Using Multitrack Competitions

Written by Sarah Yecke | 04/24/2022

Do you have applications or review processes that vary widely yet would still like to manage within one competition or opportunity? Multitrack competitions in InfoReady have all the components of a regular competition, with the added functionality of being able to send applications down a certain customized "track", based on an initial gating question. All of the tracks are then managed from the same dashboard, namely the Enhanced Application Grid.

Administrators can set up tracks based on either 1) a pre-established institutional hierarchy using the Primary Organization list (e.g. colleges and departments) or 2) create a custom multiple choice question. Each answer in the gating question is associated with a different track and administrators can set up as many tracks as needed. In many cases, the feature can be used in place of a standard “skip logic” question that determines which application form is presented to the applicant or which review process will be used. Each track’s requirements, routing steps, notifications, and progress reports can be customized as needed, or copied track to track. Administrators manage the multitrack creation process from a simplified Status Table:

From an applicant perspective, the user experience is fairly straightforward and seamless. Applicants answer a multiple choice question and their selection takes them to the corresponding application form for the track. Additional instructions can guide them to make the appropriate choice:

On the back end, administrators can work with each application individually, or in groups as part of each track. The Enhanced Application Grid includes a dropdown to sort by track.

Because multitrack competitions are an option for both Funding Opportunity and General template forms, the use cases are practically limitless! Here’s a short list of ways this feature could be used:

Applications that vary by:

Academic area
Project topic
PI’s primary title
Student’s academic year

Review processes that vary by:

Subject matter
Requested funding amount
Department or review committee

All clients with the Gold, Platinum, or Enterprise license-level currently have access to multitrack competitions. Have more questions about this feature? Contact support@inforeadycorp.com. If you would like to add multitrack to your license, please contact your account manager or info@inforeadycorp.com.

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