Managing and working with Funders

After deciding which fields and sections you require you may wish to look at using a project. With a project you can record key steps and dates in the tendering process. The main thing to think about is what data you need to capture and the basic work flow required for the process. This guide is going to look at using a project and templates to record the tender.

Projects

First of all you will require a project, go to Project Set Up for details. Below is some screen shots as examples for the set up of each page for the project.

General Details

On this screen you simply need to complete the project name and using a standard project.

Record A Contact

Below you will see that a minimum set of fields have been activated as generally they would not be required.

The fields that have been set to be used are:

• Automatic referral closure - after referral/action completion - This is on, as if there is no further work required the funding application will be closed.
• Force entry of time of contact (date is always compulsory) - This is useful to know when things were done/completed.
• Force entry of Contact Method? - Useful to know how things were completed, via phone, email etc.
• Allow entry of Referral Reasons? - Referral Reasons may be required to specify what the funding application is for (which services).

Filed Sets

For this example a field set called 'Funder Applications' has been used with the following fields:

Name
Address line 1
Address line 2
Address line 3
Address line 4 (Town)
Address line 5 (County)
Postcode
Main Telephone No.
Fax/Other Telephone No.
Email Address (Main)
Website
Is this an Org/Signpostee?
Is this a Referrer?
Department
Person/Organisation Category

Code Settings

You may find that classification codes are not required for this project. However they can be used for complex code reporting, breaking applications down into department, service and sub service.

Funding

This tab is not required for this project.

Types of Orgs and People

Many organisation may receive funding from not only local authorities but from other partner organisations. On this tab (in the top section) select the relevant record type that you may receive funding from. The bottom section can generally be ignored for this type of project.

Additional Data Collection

This tab may or may not be required. If there is a need to report on or manage certain aspects of the tender, like amount applied for, amount received etc, then an extension database may be used. If this is the case see Project Setup to determine how the extension database would be displayed, normally set to 'On the Referral screen and History tab'.

3rd Party Systems

Not required for this type of project.

Managing the workflow with a Referral Template

The workflow or process does vary and this section will look at an example work flow. First of all consideration needs to be given to each required process.

Once you have determined the current processes and flow you can then create the Referral Template. Below is an example of the stages created in the template for the above process flow.

The diagram below shows how the above stages have been setup when specifying the next stages. At the decision Received stage the user would specify the next required stage based on the decision.

Extension Database for additional information

To create an extension database to capture additional details for the tender application please see Extension Database Setup. Below is a basic example of an extension database that may be used.

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