Progress Reporting

In this article

• Overview
• Preconfigurations
• Setup
• Portal Experience
• Important Tips
• Limits

Overview

Whether you have a one-time post-award report or need to collect the same information monthly, quarterly, or annually, the reports feature in the submission portal will allow you to define unique reporting schedules and deadlines. 

Preconfigurations

Before setting up your reports, there are at least two forms that you need to have in your workspace already, each of which must contain one or more required fields. Also note, the Progress Reporting feature works only with a configured submission portal. Below are the forms you will need and the essential fields, read through the descriptions for more clarity.

These forms are:

Report Names - This form will be used to store report names. For example, if you label one of your reports January Report, the system will add a record in the Report Names form "January Report." This will assist with your own data reporting and tracking constituents.

• Required Fields: 
  • One Text Field only

Report Form(s) - This form is creating to be the actual report form that constituents will interact with and submit in the portal. Include all necessary fields you wish to meet your collect data requirement. In order to complete a reporting cycle(s), you may find yourself needing to create multiple Report Forms (ex. Monthly, Quarterly, Mid Year, Final Report, etc.). The idea here is that you will only create a certain report form type once.

• Required Fields: 
  • Linked Form Field to Primary Form (first form in submission section of the Submission Portal)
  • Linked Form Field to Report Names Form (the form created above)
  • Text Field (used for a system report name tag)
  • Date Field (used to capture the submission date of report)

Setup

In order to add a reporting cycle, you must have a configured Submission Portal. All submission portals can include the progress reporting feature. You will first go to Settings & Tools to local the Submission Portal Plugin settings.

Choose which portal you would like to add reporting, all portals will have the option, but will not be in use unless you go through the following steps.

You will find the Reports section below your submission workflow.

Click on Reports to gain access to the Report Settings. Here you will need to select your Report Names form created in the Preconfigurations above. The configuration will have you select the form you will use for report names and the text field in that form, the system will populate data into this form once you add reports in later steps. 

Please note: once you set this form, you CANNOT change it. It will be used for all reporting cycles in this portal.

Click on "Save all settings" to lock in the settings. This action will now allow you to click on +ADD REPORTING CYCLE, which will allow you to create a reporting cycle. A reporting cycle is a collection of reports (forms) that constituents will interact with while their primary form record is in a specific folder. You will determine those reports after you create the cycle settings.

Give the Report Cycle a name, also determine which primary form folder will activate this reporting cycle. This folder will have to already been used in a submission stage in this portal. It can be an existing stage or you may want to create a new stage (we suggest External stage) with this folder. You also have the opportunity to give a Cycle Description, this will display in the section of the portal before the constituent views reports.

Once you have saved a Reporting Cycle, you can now click on +ADD REPORT, which will allow you to add your reports. A Report is the form you created in the Preconfiguration section, you may have built more than one form depending on your reporting gathering needs.

When adding a report(s), you will set several settings. Keep in mind, this is the same report(s) setting for all constituents that you place in this reporting cycle. The report settings will ask for a Report Name, this will be the name of the report item in the submission portal as well as the name tag when viewing in the data grad view as the admin. You can also give the report a description in the text box. Set the Start Date and Due Date. If the start date is in the future, your constituents will not be able to edit this form until that date. Due dates will inform when the report is due, once the date passes, they will still be able to edit and submit.

After the above, you will be required to choose a Report Form, a report name text field and a submission date field. If you do not see these as options, you will have to go back to the report form and add them. The form you choose as this report could be a form you re-use for other reports in this setup. An example, you created a report form named "Monthly Reports" through the form builder and are now using this form for several monthly reports in this cycle. You would use the +ADD REPORT option to continue this process and give the Report Name something like "1st Month Report" "2nd Month Report" "3rd Month Report" etc.

You would repeat the +ADD REPORT step for each report you would like you constituent to see and interact with in this reporting cycle. In the image above, the report was named "1st Month Report" and used the "Monthly Report" form, you can add another report in the configuration with a name of "2nd Month Report" and use the "Monthly Report" form again. The idea here is that the monthly reports are using the same form. You can also use another form built (that was built according to the preconfiguration requirements) for a different report in this same cycle.

Add reports in the order you would like to display in the portal. Once you save, you will be able to use the Details tab to have a custom order or custom show of the fields on the report. After you have built out your cycle, it may look similar to the images below:

Portal Experience

Once your reporting cycle is configured using the instruction under Setup, your constituents will not see the reports until you move their primary form record into the set folder. You must update the folder on the record to give access, they will have access to the reports only while in that folder. In the above setup steps and image, "Final Report" folder was used. The system will create draft records of the report forms for that user, you will be able to track progress on the form's data grid view.

The submission portal will display a new status on their submission card:

The portal will display the reporting cycle at the top of the submission section:

Once the user clicks into the reporting cycle, they will gain access to the entire cycle of reports. Based on established start and due dates, access will vary. They will be able to view previously submitted reports, edit reports that are open and in progress and see reports that may have a start date that has not come to pass.

Important Tips

Here are a few items to keep in mind when setting up Progress Reports:

1. Your constituents can be in only one reporting cycle at a time, since the cycles are folder base, records cannot be in more than one folder at any given time.
2. The submission portal can have more than one reporting cycle.
3. Start dates and due dates are for all that are interacting with the report cycle.
4. Be careful when adding a reporting cycle to a folder associated with a required stage in the portal, if the portal user submits the stage, it changes their folder and moves them out of the reporting cycle.
5. When the primary record for your constitute is moved out of the reporting cycle folder, they lose all access to the reporting forms.

Limits

• You can have up to 10 reporting cycles in a given submission portal.
• You can have up to 20 reports in a single cycle.
• You can have up to 5 different forms used for reports in a cycle.
• Those forms do count towards the overall 20 form limit in the submission portal as a whole.