Understanding action flow

What is action flow?

Action flow is an incredibly versatile feature that allows grant managers to configure a task or notification for a third party named within the form, for an applicant to complete later, or for a manager. The recipient of the task, for example, can make changes to application fields (depending on what has been configured), and either approve or reject the application.

Based on that person's decision, the application can either be sent to another person for further tasks, or the decision can be used to control if the application progresses through to reviewing. The process of sending a task or notification to a third-party person is called an action stage and is managed using the action flow feature.

You can create as many action stages as necessary. You can also create multiple action stages, for example, for different categories or for a daisy-chained series of action requirements. The outcome of each action stage is the user's chosen action, that is to stop the application or allow it to proceed.

When planning your action stage, it might be helpful to draw a simple flowchart, like the following hypothetical example.

If the last decision applied is going to break the flow and is unintentional, you could consider also using auto-tags. You can apply a specific tag to applications based on the decision made during each action stage. This will assist you with management tasks such as searching for applications, analysis activities and on-going follow-up activities.

An action stage can control whether an application is subsequently allowed through to assessment by applying a moderation state of either approved or rejected when an action is applied, or tags as mentioned just above.

Applications that have been moderation rejected never proceed through to review rounds. Learn more about moderation here: Moderation explained.

Reviewing panels can be set to allow only moderation approved applications and/or applications with specific tags applied. These reviewing panel settings help you control which applications proceed through to various assessment rounds.

There are four main steps in configuring an action flow:

1. Create the fields that will be visible or/and editable to task recipient (if different from those applicants interact with)
2. Create notifications to be sent at each action stage (to alert the recipient that action is required, confirm that their decision has been submitted, etc.)
3. Create the action flow stage 
4. Create content to be displayed in support of each action stage

For step-by-step instructions, see: Action flow configuration.

Examples

Some examples of how action flow can be used:

• A business application can be sent to the applicant's manager for further input. The manager can make changes before approving or rejecting the application.
• Grant managers can be notified of each submitted application, a trigger for it to be reviewed and further information added, before moderation approval.
• Grant managers can manually trigger an action stage several months after a grant has been approved, to follow up on the application and see how the grant is being used.