by Roxana Rosu | Jan 17, 2023 | Article
Good Grants had a busy year in 2022!
As a fully remote and globally distributed software company, we understand the importance of reliable technology.
Our product release strategy this year was centered on flexibility, reliability, and ease of use to help you get even more out of your grant programs.
In 2022, we implemented 27 features and made 168 product improvements—all to help you do more in less time and set you up for future success in 2023.
Here is a look at some of our most exciting 2022 features and updates and what’s coming in 2023!
We simplified navigation in your Good Grants account with workspaces. They’re role-specific and logically separate views and functionality for grant managers, applicants, and reviewers. Through an extensible system for defining user roles and permissions, your program participants only see the functionality and views that are relevant to them.
Read more: What are workspaces in Good Grants?
Grant status helps you track your applications after you’ve made a decision. Monitor funding allocations. Move applications through the post-grant lifecycle. It’s completely customisable to fit your program needs.
Read more: Feature focus: Manage your post-decision applications with ease
Using your minimum application criteria, the eligibility screener automatically diverts ineligible applicants and saves everyone’s time, energy and effort. Used as a standalone eligibility form or deployed as part of a single application process, the eligibility screener is perfect for all kinds of grant or scholarship programs.
Read more: Feature focus: Automatically divert ineligible applicants with eligibility screening
The Manage forms view is a central location for creating and managing forms in the Good Grants platform. It provides a quick status overview of all created forms, including the volume of submissions received and any applicable round dates.
Read more: Manage your forms in one place with the new Manage forms view
Invitation-only feature restricts access and visibility of a form to invited applicants only. Forms set as invitation-only can be deployed at any stage of the grant lifecycle, making it perfect for programs with multi-stage application workflows or closed grantmaking approaches.
Read more: Promote opportunities with invitations
Owners and grant managers can preview the Good Grants platform as another user. Preview mode is read-only, so no changes can be made. This allows you to test your reviewing configuration, see how things look for applicants, and troubleshoot issues reported by users.
Good Grants is packed full of features to help you maintain compliance with requirements under the various regulations, including HIPAA. This is great news if your program collects health data in the United States and is subject to The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. And, if not, it’s just a healthy reminder we’ve got your back when it comes to data security.
Tailored for programs that conduct moderation on applications prior to reviewing, auto-scoring drastically reduces the effort of sifting through individual applications by assigning a score to submissions based on your predefined criteria.
Read more: Feature focus: Auto-scoring for grant application screening
In 2022, we continued to expand the Good Grants API with several new endpoints available, including the ability to send and/or edit table field data.
When reviewing an application, reviewers can upload files, including images, and leave comments. Especially useful for reviewers who provide detailed comments. All reviewing modes have this capability.
To scrutinise an application offline or share an application with someone who doesn’t have access to the Good Grants platform, you can download and view a full application PDF from within the manager’s workspace. #TimeSaver
Recognise your grantees or top applicants with award certificates and badges directly in the platform.
This feature helps grant managers organise applications with a star, a similar action to marking important emails in your email system. Grant managers can refer back to an application whenever they need it by clicking the star next to it. You can filter by starred applications too!
Grant data can now be stored in Canada. Providing a new data residency option alongside Australia, the European Union and the United States.
The blank form PDF provides grant managers and applicants the ability to download a blank application form as a PDF, use it to review or share questions offline and gather any information needed in advance. All fields are displayed in the same sequence and logic as the online form.
Read more: 5 New features to help you save time managing applications
Table fields allow applicants to provide data in a table format. Whether you want to collect information around budget, resources, expenses or community data – table fields are an ideal format. Table fields can now perform automatic calculations on behalf of your applicants and/or your grant management team.
A new list view is available for grant managers to see all the exports and bulk downloads generated from their account. The Downloads option provides a list of all downloads generated in the platform.
Applicants can now browse through each tab of the application form before starting a submission and check all of the questions before completing it. Great for setting the right expectations and providing a method for evaluating the effort required to submit an application for your opportunity.
Grants can be awarded to anyone, so we ensure our software works for everyone. That is why we continually update our software to comply with the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We made 27 WCAG improvements in 2022!
Read more: Accessibility features in Good Grants
Our engineers are already busy at work on some amazing new features and tools: better grant reporting, payment tracking, new user roles, application preview and so much more!
2022 has been another wild ride, and we couldn’t have done it without you. We appreciate your continued feedback each and every year, helping us enhance the platform. We look forward to partnering with you to power positive change in 2023!
Want to learn more about the Good Grants software? Sign up for our free 14-day trial!
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