Even while setting up the initial application process, you should have an idea of how final awardees will be evaluated and chosen. This decision usually relies on feedback from one or more rounds of reviews by individuals or committees that approve, rate, or rank applications based on a variety of criteria. But with so many variations, where should an administrator even begin? Below are tips for translating an existing review process into InfoReady™.
Map it out
- Gather your colleagues around your favorite whiteboard, or keep it simple with scratch paper.
- Draw out your review process from start to finish, and notice any gaps or areas that need clarification.
- Identify what types of review steps you will need, who will be involved, and how the reviews in one step may be used in subsequent steps of the review workflow.
Work backward
- What do your decision makers need to make award decisions?
- What is the right amount of feedback you’ll need per application, considering length, time to review, and the number of reviewers involved?
- Make sure the questions in the application form relate to the review questions in order for reviewers to have enough information to properly fill out their assigned reviews.
Include instructions
- Reviewers need to know exactly what they’re supposed to do, especially if they are a first-time InfoReady Review™ user.
- Common items to include are a short description of the RFP, a rubric, and how to access the application (either by clicking the PDF button at the top of the page, or viewing on screen).
Try to quantify
- If you have an existing evaluation form with descriptors like “Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor”, consider making this into a 4-point rating scale.
- The labels will help reviewers assign a number, but the numbers will be easier to make sense of later on when extracting reports from the system.
- Rating scales in InfoReady Review are independent of each other, meaning that putting more weight in certain criteria is quick and easy to accommodate.
We hope these tips help you build routing steps that lead to an efficient yet thorough review process. For more guidance with setting up routing steps, see the Routing Steps Quick Start Guide in the InfoReady support portal or contact support@inforeadycorp.com.