This article walks administrators through recommended end-of-cycle actions and additional features to explore in Grant Lifecycle Manager (GLM) and Scholarship Lifecycle Manager (SLM) once you have finished your first cycle in the system. The article covers process and universe maintenance, dashboard cleanup, email template auditing, and a review of features that can improve how your site manages applicants, reviewers, and staff access.
Manage Process and Universe Maintenance
Once submissions have been received, the following steps will help you review and finalize forms, close your process or universe to new applications, and archive any processes or universes that are no longer needed.
Toggle Process or Universe to Not Available
Once you have finished your first grant or scholarship cycle, you will want to toggle your process or universe off. Administrators can toggle a universe, opportunity, or process to Not Available to control what appears on the applicant's Apply page, allowing them to close grant or scholarship cycles.
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Archive a Process or Universe
If you are done with the process and will not need to reopen it for any new applications, you can archive the process to keep your Process Manager organized. Administrators can archive a process to remove it from active view without impacting any user workflows, automatic actions, or data access, and can restore it at any time through the Process Manager.
Clean Up Dashboard and Email Templates
Once your cycle has closed, the following steps will help you wrap up outstanding follow ups, close completed requests, and keep your dashboard and email templates organized and ready for your next cycle.
Mark Follow Ups Complete
Once a follow up has been submitted, administrators can mark it complete individually or in batch from the Follow Ups Submitted workload page to move the request to the Follow Ups Complete workload page.
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Close Requests
After toggling the process/universe off, you will then want to close any requests from this cycle. Administrators and Grants Managers can close approved requests individually or in batch once all follow ups are completed, installments paid, and no further actions are needed. This keeps dashboards focused on active work, though closed requests still allow document uploads and comments while any other actions require reverting the request status, and batch closing is not permitted by default if any follow ups remain incomplete.
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Abandon Draft Requests
If requests are still located in the LOI Draft or Application Draft workload pages after a process is closed or a form deadline has passed, it is recommended to abandon the requests if they will not be moving forward.
Abandoned requests remain in the system but are removed from the dashboard.
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Perform Site Cleanup
Administrators should perform regular site cleanup and maintenance at the end of each grant or scholarship cycle to remove draft requests from dashboards, close completed processes, archive outdated content, merge duplicate organization records, and deactivate former staff accounts.
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Audit Email Templates
Regularly auditing email templates helps ensure that communications sent to applicants, award recipients, and evaluators are accurate, professional, and functioning as intended. As processes evolve over time, templates can become outdated, contain incorrect merge fields, or reference programs that no longer exist, so reviewing both system and custom templates helps catch errors before they reach recipients. Auditing automatic email assignments on a process-by-process basis ensures the right messages are triggered at the right stages, while reviewing the Email History page can surface delivery issues or failed sends that may have gone unnoticed. Keeping templates organized by archiving those no longer in use reduces clutter and makes it easier for administrators to locate and manage active communications.
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Review Additional Features
With your first cycle complete, take some time to explore additional features and settings that can help streamline your workflow, improve applicant screening, and better manage staff access for future cycles. As we continuously release new site features and functionality, some may have launched since your initial implementation. We recommend reviewing the site settings article to discover any features you might not yet be taking advantage of.
Collaborator Feature
The Collaborator feature allows applicants to invite others such as grant writers, executives, or new staff to view, edit, or submit forms within a request at one of three permission levels, enabling teams to work together on grant or scholarship applications without administrator involvement.
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Grants Manager Process or Request Assignments
If you have an Advanced license, Administrators can assign Grants Managers to specific processes or requests to either filter or restrict their dashboard visibility, with site settings controlling whether Grants Managers see only assigned requests, can toggle between assigned and all requests, or have full access across all processes.
Eligibility Quiz and LOI
If your organization received a high volume of ineligible requests or applications submitted for the wrong grant or scholarship, adding an Eligibility Quiz or LOI to your process may help screen applicants more effectively upfront. The eligibility quiz and letter of intent (LOI) are two options for screening applicants before the full application stage, each serving a different purpose depending on your workflow. The eligibility quiz, available with an Advanced license for GLM and a Standard license for SLM, works best when the goal is to automatically qualify or disqualify applicants based on objective, rule-based criteria such as amount requested, county served, or program area, reducing staff review time and allowing one quiz to route applicants across multiple processes. The LOI is a better fit when staff need to review narrative or program details before making an eligibility decision, and it offers the added flexibility of fast-tracking qualified applicants without requiring a full application, though it does require manual review of each submission and more staff time overall. Key differences between the two include how submissions are reviewed, how applicants are routed, and whether answers carry forward, as quiz answers are not visible to evaluators while LOI responses can be shared forward to the application stage.
Configure an Evaluation Stage
Evaluation stages allow administrators to assign reviewers to specific requests, add evaluation forms, and configure automatic email notifications for evaluators. There are three evaluation stages available, one at the LOI stage and two at the application stage, supporting workflows such as initial screening followed by a final decision review. Administrators can also configure options like shared evaluations, anonymous peer review, and side-by-side evaluation views, as well as restrict evaluator access to print packets or uploaded files through site settings. In SLM, applicant contact information can be hidden from evaluator view.
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Review Configurable Site Settings
It is recommended to go through the relevant GLM or SLM Configurable Site Settings articles to audit what settings you have currently configured and perhaps updating or adding additional ones to your site.