Great software. Great support. Great value.

It's easy to make custom applications and export the data from those applications, which saves time doing boring data entry work. The custom options help me offer tools to our review committees, which makes their partnerships with us more meaningful. It also has turned our application process nearly paperless, which saves us printing and paper costs, and makes looking up historical information easy.

Pros

Smarter Select is an easy-to-use platform that meets many needs for our organization. We can easily and quickly create custom applications for our variety of grant and scholarship programs. We find it very valuable to have online evaluator access, which allows our committees to get a jump start on the review process, oftentimes allowing them to reduce their number of in-person meetings, which is a big plus for busy schedules. Because application data can be easily exported into a csv/spreadsheet file, it is easy to upload to our database management system, which saves me countless hours of data entry. When I have had issues in the past, their support staff have been amazingly responsive -- my issues are often addressed and fixed the same day. I also appreciate their focus on education. Their free webinars have made it easy for me to understand the software's capabilities and new features and upgrades. All around, I'm a big fan of Smarter Select and would not be able to do my job as efficiently or easy without it!

Cons

Honestly, I have very few negative comments concerning Smarter Select. There are a few quirks to the system that you have to get used to, but once you do, it's very reliable and easy to use. Honestly, I'm hard pressed to come up with an actual con. If I can offer an improvement, it would be that once users log in, they could see any applications they have yet to complete, instead of just past applications. I would also like a way to better sort disabled past applications -- we have a lot of different apps and it gets a little crowded looking through our history. Other than that, it really is a great product.

SmarterSelect for Grants and Scholarships

We have been a SmarterSelect "Bells & Whistles" subscriber since 2012. A a county-wide community foundation we utilize the program for our annual community grant cycle, multiple teacher grant programs, and over 40 scholarship programs. Each of these programs including a application, grant acceptance, and final report component. We evaluated multiple software programs before selecting SmarterSelect and continue to review programs recommended by our field. We have not found another program that offers the flexibility, features, and functionality of SmarterSelect. The SmarterSelect development team is receptive to ideas for new/enhanced features and is very responsive to issues.

Pros

The program continues to evolve in response to user input. Technical support and online tutorials make program creation and editing simple. The ability to copy & edit programs makes preparation for annual grant & scholarship cycles quick and easy. The creation of 40+ scholarship programs, some requiring unique applications and some utilizing a common application was initially a daunting task, but once the initial time investment was made, each year requires less and less time. The program itself is not difficult to use. The more complex and diverse your needs, the more complex the process becomes; however, an information technology or programming specialist is not required.

Cons

Latency. The time it takes to move between applications can cause frustration for system administrators and evaluators.

Would like more user-friendly and customization!

Pros

I like that it meets the basic needs of our program in terms of letting students apply to our program.

Cons

The user interface feels very slow and clunky. It's not super intuitive. For example, when creating an application form, I assume I can just edit by clicking on what I see, but in order to actually edit a section, I have to click through the sections on the right hand side first, and that doesn't seem very intuitive. I also wish we could create our own statuses that would allow us to do specific autoscoring. For example, one of the things we need to do is make sure that the applicants have submitted the correct attachments. I wish we could check for that in SmarterSelect continuously throughout the application period and not just at the end.

The platform is easy to navigate and very helpful. I do have issues with getting responses from CS.

This has helped our program streamline our application process. It also makes it possible to contact applicants and receive documentation more efficiently. Thank to this program we are able to track metrics and properly evaluate our recruitment and program.

Pros

I love the new features and how easy it is to contact/update applicants. Creating our own blast emails and having the capability to edit pre-formatted ones also helps us with our unique application process.

Cons

Whenever I have an issue with the platform, or unsure about the limitations of a feature I find it difficult to contact customer service or a specialist. The "Submit form" process is not personable and difficult to explain the issues I experience. I would prefer to have an account manager to discuss how to maximize the efficiency of the platform rather than the videos, which are not helpful in our unique process. Also, I would like to have the capability to split the application into phases, and not sure if that is possible with this platform.

From scholarship application to chapter evaluation

As our chapter success plan process relies heavily on administrator access, multi-end user access, and evaluator access, SmarterSelect has been a perfect solution for use for this project.

Pros

We have used the system for years as part of our scholarship and fellowship application process. This past year, we introduced a new chapter planning and evaluation tool for our organization. We decided to put this tool in SmarterSelect because of the ease of use by both the administrator and the end-user. The ability to have the end-user save work and come back has been invaluable. Since this is an evaluation tool, the ability to give multiple individuals evaluator access was a key factor in our decision to put this process in SmarterSelect.

Cons

The form builder fuction can be confusing at times.