OpenWater

RATING:

4.7

(45)

About OpenWater

OpenWater is a cloud-based solution that helps users manage the entire lifecycle of grant programs from registration to submission of various types of grants by reaching out to potential grantees. Key features include outcomes measurement, payment tracking, financial reporting, self-registration and grant award tracking. Designed for foundations, non-profits, corporations and government agencies, OpenWater's drag-and-drop interface provides form building tools to collect contact information and store them in a unified database for future reference. The team-based application comes with custom tools comprising dependant/multi-category fields to gather a wide range of data based on client requirements. Additionally, administrators can manage user access to review gra...
Wow applicants and raise the prestige of your award, through an OpenWater awards website.

OpenWater Reviews

Overall Rating

4.7

Ratings Breakdown

Secondary Ratings

Ease-of-use

4.5

Customer Support

5

Value for money

4.5

Functionality

4.5

Most Helpful Reviews for OpenWater

1 - 5 of 45 Reviews

Josh

E-Learning, 2 - 10 employees

Used less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

Reviewed September 2021

Powerful and flexible awards management system

User Profile

Leo

Verified reviewer

Publishing, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed May 2018

Great service and even better support.

It reduces the amount of time and effort it takes to run a program and extract the data collected.

PROS

It is extremely configurable and the company is very responsive to the needs of the customer. They have added features and functionalities that were not available so that they could suit our needs.

CONS

Some of the native reporting features could use improvement but were created for us at our request. It would be nice to be able to duplicate entries from a 2 step program into a 1 step program.

Taunie

Computer Software, 201-500 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed October 2019

A very adaptable solution.

PROS

We weren't actively looking for a contest management solution but a Sales representative reached out to gauge our interest in OpenWater, after hearing about our Construction Intern Awards scholarship program. Up until that point we had been using Wordpress to manage this competition, which included a lot of manual maintenance, popular voting plugins, a bulky media gathering process, entry content display delays, and several other headaches. On top of that, we had to use other solutions to manage the judging portion of the contest, which involved either rigging survey products or creating a mess of spreadsheets but both caused confusion for the judges. What we liked most about OpenWater is that it addressed all of the above problems we were facing and allowed us the freedom to customize almost everything. Every other contest management software that we looked at wouldn't let us use our own CSS/HTML to style the site, relying on some sort of WYSIWIG instead. After the initial setup, OpenWater was a huge timesaver. We have also had outstanding support reps since the beginning of implementation. We've asked for a lot during our time using OpenWater and they definitely come through for us.

CONS

Our contest is set up in a pretty unconventional way (weekly popular vote-based contests combined with a separate traditional scholarship application), and OpenWater has done a good job of keeping up with our requests. There are several smaller, nit-picky things about the popular vote functionality that could be improved but it's still better than what we were doing before. Another factor that we've had to work around is the fact that the contest dashboard looks the same for everyone who visits the dashboard, regardless of user type (applicant/judge/voter), which can be confusing for some users.

Reason for choosing OpenWater

We decided to choose OpenWater over alternative solutions because of the customization options. We wanted more options than just being able to select our brand colors and upload a logo to a standard form (which is the case with most solutions we came across). OpenWater gave us the freedom to adapt the application portal to match are website CSS as well as other customization options, like SMTP for emailing.

Elle

Verified reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed May 2019

Working Well with Multiple Departments

My company is using OpenWater to accept grant application submissions from individual faculty. Other departments also use the platform to accept student fellowship and volunteer applications. Overall we are able to do what we need, however there is no easy way to reveal blinded submissions for judging rounds. We're still in the building stages- and we like that we can build one round at a time instead of needing to have the judging settings set up before accepting applications.

PROS

In our organization the greatest asset for this software is the ability to host multiple sites. We're able to put application opportunities on separate secure platforms, each for different audiences.

CONS

The round options and judging settings are not automatically user-friendly. Another staff member had to spend some time explaining the features in detail before anyone from my team could use the product. For instance it isn't clear that the open round automatically has judging set up based on which program type is selected. And there is no testing feature- in order to test the application portal you must open the submission round. We also had to switch which staff would have super-user status since only two are allowed.

Carleen

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed July 2021

Best of the Best

We've been with OpenWater for about 7 years now. We haven't considered looking elsewhere for our Awards needs. The program has the functionality we need, the price is extremely reasonable, and the customer support is above reproach.

PROS

OpenWater is very easy to use. The training videos and knowledge base are extensive and easy to use. The support team is superb - always available and willing to help. I have a dedicated support member, so there is excellent consistency. She knows our organization, she knows our program, and she knows our needs.

CONS

I would like more user-friendly reports. It would be nice to create my own custom reports a bit more easily. But this is not a deal-breaker. It likely has more to do with the kinds of complex reports I'm looking for than OpenWater's ability to provide good reporting.

Reason for choosing OpenWater

The price was right. The sales team didn't harass us (as the others did for years). The implementation and roll-out processes were very easy.