Acknowledgement Statements for Applicants and Reviewers

Written by Sarah Yecke | 40/28/2020

Do you need applicants or reviewers to verify they have no conflicts of interest or to agree to other policies and procedures? InfoReady accommodates digital signatures at the end of both application and review forms. The term used in the system for digital signatures is "Acknowledgement Statement".

This is a great option to use as a final checklist of information for the person submitting the form. When creating the Acknowledgement Statement, administrators are able to use a full array of formatting options to create bullet points, link out to external pages and documents, and even add images. For review workflows that have multiple routing steps, the system accommodates distinct Acknowledgement Statements for each step, which allows the content to be tailored to each group of reviewers.

When an Acknowledgement Statement has been enabled, the end user will see the provided statement at the end of the form and must click the checkbox next to the statement in order to activate the Submit button and submit the form. If the user does not check the box, then the Submit button will remain deactivated and greyed out.

This optional feature can be used in a variety of creative ways:

For applicants

Verification that they have read the full RFP
Final check for materials and formatting of documents
Understanding next steps, especially if it is a two-phase competition process
Confirmation that no existing awards or grants conflict with the opportunity they are applying to
Communicating post-award stipulations, such as serving on the review committee the following year

For reviewers

Confirmation of subject matter expertise for the assigned proposal
Confirmation that no conflict of interest exists in reviewing the application or proposal
Not sharing application materials outside the system
Keeping feedback confidential or embargoed until a certain date
Explaining how reviewers will be notified of final award decisions
Notifying reviewers that rankings and/or comments will be shared with applicants during award phase

Whether you want applicants and reviewers agreeing to terms and conditions or getting verification they saw the last bit of important information, the Acknowledgement Statement functionality can improve and streamline your process.

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