Change the Order of Submission Portal Stages

This article is considered appropriate for administrators or workspace users with an advanced level of knowledge about submission portals. If you are a beginner, we recommend reading the following article first:

• Submission Portal Key Concepts: Beginner
• Submission Portal Key Concepts: Intermediate
• Delete a Submission Portal Stage
• Add a Submission Portal Stage

For more information about suggested learning paths, see Introduction to Submission Portals: START HERE.

Contents

• Overview
• Deleting and Adding a Stage
• Tips for an Efficient Process

Overview

When setting up a submission portal, Stages are used to structure a program’s process and the experience that a portal user will progress through. As such, it is important to carefully consider the different components a portal user should access at different parts of the program workflow before beginning to build a submission portal.

During the submission portal build, an administrator may find that Stages need to be moved around and re-ordered. Unfortunately, because Stages form the basic structure of a given submission portal, Stages cannot be easily re-ordered once they have been created. To change the order of a Stage, it first must be deleted and then added to a different place in the workflow. 

As each process has its own set of instructions, this article will link to other articles that explain how to delete and add Stages, as well as provide some useful tips for minimizing time and work needed to reconfigure Stages and any associated Steps.

Deleting and Adding a Stage

For instructions on how to delete a Stage:

• Delete a Submission Portal Stage

For instructions on how to add a Stage:

• Add a Submission Portal Stage

For instructions on configuring Required Stages:

• Add a Step to a Submission Portal Stage
• Change the Folder(s) Associated with a Submission Portal Stage
• Change the Name of the Homepage, Profile, Stages, or Steps in a Submission Portal
• Customize the Stage Completion Button
• Move a Step to a Different Stage in the Submission Portal
• Submission Portal Stage Deadline
• Submission Portal Stage Pre- and Post-Completion Text

For instructions on configuring External Stages:

• Change the Folder(s) Associated with a Submission Portal Stage

Tips for an Efficient Process

Moving a Stage to a different place in the submission portal workflow by deleting it and adding it elsewhere can be cumbersome: deleting a Stage will delete any associated Steps if it is a Required Stage, as well as any Stage text, configuration options, or Profile Mapping (for more information about Profile Mapping, see the article Profile Mapping). However, here are some tips to make this smoother and more efficient:

• Add the new Stage before deleting the old Stage. 
  • Adding a Stage also involves configuring the options on the General Settings tab, which includes pre- and post-completion text and formatting, setting Stage deadlines, and the Stage name, among other options. However, if the new Stage is added before deleting the old one, this information can be easily copied and pasted, saving several minutes and potentially reducing errors.

• Move Steps to the new Stage before deleting the old Stage. 
  • Moving a Step to a new Stage will maintain any configuration options that have been saved. Creating the new Stage before deleting the old one and moving the Steps to the new Stage saves a great deal of time and effort. 
  • Note: This tip won’t work if the form associated with a Step needs to change. Once a Step has been set up, if the form associated with that Step needs to change, the Step must be deleted and rebuilt from the beginning. 

• Re-order an External Stage instead of a Required one if possible. 
  • External Stages have fewer configuration options than Required Stages. If the positions of an External Stage and a Required Stage need to be swapped, for example, the easier process would be to delete and re-add the External Stage.