Release 3.62 of the InfoReady platform was deployed in the early morning hours of Friday, August 9, 2024. This release includes several exciting new features!
For a 15-minute overview of the highlights from this release in action, check out the video below.
Features and Enhancements
The following new features and enhancements are available within InfoReady’s Form Designer template unless noted.
New Routing Steps!
For the last several months, a group of gracious administrators has been taking two new types of routing steps for a test drive. After receiving their feedback, we’ve refined the routing steps and are happy to now make them available for wide release!
We share our sincere thanks to all administrators who helped bring these powerful features to life.
Return for Revisions Routing Step
For all InfoReady templates, Return for Revisions allows administrators to create a step within their workflow where a reviewer is asked to review the application and either 1) send the application on to the next step in the workflow or 2) return it to the applicant for revisions.
What happens when a reviewer returns an application for revisions?
- If the reviewer elects to return the application, the reviewer may provide details to the applicant about the requested revisions.
- The applicant receives an email with the information from the reviewer about the requested revisions. The applicant will also see “Returned for Revisions” as the application status on their Applications tab.
- For administrators, the application status on the Data Grid will also appear as “Returned for Revisions”.
- The applicant may make changes to the application and re-submit the application.
- Once re-submitted, the application proceeds to the next step in the workflow after the Return for Revisions step. It does not begin the review process again from the beginning.
This feature will be available for those with Silver, Gold, Platinum, or Enterprise licenses. For more information about Return for Revisions, see the overview on the InfoReady Support Portal.
Form Designer Routing Step
The Form Designer routing step is a major upgrade to the Build My Own Form (BMOF) routing step and extends the new form building capabilities (found in the Requirements and Progress Reports forms) to Routing Steps.
- Drag and drop interface
- New field types
- More flexible required and optional capabilities
- Ability to have a mix of question types in the review form
- Conditional logic (for clients with Form Designer Pro)
These upgrades allow review or approval forms to be far more tailored to the needs of your processes and more intuitive for your reviewers. For more information, view this article: Form Designer Routing Step
What if you’re using the original BMOF routing step?
- Both launched opportunities and opportunity templates that include the original BMOF routing step can continue to be used. Admins may also copy these competitions or create competitions from these templates.
- However, clients will not be able to create/add additional BMOF routing steps to competitions. Learn more about upgrading your review processes with the Form Designer Routing Step on our Support Portal.
Progress Report Delegates
We recognize that while applications may be submitted by a single individual, those applications are often the result of the effort of a team. When an application is awarded, completing progress reports may also be a collaborative effort rather than an individual one. Moreover, awardees may leave an organization before progress reports are completed.
This release includes a new feature that allows administrators to:
- Add a delegate to a particular progress report in addition to the awardee
- Allow awardees to add a delegate to a particular progress report themselves
In addition, admins and awardees may specify whether a delegate may fully submit the progress report or simply work on it and save it as a draft. Learn more.
Your Application Received Notification
For all templates, the “Your Application Received” notification that is automatically sent to applicants when they submit their application has been updated to include a greeting: Hello {applicant name}. This mail merge tag will display both the first and last name fields from the application form.
Sharing Templates with Other InfoReady Sites
While we’ve made only a minor update to this functionality in this release, we think it worthwhile to highlight InfoReady’s template sharing capabilities between InfoReady sites. InfoReady has long supported sharing opportunity templates with other InfoReady sites. This allows institutions with multiple sites (or microsites) to share templates within their organization easily and also for one organization to share its templates with other organizations. With this release, any customized notifications within a Form Designer template will be included when shared.
Hiding Reference Letters Configuration from Reviewers
Within the Form Designer Template, when using the Reference Letters InfoReady Tool, the default setting will hide configuration details such as the applicant instructions, email message sent to letter writers, and the letter writer email addresses. However, an administrator can easily choose to make those details visible to reviewers. With either setting, reviewers will see any submitted reference letters as part of the application packet. Learn more.
Bug Fixes and Security Enhancements
This release focused on addressing a variety of bugs and performance improvements to maximize your InfoReady experience. The InfoReady Support Team will reach out directly to any clients who may have encountered any issues resolved with this release.
Product Questions, Comments, or Feedback?
We’d love to hear from you! Contact your account manager or submit a ticket to the support team. From sales to support to product development, our team discusses your feedback regularly as we shape new features and enhancements.
Coming soon...
With the increased flexibility and features within the Form Designer template, it is the recommended option to use over InfoReady's General template. For our next release in September, we plan to remove the General template as a default InfoReady template from the Template Selection Screen.
Key things to know:
- Current draft, launched, and archived General template competitions will not be affected.
- Admins can continue to use templates made from the General template if they wish.
- When copying a prior General template competition, admins will be able to choose if they want to continue using that template or migrate to the Form Designer template. Learn more.
- There are no immediate plans to phase out other InfoReady templates (Funding or Bulletin).