Start the new year out right in SmartyGrants

By Kate Caldecott

The start of a new year is a great time for cleaning up loose ends and putting new and better systems in place for the upcoming year. Invest a little time this month in tuning up SmartyGrants and you’ll enjoy the benefits all year long.

SmartyGrants Cleanup

SmartyGrants is a powerful tool and getting the most out of it means keeping it fine-tuned. A little house keeping will save time and effort later on:

• Check user accounts – Make sure that only current users have access to the system. Close any accounts that are no longer active. As an extra step, this is a good time to check that users have the proper access levels.

  
  
• Archive items that are no longer in use – Next take a look at your grant rounds screen. Old rounds should be archived to make it easier to find current rounds. You can also archive budgets and funding sources, forms or report templates that are no longer in use.
  
  
• Check for outstanding grants – You may have completed grants for which you never received an acquittal report. Or you may have received the final report, but never have advanced the grant to the “completed successfully” stage. Now is the time to tie up those loose ends.
  
  
• Resolve duplicate contacts – If there’s a red label with a number in it under the contacts icon, then you have duplicates that need to be resolved. Take care of this now and make it a policy to maintain zero duplicates going forward.
  
  
• Check you applicant website – If you changed any of the critical information about your organisation, or changed your branding, then take a quick look at your applicant website to make sure it’s current.

Fine-tuning SmartyGrants for the New Year

Now that everything’s cleaned up, bring your team of SmartyGrants users together to take a look at what’s working well, what’s not, and make plans for any needed changes. Questions to ask include:

• Are people able to find the things they need? – If it’s hard to find what you’re looking for, even after the excess has been archived, then things aren’t named properly. Set up clear, descriptive naming conventions so that even a new person to your organisation will find it easy to find what they’re looking for.

  
  
• Do your forms collect the right information? – A database is only as good as the information that goes into it. Take a look at how your forms are working and consider if anything needs to be updated. Are you making the most of standard fields? Do you collect information on your application form that you never use? (If so, get rid of the question.)
  
  
• Are you evaluating the effectiveness of your programs? – How’s evaluation going? If someone asks you about the effectiveness of your programs, are you able to answer? Do you have the information needed to compare your program with other approaches to solving the problem? Are you using the data you collect and making the most out of SmartyGrants’ reporting capability?
  
  
• Does everyone know what they need to? – Getting the most out of your SmartyGrants subscriptions means you need to have well-trained users. As more features get added (calculated fields, CLASSIE, insertable email fields), there’s more to learn. Find out where everyone is at and consider the training options to get and keep everyone up to speed.

There are multiple benefits to optimizing SmartyGrants. You’ll spend less time searching and more time doing. You’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t both administratively and program-wise. If you would like a SmartyGrants tune-up, an evaluation of your SmartyGrants account or support putting an evaluation framework in place, please contact me at Kate@katecaldecott.com.au or 0447 227 598.