Proposal Forms

Post type: grant_proposal_form

Shortcodes: [sare_proposals_manage_forms], [sare_proposals_manage_forms]

This page is only available to regional and national administrators.

Create a new grant proposal form

Contact tech@sare.org with the following information:

  • Grant title (e.g. "2020 Western Research and Education Full Proposal")
  • Project type (Research and Education )
  • Is the proposal a pre-proposal or full proposal
  • Project year
  • If there is an existing proposal form that you want to use as a template, indicate which server it is on (projects or staging) the title of the form and a link to the form.

When your form is created, it will be shown under the "Proposal forms" link on the home page of the server it was created on (projects or staging).

For the desired form, click "Edit form" then,  expand the "Form Details" section to see all of the form details. To make changes click "Edit Form Details".

Editing a proposal form

Edit Form Details

  • Private application
    • if checked, prevents the form from displaying to applicants on the "Start a new grant proposal" page
    • check this for State PDP grants or a grant that is not open to the public
    • you will need to send the "Link for applicant to start proposal" to any potential applicants
  • Call for proposals URL (optional)
    • link to where the applicant can find the CFP online
  • Instructions
    • these will be displayed on the proposal's overview page for the applicant
  • Fixed project start date
    • if the start date for all projects for this grant is the same, you can enter a date here. If you enter a date here, do not add a question with the "Project start date" answer type. This will be used to calculate the number of years for budgets broken out by year. If the start date for all projects for this grant are NOT the same, leave this field blank and you will be required to have a question with the "Project start date" answer type in your form.
  • Fixed project end date
    • If the end date for all projects for this grant is the same, you can enter a date here. If you enter a date here, do not add a question with the "Project end date" answer type. This will be used to calculate the number of years for budgets broken out by year. If the end date for all projects for this grant are NOT the same, leave this field blank and you will be required to have a question with the "Project end date" answer type in your form.
    • This field will populate the "Contract End Date" for the project, if the proposal is approved.
  • Proposal open date
    • first date/time applicants can create a proposal
    • times are in Eastern time zone (e.g. for noon mountain time, enter as 2pm)
  • Proposal close date
    • last date/time when applications can be submitted
    • first date/time reviews can be started
    • times are in Eastern time zone - If you want to close at the end of the day, choose 11:59PM
  • Review close date
    • last date/time when reviews can be completed
    • first date/time the final reviewers can review a proposal 
    • first date/time admins can make a final decision on a proposal
    • times are in Eastern time zone
  • Review max score
    • this is the scale used for reporting the reviews' total scores
    • individual questions can have different scales
  • Exclude additional reviewers' scores from total
    • check if the additional reviewers' scores are to be excluded from the total score
    • only review team members' scores will be used to calculate the average review score for a proposal if this is checked
  • General instructions for reviewers
    • instructions to show at the top of the page when a primary reviewer reviews a proposal
  • Final review max score
    • the scale for the final review scores
  • Final review teams
    • select team(s) to be able to view and review all the proposals
    • final review team can see all the reviews
  • Final review instructions
    • instructions displayed on the final reviewer's page
  • Notification template text for approved proposals
    • a template for messages being sent to applicants with an approved proposal 
  • Notification template text for rejected proposals
    • text to serve as a template for messages being sent to applicants with a rejected proposal 
  • Notification footer/signature
    • text to be appended to messages being sent to cooperators needing confirmation, applicants upon submission or withdrawal of a proposal or custom notifications
    • recommended you include who to contact if the recipient has any questions
    • at least include an email 
    • the contact person's name and phone number would be helpful

Proposal sections

  • Proposal Sections are displayed in a box on the left side of the application main page
  • Proposal Sections contain one or more questions
  • Requirements 
    • expand to show which requirements are met or not met.
    • indicates all questions that are required for this form to be active
    • All full proposals are required to have a question with each of the bold answer types listed in the answer types section below
  • Expand "Sections" to add/edit sections to the proposal form
  • If you don't have a green check by the Sections heading, one of the required questions is missing and the form will not be available to applicants
  • Click "Edit" to the right of the section title to:
    • change the section title
    • add instructions to be shown to the applicant at the top of the section editing page
  • Click on a section's title to collapse/expand that section and to add/edit questions that appear under that section
  • Click "Add Section" button at the bottom of the Sections to add a new section
    • Section name: text to be displayed in the sections box
    • Order: order this section appears in the list of sections; displayed in increasing numerical order
    • Active: if checked, this section will be displayed to the applicants
    • Description: the text to be displayed at the top of the page when the applicant clicks on the section
      • use for general instructions for all the questions in the section

*Pre-proposals need to have a project start and end date if adding a budget

Editing section

  • Edit 
    • edit the options entered when you first added the section
  • Add Question
    • Question: the actual question
      • should be the same as the call for proposals
      • will be displayed in the "view proposal" as the question
    • Instructions
      • instructions to applicant for answering the question
    • Answer Type
      • select the type of answer
      • depending on the answer type, you will get different options

Answer types

bold - question is required 
* copied  into project report when proposal is approved - if the report has this field
For fields that are to be copied to the project/report, only one question per answer type (with the exception of cooperators) will be copied over.

  • Text - limited to one line (plain text - no formatting)
  • Text - multiline (plain text - no formatting)
  • WYSIWYG Editor - will allow formatting (e.g. bold, italics, tables, bulleted lists, alignment, etc.)
  • WYSIWYG Editor with Media - same as above but figures, graphs, images can also be added
  • Radio Buttons - will only allow one choice of the various choices added by you
  • Dropdown - will only allow one choice of the various choices added by you
  • Checkboxes - allow selection any number of the various choices added by you
  • Number - a number field
  • Date - a date picker
  • People - fields for each person (only name is required)
    • email; first name; last name; name prefix; name suffix; job title; institution, organization or business name; institution, organization or business type; address; address line 2; city; state; zip; country; office phone; cell phone; website; additional information
  • Cooperators *
    • same options for each person with the addition of a "roles"
      field choose cooperator roles to allow
    • choose cooperator roles requiring confirmation - these will
      be emailed a link to confirm their participation when the
      application is submitted
    • email, first and last names are required
    • If a cooperator has multiple roles, the following rules will be applied when a project is created:
      • If they have any coordinator role (e.g. Co-PI, Co-Leader, Major Professor) they will be added to the projects as a coordinator/major professor for the project and none other.
      • If they have an "additional graduate student" role, they will be added to the projects as an additional graduate student and none other.
  • Copy from pre-proposal
    • Select the question to be used as the template - applicant's
      data will be copied from their pre-proposal to their full
      proposal
      when approved.
  • File Upload (one file allowed)
    • Choose allowed file types; PDF, Excel, Image
  • Multiple File Upload (multiple files allowed)
    • Choose allowed file types; PDF, Excel, Image
  • Project Start Date
  • Project End Date *
  • Project State * 
    • used for searching/reporting projects by state
  • Project Abstract/Summary *
    • choose from WYSIWYG with or without media or plain text
  • Project Objectives *
    • choose from WYSIWYG with or without media or plain text
  • Introduction *
  • Research Hypothesis *
  • Research Materials & Methods *
  • Number Of Farmers/Ranchers Participating In Research *
  • Outreach Description *
  • Educational Approach *
  • Commodities *
    • uses commodities list from reporting system
  • Practices *
    • uses practices  list from reporting system
  • Benefits and Impacts *
    • uses benefits and impacts  list from reporting system
  • Project Institution Information *
    • name and institution type
    • used for budgets that break out by institution 
  • Budget *
    • break out by year?
    • break out by institution? (requires the "Project I\institution Information" field)
    • choose the categories to be offered to applicant to choose from
    • Cannot have both “budget” and “amount requested”, can only have one or the other.
  • Amount Requested
    • funding amount requested if a Budget is not needed
    • Cannot have both “budget” and “amount requested”, can only have one or the other. If you want both, add "amount requested" as a "number" question type.
  • Milestones - NE R&E, NE PDP Competitive
    • Choose the amount to limit list items to
  • Performance Target* - NE R&E. Farmers, Service Providers
    • Choose the amount to limit list items to

Review Questions

  • "Add review question" button at the bottom of the page to add a review question. 
  • Question: the actual review question
    • recommend keeping it short - you can add more context in the instructions
    • shown on the review summary pages
  • Yes/No response - makes this a yes/no question
    • yes/no questions are required to be answered 
    • Allow Maybe response - makes this a yes/no/maybe question
  • Scorable - makes this a scorable question
    • scorable questions are required to be answered 
    • Max score - defaults to the form's "Max review score" value
    • Weight - the weighting of this question.
      • the sum of all scorable questions' weights must equal 100
      • you are not able to change the weighting after a reviewer has answered this question
  • Allow comments - may be used with either Yes/No or Scorable questions or by itself to make this a "comments only" type question.
    • Comments required - the reviewer must enter some text to be able to complete their review
  • Instructions - the instructions to be shown the reviewer above their answer