Many grant professionals shared a lot of insight, feedback, and ideas during last week’s #GrantChat on Twitter. Thank you for letting us participate in the grants community!
The upcoming Grants.gov update, Release 15.4, will introduce streamlined account management – something that’s sure to be welcomed by users currently managing accounts in multiple organizations.
Starting in February with Release 15.4, such users will only need one login to access all of their Grants.gov accounts.
Here’s how the merging process will look for Judy, an imaginary user with multiple organization accounts:
This month, Grants.gov Workspace celebrates its first birthday. Consider this blog post your invitation to the (virtual) birthday party, which almost 4,000 organizations have already joined by applying with Workspace.
You can send birthday wishes on Twitter with the hashtag #HappyBirthdayWorkspace.
If you’re new to this blog, Workspace is Grants.gov’s next-generation application submission interface.
Thousands of federal grant applicants have submitted their application packages using Grants.gov Workspace. In this blog post, we share tips for streamlining organizational workflow in order to take advantage of Workspace’s full range of benefits.
A form reuse feature that imports data from past application forms
Improved form validations that help to cut down on last-minute submission errors
A preview feature that gives applicants the ability to view the complete application in a single window
Below are some tips to help make the transition as smooth as possible for you and your organization:
1. Form reuse is the single most beneficial feature in Workspace.
Whether you’re a one-person show or you have a large team working on each application, the reuse feature within Workspace has the potential to save you tons of time.
Scenario Let’s say you apply for a grant later this month using Workspace. In the end, you aren’t awarded the funds. The next time you apply for the same grant – perhaps a year from now – you will be able to reuse all of your old forms and focus your time and effort on improving the weakest parts of the application.
2. Familiarize your team with the general Workspace workflow.
Workspace separates the application package into individual forms. This allows a team of applicants to work on each form separately – at the same time, if they wish. This changes the traditional workflow, which permitted only one applicant to work on the application at a time.
The year 2017 is still months away, but now is the time to prepare for several significant enhancements that will be coming to Grants.gov.
In early 2017, you will have the option of completing federal grant application forms in an online environment that saves progress and auto-fills matching fields on other application forms.
These online forms will provide an alternative to downloading Adobe PDF forms and completing them offline.
You can prepare now for this exciting new feature by applying for your next federal grant using Workspace.
Why? Online forms will be accessible only within Workspace, so learning the ins and outs of Workspace will ease your transition to online forms.
For many organizations, completing a federal grant application takes a team effort. Grants.gov knows this and added its Workspace feature, in part, to optimize the user experience for applicants working as a team.
Note: This is part two of two blog posts introducing Grants.gov’s Workspace feature. Here’s part one if you missed it.
Since the launch of Workspace, Grants.gov has seen a steady, monthly increase in users and submissions – and feedback has been positive.
But how exactly does the new functionality improve the applicant experience? Potential improvements will, in part, depend on your institution and the existing workflow you have in place.
Below are two examples, one for a university and the other a grant writer, of how using Workspace can benefit someone that has used the traditional Grants.gov submission method in the past.
Note: This is part one of two blog posts introducing Grants.gov’s Workspace feature.
Organizations working on federal grant applications may want to use Grants.gov’s new Workspace feature, which can help streamline collaboration and save time when an application deadline looms.
Applicants using Grants.gov have traditionally submitted a single, stitched PDF application package in a process that can be difficult — especially when collaborating with others.
Note: This is part one of two blog posts introducing Grants.gov’s Workspace feature.