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.

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.

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.

Fantastic experience and we are so pleased to be using it. Great asset to our application system and it is all we use now for all our programs. Only downside is the support system - which if you are not a tech person can be difficult to understand as you have to explain what your problem is in messages. Just wish you could get phone support and speak to a person . It is great though when they offer to get into your machine and then walk you through it.

Smarter Select is so easy to use. It can be adapted so that you can ask the questions that you require for your grant or funding. The customizable feature is great plus the added bonus of being able to put tips besides questions for applicants to see as they fill in, so that they get the right information in. Being able to create a Frequently Asked Question area, was simply and easy to do and a big help and stopped us getting so many phone or email enquiries . Its an all in one package, you have your applications and then you also have the email facility to send emails to them regarding application queries and more importantly about when funding is awarded. Being able to have review section to make a summary for the review team awarding funding to be able to just read and then award is a fantastic help not just for grants but also our scholarships as saves them time reviewing the whole application. Everything that you need for applications is there at your fingertips or should I say keyboard. Being able to lock applications so that applicants cant go back in and change things on the forms once you have done an initial review is a big help as applicants cant help going back and tweaking things even once after they press submit. So pleased we found that facility after a couple of application cycles.

Sometimes upload is difficult for applicants to use, they have problems as the platforms that they use are not compatible to the systems that can be used. The fact that the body of an email (personal message box) will not let you put in an email address different to what is outside of the letter, and if you put one in and press send it then makes the email disappear and then you have to re write it. The support system is a bit hit and miss depending on how much technical knowledge you have and who you get replying to your enquiry. Chat - itself find that it never really solves the problem and have to request to speak to someone.

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

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.

SPSEF manages over 30 unique scholarship funds, and another six individual grant funds. WE are a small shop with only 1.5 FTE. SmarterSelect allows us to manage and process over 800 applications annually. When we made the decision to migrate over to Smarter Select, we found that we spend muck less time in the management process, which allowed us to spend more time fundraising and working with recipients and donors.

The software allows me to easily create a new scholarship application that is unique and reflective of the donors desires. The fact that I can continue to access data from previous years allows me to remain in contact with our recipients.

The integration inner business was not difficult. Right out of the box, there is a steep learning curve. However, the customer support is very responsive and helpful. I have suggested a few enhancements over the years and have found that SmarterSelect was eager to listen to my concerns and If they could not provide a workaround they will often fix the issue in a subsequent update.

Overall the experience has been a positive one. Customer Service is always helpful and responsive. I wish that it were possible to speak with CS over the phone sometimes though, because instant messaging or email isn't always the fastest. I enjoy the software and it's capabilities. We also use the software for purposes outside of scholarship and it's been a great asset there as well.

There are a lot of great things about this software. I enjoy the ability to customize the site easily, even for those without any sort of web-design knowledge. Being able to send reminders from within the platform is a great time-saver and helpful. The applicants who've used it seem to be able to operate it without much trouble, including from mobile devices. The reports feature is critical for us to track and make notes outside of the platform via Excel. Being able to amend the applicants records and attachments is also simple and helpful when they're running into issues or user errors.

The reminder feature for scholarship applicants could be clearer. In my experience, in order to send reminders to those on "incomplete" statuses and "pending" statues you have to go to two separate parts of the site. It's not the most clear. There's almost too many features. I wish there was a bit more simplicity. It can be very time-consuming. When our reviewers (independent scholarship committee) go into do their part, we've found that the software sometimes will not hold their ratings even though they are saving as they go. This results in a 0 being given in certain categories which was really mess up the metrics. This also requires additional time being spent reviewing the scores to catch any software errors.