April 1 and May 31. To create a grant round in the system you need an application
form. In general terms, a grant round is really the vehicle for publishing your form.
When you are ready to create a round you will be asked to define the following details:
Round Name
This will be visible to your applicants and will appear on your
applicant site, for example, ‘Small Grants Applications 2016’.
Application Form
The application form you are making available for applicants.
Opening/Closing date
and time
You can define grant rounds with a start and finish date and
time, or you can leave them open-ended. Applicants can only
lodge online Applications during the specified period. (Note:
extensions can be given to individual applicants dependent on
your own internal policy).
When a grant seeker submits their Application, SmartyGrants
assigns that Application to the Stage you specify. This way,
new Applications will never slip your attention. Whilst this is
not mandatory, we highly recommend setting up a minimum of
one stage and assigning it to your round.
Each Grant Round that you run has its own address on your
SmartyGrants site. For example, you may have a Grant Round
called the May-June 2016 Environment Grants Round, with the
following web address (URL):
http://yourorganisation.smartygrants.com.au/EGMayJune2016
Initial Stage
Webpage URL
Access:
Private, Public or Test
Round?
To apply, community members can go straight to that web
address, or otherwise visit your applicant website homepage at
http://yourorganisation.smartygrants.com.au to see a list of all
of your Grant Rounds.
Public - Listed publicly on your applicant homepage.
Private - Unlisted on your applicant homepage. Creates a
private web link, only accessible to those you share the URL
with. Grant Rounds can be configured not to appear on your
Applicant Site homepage. To access these Grant Rounds,
applicants need to know the exact URL address (for example,
http://yourorganisation.smartygrants.com.au/EGMayJune2016
). You might use this feature for running invitation only Grant
Rounds, sending the URL address to the invited applicants
only.
Test round - Unlisted on your applicant homepage. Creates a
private web link, only accessible to those you share the URL
with. Contacts are not created when applications are
submitted.
Like a Private round, a Test round is not listed on your
applicant homepage. A test round will also not create contacts
when a form is submitted and you can delete a test round and
all associated applications. Do not use Test rounds to collect
actual submissions. To learn more about running a Test Round
25 see Test Round / Testing a Form.
Form Preview
Application Numbering
Round webpage
message
Current vs Archived
Rounds
You can configure whether applicants can preview your form
prior to the grant round actually opening. Your form can always
be previewed once the round has opened; however, you may
want to allow people to preview the form from when you
publish the round so that they have additional time to prepare a
submission.
When an applicant starts an application they are provided with
an application number. By default, this is a five-digit number
starting from 00001 and incrementing with each new
application. You can specify a custom number format, which
will make it much easier to identify each application from round
to round and across programs.
The text you enter into the webpage message will be visible to
your applicants and sits on the round page. This can be a
great spot for including some key details, for example, who to
contact for questions, where they can find the guidelines and
instructions for completing the applicant form.
A sample of text is provided when you create a round, this can
be amended to suit your needs.
Over time grant rounds will begin to accumulate in a grant
program. For the old rounds that are complete you can choose
to archive these rounds. Archiving a round does not impact the
ability to access any of the applications in the round.
Key points:
! A grant round will not be ‘live’ until you hit the ‘publish’ button!
You can practice
creating a round and save it, you can always edit the details again before you
publish it to the web.
! Whilst not compulsory, setting up custom numbering for your round and assigning
an initial stage can prove helpful later on in your process.
! Want to run a test grant round? This way the round will not appear publicly for your
applicants to see, and you can use the unique web address link to test some
practice applications. Give your team the link and get them to run through doing an
application. This will also ensure they have a good understanding of what your
applicants go through and you will pick up on any changes you may need to make
to your application form before the real round opens.
§
§
When you create your round, double check all of your links from your website through to the applicant site. This way you will know your applicants won’t have any issues and it is easy to find and follow. Ensure you get someone to test your forms who is not involved in your grant administrative process. This is a good way of picking up on anything you may need to amend or that could be improved that you and your team may have missed. 26 Check out these related video tutorials on stages and tasks in the
help hub.
Grant Rounds: How to create, edit, public vs private and publicise
Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
Create and publish a round
Understand the difference between public, private and test rounds
Check your website links, applicant site and round link
Run a test round
Download help guide for applicants and assessors
Notes:
27 COMPETENCY 6: APPLICATIONS
SmartyGrants is designed so that submitted applications are linked to all the
information relevant to that given grant application. There are two basic types of
information:
•
Information added by the applicant
The completed online Application Forms submitted by an Applicant, including all the
answers they provided to your questions along with any file attachments. This may also
include Acquittal Forms, and any other External Forms the Applicant has submitted.
•
Information added by internal staff or external assessors
Assessment and Administration Forms, Funding decisions, Contact records,
Correspondence history, and the Stage and Task status of an Application.
When an application is received, there are several elements linked to each application
that help you manage the application. They are all found when clicking into an
application. You will find nine areas to each submitted application:
1. Summary
This section only displays the responses to ‘Standard Fields’. Standard Field
responses can also be enteredd or edited from here.
2. Application
This section contains the complete Application Form with your Applicant's answers. It
also lists any other Application Forms you have added for the applicant to complete,
such as Banking Details or Progress Updates.
3. Assessment
This section contains the Assessment Forms attached to the Application, and allows
you and other Assessors to attach new Assessment Forms.
4. Decision
This section contains the Decision status of the Application and allows you to allocate
funding amounts along with any comments or conditions of funding approval.
5. Acquittal
This section allows you to add and send an applicant an acquittal form and when
completed will contain the submitted Acquittal Form with your Applicant's answers.
6. Administration
This section contains the Administration Forms attached to the Application, and allows
you and other administrators to attach new Administration Forms.
7. Contacts
This section contains a list of the contact organisations and people associated with the
Application. For example, you may find the Applicant Organisation details, along with
the details of their CEO, administrative contact and Auspice. You can also record and
review file notes from here.
8. Files
This section will list any attachments that have been submitted or added to the
application either through a form or through a file note.
28 9. History
This section will provide a history of activity that has occurred on the application. This
can be useful for audit purposes.
Application Toolbox
Contains a summary of basic details of the Applicant, the current Decision status of the
application, funding amounts, current stage status and a list of any tasks attached to the
application. You can use this to tick off application tasks, to add tasks specific to the
application, or to progress the application to a new stage.
Application Filters
The application filter screen allows you to see a listing of all applications received against a
program. There are several filter options available from this screen. Do not under estimate how
important and powerful these filters can be. For example, you can filter down to a word within
a response to a particular question, or a specific choice that was selected. They are also used
to filter down to what applications you would like to include for any reports or bulk actions you
might run. See the help hub to learn more on filtering.
Key points
! Understanding what the function of each area is will help you manage your applications
successfully.
! Understanding the dynamic of the different form types will assist you in managing the
whole application from beginning to end process.
Check out these related video tutorials on Applications in the help hub.
Receiving, viewing, printing, unsubmitted applications
29 Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
Receive and View applications (a test round is good for this)
Print: PDF for an application and run report to print all
View unsubmitted applications
Modify Due Date (Grant Extension) for an application
Reopen an application (a test round is good for this)
Record Decision
Allocate Funding, approve and record payment
Notes:
30 COMPETENCY 7: ASSESSMENTS
Assessment forms are not available to applicants. Grant assessors, whether internal or external,
can fill out their own copy of an Assessment Form. The Forms can later be used to steer
discussion within assessment meetings, or as the basis for assessment reports.
Assessment forms are added to the primary application form as you go.
Internal vs External
Assessors
An internal assessor is an internal staff member who already
has access to the system.
An External Assessor is someone who is solely doing
assessment and will only see the application and assessment
screen of the applications they are given access to (it is
optional setting if you also want an external assessor to view
the acquittals). External Assessors gain access to assess
through you setting up access through Stages and
Tasks. There are multiple ways this can be set-up. The
external assessor will only ever see the applications that you
grant them access to.
Each assessor (internal or external) can fill out their own copy
of an Assessment Form.
Private vs Shared Forms
When you create an assessment form in the system you are
given the option as to whether you want it to be shared or
private.
For Shared Assessment Forms, all Assessors can see copies
of the Form attached to an Application.
For Private Assessment Forms, Assessors can only see copies
of the Form that they attached themselves.
Internal Users can see all Forms attached to an Application, whether Shared or Private. However, if you do not wish your external assessors to be able to view your internal assessment form then you should mark internal assessment forms as PRIVATE. 31 Example assessment forms *Note that this is just an example; you create forms around your
own needs.
Your assessment process involves three stages:
1. An eligibility check conducted by an administrative worker.
2. Assessment by individual selection panel members.
3. Final recommendations reached at a selection panel meeting.
In SmartyGrants, you create an Assessment Form for each of these stages:
1. Eligibility Form
2. Panel Assessor Form
3. Panel Meeting Form
Key points
! Use stages and tasks to organise your applications into how they need to be assessed.
! Communicate with your assessors before you add them as users. This way when they
receive their automated e-mail they will understand what they are expected to do.
Check out both our Stages and Assessment video tutorials on the help hub. This will refresh your knowledge as to what you need to do when you come around to organising assessment. Check out these related video tutorials on Assessment in the help hub.
Assessment Process, Internal vs External Assessors, Private vs Shared
Forms, Set-Up
What are stages & tasks, set up and use.
Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
Create Assessment Form/s (is it private or shared)?
Create stage/s and task/s for external assessor/s
Download help guide for assessors from help hub
Communicate with assessors with details and help guide
Set-Up external assessor/s
32 Notes:
33 COMPETENCY 8: RECORDS DECISIONS & ALLOCATE FUNDING
The funding and payments section allows you to keep track of your budgets across financial
periods. You initially need to set-up your budgets through the account setting area
(Administrator only).
When you record your final decision in SmartyGrants you have the ability to allocate funding
amounts, and to define which budgets those amounts are being drawn from. You also have the
ability to allocate funding across multiple financial periods and from multiple budgets.
The funding section of SmartyGrants gives you a quick snapshot view of your budgets, and the
payments you have allocated, scheduled, approved and/or paid. All of this information can
also be compiled into reports using the reporting area.
Do budgets include GST?
SmartyGrants does not have a separate GST setting. By default all allocations are exclusive of
GST. However, a handy tip if you would like to track GST is to name your budget
accordingly. For example, if I had a program where some amounts included GST and some did
not, I could set-up two budgets in my account settings area and name one 'Budget X GST
Exclusive' and the second 'Budget X GST Inclusive'. This way when I go to record an
allocation I have the option to allocate out of the appropriate budget.
Key points:
! Financial period, source and budget can be set-up at any time prior to recording the final
decision and wanting to allocate the funds.
! Budget amounts can be edited at anytime including after you have allocated funding from
them.
Depending on what type of grantmaker you are, you may not know what your budget will be until the end of the process. You can still create a budget (enter $1 or an estimated amount as the allocation) and then this can be edited when you know the exact total. 34 Check out these related video tutorials on Decisions and Funding
Allocations in the help hub.
Set-Up of Financial Periods, Funding Sources & Budgets
Change decision; Allocating Funding; Approve & Record
Payments; Keeping track of funding and budgets
Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
If not previously done – create you financial period/s, funding sources
and budgets through the account settings area
Record Decision for applications
Allocate funding amount for successful applicants
Approve payment
Record when payment has been made
Download summary budget/s report
Notes:
35 COMPETENCY 9: ACQUITTALS
Some organisations use acquittals as part of their grant cycle process.
A grant acquittal report can be used for grant makers to tell you:
•
•
How they spent the grant?
What were the outcomes of funded activity?
Some grantmakers will refer to these as progress reports, final reports, evaluation reports, etc,
in SmartyGrants we use ‘Acquittal’ terminology. This information can be used to evaluate the
achievements of funded activities and for example, monitor the effectiveness of funding
programs. It also enables grant funders to fulfil obligation of accountability for audit.
1. You build your acquittal form/s (include your e-mail address in the ‘bcc’ area of the
confirmation of submission e-mail).
2. When you are ready to give your successful applicant/s access, attach the acquittal to
their application (at this point you have the ability to set a due date, task and choice of
notification e-mail).
3. Await their submission.
When the Applicant logs in, they see a new Acquittal Form attached to their existing
Application. They fill out the Form just as they would a regular Application Form. (They use the
same username and password as they did when they registered to apply, the form sits in a
section called 'My Submissions' once they are logged in).
Key points
! Stages and tasks assist you in managing your acquittal process.
By using tasks for
example, when you receive a submitted acquittal, you can mark your received tasks
complete, this will allow you to pull a quick task report and you will know what is
outstanding immediately.
! Ensure you insert the e-mail address of whoever is managing the acquittal process into the
‘bcc’ area of the confirmation of submission message (found in your form settings). This
will ensure that whenever an acquittal from is submitted you will receive an e-mail.
Check out these related video tutorials on Acquittals in the help hub.
Sending acquittal forms to successful applicants; Receiving
acquittals; Keep track of acquittals
Form Types; Building a Form; Form Settings; Linking Contacts;
Conditional Logic
36 Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
Create acquittal form/s
Insert e-mail address into BCC area of confirmation of submission e-mail in the form
settings area
Attach acquittal form to application (give access to applicant) *this can also be done
as part of a test round
Use of tasks to manage process – what tasks will you use?
Run a task report
Notes:
37 COMPETENCY 10: CONTACT DIRECTORY
SmartyGrants helps you to keep track of Application contact details by filing them into a
dedicated Contacts Directory. More than just an address book, the contact directory provides
an at-a-glance summary of an individual or organisation's grant involvement history. You can
also keep a file note history of phone calls, emails and other correspondence with any of your
contacts.
Some examples of Contacts are applicants, project contact person, managers, auspices and
so on, you can also create additional custom contact 'types'. Contact records are
automatically populated in the contact directory area when an application form has been
submitted, the only contact records that will be created are those that use the dedicated
'Contact Fields' when building your application forms. You can also add or edit Contacts
into the directory manually.
Using the contact directory is also a good way of ensuring you have the latest up to date
contact details.
For example: If an applicant advises they have changed their address, you can edit their
contact record in the directory. When you run a report, for example, a successful letter, if you
draw the details from the contact directory it will be up to date. If you draw the information
from the original application, it will draw the detail that the applicant completed at the time,
therefore, the old address.
As new contact records are created, the system will check whether there are any possible
duplicate contacts. You can review possible duplicates and decide whether you want records
to merged together, at the time of the merge you can amend relevant details. This assists in
building a grant involvment history over time, so an applicant for example who may have
applied across the account numerous times, will all be listed on the one record.
Key points:
! Use Contact Fields in your form for the contacts you wish to create records for in the
directory.
! Keep your contact directory area clean. This means keep your duplicate numbers down.
! Come up with a standard list of contact types that is suitable for all of your program
managers/users. Keep your list simple; for example, avoid similar contact labels such as
having two labels ‘Applicant Contact’ and ‘Applicant Admin Contact’ – what is the
difference between the two? Decide on what contact ‘types’ you need – these can be
edited in your account settings
38 Check out these related video tutorials on Contacts in the help hub.
Contact Fields
Benefits of using the directory, grant involvement history, file notes,
flags, tags, dealing with duplicate contacts - how does it all work?
Form Types; Building a Form; Form Settings; Linking Contacts;
Conditional Logic
Skill/Task Checklist
Completed
✔
View Contacts Type List (Account Settings – Administrator Only)
Customise list if necessary
View Contact Field Settings (Account Settings – Administrator Only)
and Customise list if necessary
Use Contact Fields tab when building form
Edit a contact
Create a new contact
Merge contacts (if you have duplicates, review them)
Create a file note
Create a flag
Create a tag
Run a contact report
Notes:
39 COMPETENCY 11: REPORTING
Reports allow you to turn your grants data into meaningful and practical information, formatted
however you wish. Reports can be used to glean insights into the needs of your community, to
publicise the good work your grants are helping to achieve, or to fulfill auditor requirements.
Use Reports to run summaries of grant rounds, recommendation reports, produce notification
letters to applicants, or analyse your grant giving over a period of time.
The system enables you to bring together your data however best meets your information
needs. Every field recorded in the system can be extracted into a report.
Templates
SmartyGrants uses templates to run reports. You are in complete control, so you can pull
together whatever data you need into either a Microsoft Word document or Excel
workbook. To run a report and extract data you need a template.
Users can select which fields they want included when creating a template, that template can
be downloaded and further customised to achieve the desired layout, look and feel.
For example:
•
For a Notification Letter, you might want individual pieces of data to be inserted into the
relevant places throughout a document; much like a traditional mail merge.
•
For a Council, Committee or Board report, you may wish to create a spreadsheet
containing summary information about each application, such as the applicant name,
project title, amount requested, and the amount recommended.
You may further wish to stipulate a sort order, text formatting, page headers and footers,
inclusion of graphs and so on.
You do this by opening the Template in Word or Excel and manipulating these components as
you would when working with a regular document and uploading the customised templates
back into SmartyGrants.
Smartygrants provides a number of default report templates, ready and waiting to be run in
your account:
Application Default Templates
" Default: Short Summary: A one page summary of each application
" Default: App Contact Summary: A short summary of key application and related
contact details.
" Default: Task List: A list of the tasks assigned to each application
" Default: Task Spreadsheet: An Excel spreadsheet of the tasks assigned to each
application.
" Default: Open or Unsubmitted Forms: A list of all forms that are unsubmitted or
open on your applications.
" Default: Allocation and Payments: Funding allocation and payment details for
applications
40 Contact Default Templates
" Default: Contact Summary: Essential information for contacts and their grant
involvement
" Default: Contact Allocation and Payments: Funding allocation and payment
details for applications related to contacts
Reports
Once a Template is created it is then used to run a report and extract the data you want fed
into the template.
For example:
•
After creating a Notification Letter template, you apply a filter to include data from a
recently concluded grant round and run the report, SmartyGrants matches the data to
the Template and generates your Notification Letters for you.
•
Or you may have a recommendation template, this could be run against the same grant
round.
My Reports
The 'My Reports' area of the system displays your most recent reports that you have run as a
user, here they can be re-run, downloaded or deleted. Contact reports are run from the contact
directory.
Key point:
! There are a set of rules that apply to customising templates – you can find these on the
help hub under Reports and Correspondence, you will also find further examples and
instructions on report customisation. A list of rules is provided on the following pages.
It is important to learn how the data is drawn out into a template and how you can
customise templates to your own liking.
To learn more about reporting, templates, customisation and rules please see the help hub. 41 Template Rules for Customisation
Using Images
You may use images in your word and excel templates. However there are
some rules around doing so:
Accepted Image formats: PNG, JPG and GIF.
Where can the image be placed? Images can be placed in the main
document/spreadsheet area or in the header/footer. Images cannot be
used as watermarks.
Header/Footers
You may edit your header/footers as usual. But you may not include a
'Code Tag' in the header/footer.
Bullet/Numbered
Lists
These lists should work as per usual Microsoft allowances. However this
may alter depending on the version of Word you are using. It is best to
extract/run a report using your template and then alter the template.
Tag Rules
When a template is created, the system will automatically insert tags into
the relevant areas of the reporting hierarchy.
In the example below, fields were selected from most areas of the system.
In Excel, each new worksheet belongs to a particular area of the system for example: funding allocations, payments, contact types and tasks.
In this example you will see some worksheets have a short acronym such
as 'SGA2' (stands for 'Small Grants Application 2012').
You may however want to take tags from the application and assessment
form and have them on the one worksheet. This can be done, although
there are rules you must follow. You can copy an 'Application Form' tag
and paste it into an 'Assessment Form' sheet or table, but the reverse
cannot be done.
The same rules apply in Word, as you can see from the following example.
In the example, Assessment Form information sits between its own <start>
and <end> tag (<Start_SGAF_Responses_List> and
<End_SGAF_Responses_List>).
In the example below, you could copy the field and tag <SGA2: Project
start date> from the 'Application' table and paste it into the 'Assessment'
table and the report would run. But this cannot be done in reverse - taking
the tag <SGAF: Amount Recommended> and pasting it into the
'Application' table - as the 'Assessment' tag/field would end up missing its
42 own <start> and <end> tag.
Here we have used application and assessment as examples, sets of rules
apply across the following system tag areas:
Each of these areas have their own <start> and <end> tags:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Assessment
Grids
Funding Allocations and Payments
Task List
43 Tag Excel Sheet / Word Table Rules:
Standard Field into Anything (no rule)
Application into Assessment
Application into Acquittal
Application into Admin
Application into Funding Allocation
Application into Tasks
Admin into Acquittal
Admin into Assessment
Admin into Application
Acquittal into Assessment
Acquittal into Application
Contacts into Assessment
Contacts into Acquittal
Contacts into Admin
Contacts into Funding Allocation
Contacts into Tasks
Assessment into Acquittal
Assessment into Admin
Assessment into Application
Mix Assessment/Admin/Acquittal
Payment into Allocation
Payment into Application
Funding Allocation into any
Grid tags: customise in Word
Grid tags: customise in Excel
Tasks into any
44 Check out these related video tutorials on Reporting in the help
hub.
Reporting Overview
Create a Report Template
Customise an Excel report template
Customise a Word report template
Skill / Task Checklist
Completed
✔
Run a default template report, also try adding a restriction/filter.
Create your own template
Run your own template as a report
Customise your template
Upload your customised template
Run your customised template report
Notes:
45 COMPETENCY 12 : MAILOUTS
Mailout functionality allows users to send bulk email communications to
applicants and associated contact types within SmartyGrants. Users can filter
across programs and applications to ensure the right audience is selected for
your correspondence.
You can also send individual emails to applicants and contact types, this is called "Send Email"
and can be done from within a contact record on the application contact tab or the contact
directory.
Filtering Items
Once your Mailout has been created and saved you have the option to
filter down to the exact applications you wish to send a correspondence
to.
You can choose applications from the one program or across several
programs. The filter will only show Rounds and Stages that are available
within the programs you have selected.
Recipients
1. “To”: Each Mailout must have a “To” recipient. The “To”
recipient is selected by choosing the relevant contact type,
from the applications selected within your filter group.
2. “Cc”: You can choose your Cc recipients for your mailout by
selecting the contact type you would like to copy. These
contact types are also available from the applications selected
within your filter group.
3. “Bcc”: Users can type in any email address into the Bcc field.
Its important to note however, that a Bcc recipient will receive
a copy of every email sent within the mailout.
Users are able to edit these email addresses and review prior to sending
emails.
NB: its important to remember that one email may have one or many
recipients associated with an email, when you consider you can have
combination of recipients and contact types.
Emails
You can compose an email in mailouts by typing into an email contents
field as per the below.
Alternatively you can copy another mailout that has been saved as a
draft.
46 Attachments
Users are able to add a number of attachments to a mailout.
There are two types of attachments that can be added. Standard
attachments and Genrated Reports (using the system reporting).
For example: if your mailout was to advise your applicants that they have
been successful and you have previously created a successful letter
template, (see reporting, creating a template) SmartyGrants will attach
each successful letter matching the applications from the template and
mailout.
Review
Users are able to review recipients, email addresses and preview email
contents as well as any attachments prior to sending a mailout. If you have
attached a report you will need to generate and download this in the
preview section.
If you are not ready to send your mailout yet, or wish to come back to it
another time, you can save the mailout and come back to it at a later
date.
Confirmation
Users can see a copy of the entire mailout under the Sent Mailouts
section from the List of Mailouts home page.
A copy of the correspondence sent will be attached to the application as a
file note, as well as a file note in the contact directory.
File note
A file note will display, which user sent the mailout, the date the mailout
was sent, and the mailout name which also hyperlinks back to the
summary page.
47 APPENDICES
48 Agreements (SmartyGrants)
Person Responsible Due date
*Status
Comment
Person Responsible Due date
*Status
Comment
Person Responsible Due date
*Status
Comment
Person Responsible Due date
*Status
Comment
Person Responsible Due date
*Status
Comment
Person Responsible Due date
*Status
Comment
Person Responsible Due date
*Status
Comment
Person Responsible Due date
*Status
Comment
Obtain and review draft SG Agreement
Board approval
Formal sign off with SG
Procedures & Change Management
Update grant application process
Update grant assessment process
Update grant payment process map
Update grants acquittal process map
Communications
Draft applicant's communications - strategy
SmartyGrants Set up
Watch Applicant Website training video
Set up skinning
Approve skin
Watch SmartyGrants Set-Up, Navigation & Funding Training
Videos
Set access levels for own staff
Watch video on Stages & Tasks
Set up of stages and tasks based upon your processes
Application process
Watch Application Form Building Training Video
Finalise draft application questions
Create application form on SG system
Approve application form - internal discussion as required - you
may want to test your form by running a test grant round
Customise 'confirmation of submission e-mail' master for
“application confirmation” (form settings)
Watch Grant Rounds training video
Set up of grant round opening details and create "application
round" link
Post application round link, guidelines and helpguide to own
website
Application process open and applications submitted
Assessment process (can modify - assume pre-eligibility,
individual assessment, group assessment)
Watch Assessment & Assessors training video
Determine assessment process
Develop SmartyGrants pre-eligibility assessment form
Develop SmartyGrants Individual Assessment form
Develop SmartyGrants Group Recommendation form
Undertake pre-elibility assessment
Assess individual application
Make individual recommendations on group recommendation
form
Run recommendation report
Record decision on SG (approved or declined)
Manage and acquittal
Watch Reporting training video
Notify successful and unsuccessful applicants
Send agreements to successful grantees
Receive signed agreements from applicants (including tax
invoice)
Pay grantees
Learn how to grant applicants access to acquittal form
Develop acquittal form
Send acquittal reminder to applicant (including link to access
online acquittal form)
Receive and assess acquital (complete acquittal review form)
Close off grant applications
Run program evaluation report
Other Related Tasks
Contacts - set up contact types
Determine if using Back-up - ability to back-up data
Contact duplications - carry out deduping of contacts
* Mark as complete when done
Appendice A - Workplan
Type
Confirmation of submission email
Progress Report review for Board/ Committee
Acquittal Report review for Board/ Committee
Conditional Grant letter/ agreeement
Unsuccessful Letter
Successful Grant letter
Budget Status Report
Committee Recommendation Report
Unsuccessful Letter
Type
Ineligible letter
Appendice A - Forms Letters
* Mark as complete when done
Support team for ongoing guidence
Read Newsletters for updates
Attend Masterclass
Attending Training Workshop
Due Date
Due Date
Due Date
Due
Date
Forms &
Letters
Watch SmartyGrants Training Video Tutorials & become familiar with the Help Hub
Become familiar with steps for implementation process in system
Type
Become familiar with SmartyGrants Concepts
TRAINING PATHWAY
No.
STANDARD REPORTS / LETTERS
No.
STANDARD EMAILS
Progress Report Review Form
Progress Report Form
Acquittal Review Form
Acquittal Form
Correspondence Administration Form
Group recommendation form
Individual Assessment Form
Pre-eligibility Check
Type
Application Form
FORMS:
*Status
*Status
*Status
*Status
Person Reponsible
Person Reponsible
Person Reponsible
Person Reponsible
Comment
Comment
Comment
Comment
✔
✔
Stage 4: Acquittals and Close
Attach acquittal forms for applicants (make available)
Acquittal received or associated task
Review acquittal
Appendice A - Stages Tasks
Stage 5: Successfully Acquitted
Run Acquital progress report for Board
✔
✔
✔
✔
Application
Task
Stage 3: Decision Management
Record Decision in system
Send outcome notification letters
Send agreements to successful
Receive returned agreements
Payments Made (defined based upon your process)
Stage 2: Assessment
Assessment Complete
Create Recommendation Report
Stage 1: Pre-Eligibilty
Pre-eligibility check undertaken and complete
Task description
See our Help Hub for more examples of stages & tasks set-up
*Note: all stages & tasks should be defined based upon your process - this is one example
Stages / Tasks
Stages and Task
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
General
Task
Due date
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Type
Appendice A - Individual Program Names
No.
Application Closing Date
Individual Program Names
Application Opening Date
For information on creating programs in SmartyGrants see our video tutorial or written help
INDIVIDUAL PROGRAM NAMES
SmartyGrants start date
Comment
Appendice A - Policy Decision
P7
P8
P9
P10
P11
P12
P6
Type
Policy
DueDecision
Date
Status
Are you still going to accept manual/paper based applications
Do you request missing documents
When/does info go into TRIM or your record management system
Correspondence - email or post letter
Do you accept late applications
How much and what kind of feedback will you give applicants both successful and unsuccessful - how will this be
provided?
Will you have your assessors save their assessment forms OR save and then formally submit (this is optional see help guide for assessors for more info)
Will you record the funding allocation in system including the GST amount or excluding?
What will your final 'Contact Type' labels be across all programs - you need to decide for consistency
Will your assessment forms be shared or private?
Will you record the funding allocation aswell as record the payment in SG system or only record finding amount?
Who will carry out the contact deduplication (where there is a double up of contacts)?
POLICY DECISIONS
No.
P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
Person Responsible
Comment