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.

It's incredibly user friendly and easy for applicants to use. Our evaluators are also happy with product's ability to be so user friendly. Their customer service is phenomenal, fast, friendly and useful.

I would love to be notified, per program, of evaluators completing their evaluations. The logic of some questions could also use some improvements. I also wish there was a way to copy a question so I didn't have to repeat the work multiple times.

Smarter Select has streamlined our grant and scholarship work which is very important with a small staff.

The application creation and design is very easy. The autoscoring, bulk e-mail messaging, data export, copying of existing programs for the next year, application review are all great features that make the grant and scholarship application very smooth. We use the common application for our scholarships which eliminates duplicate data entry for the same questions on the part of applicants.

It would be nice to be able to import applications into other software. It looks like in the last question in the survey askes about integrating with other products. I would like more information on that. Also while the e-mail support works sometimes it would be nice to be able to speak to someone in person.

We are able to begin and end our grants management procedures within the same system. This has been a huge time and cost saver for our foundation. The board members and grants committee members have been more than pleased with the ease of reviewing and evaluating submitted applications.

The applications are easily customizable, with question options for every type of inquiry (i.e., statistics, essays, contact). The forms settings, auto calculate, and rules are very useful, but take a bit of technical proclivity to get a good hold on. However, SmarterSelect provides excellent customer service and also has a vast library of tutorial videos. The Evaluator options are also extremely useful, especially when one has a board of 20+ and needs to keep reviews and scores organized in one location. While the export features need a bit of an upgrade, this software has made streamlined our grants management procedures.

The major qualm I have with SmarterSelect is the export options. Neither export to a pleasing, reader-friendly format. Most of our board members review online, which is ideal, but for those that prefer a printed binder, the export design ends up costing me more time than it should.

Overall, it has been a good experience and the price has been reasonable for our small office. Even with the price increase it is understandable. I just want to make sure we are using what is available to us as changes to the software are made and our grandfathered price increases.

It is very affordable and does what we need it to. I like to be able to have a common application for scholarships and to customize the specific scholarships. The online evaluation makes it easy and online recommendations, too.

Applicants get confused about having to click the APPLY button to "CREATE" a final grant report. It is confusing to them. They think they are applying for another grant which isn't the case. Also, the very tiny save button at the bottom of the grant applications and final reports gets missed and the information is not saved which is frustrating for the grantees because they have to start over.

Everything is there, basic demographics, narratives, numbers and purpose.

Exporting easy but data clean up is cumbersome. Should have an accessible knowledge base to search for answers to easy fixes

Exceptional!!! Bottom line this software is excellent​! And the customer service is by far first rate.

SmarterSelect is very easy to use and the customer support is exceptional. Our organization has been using SmarterSelect for several years and the software continues to get better. I like that they continue to improve the software. I also like they make it a point to train their customers on their new features and upgrades.

There is not much that I do not like about the software. There are some back-end reporting things that I find cumbersome such as when a parent/guardian creates an application for their son or daughter that person's name appears on the reports first not the actual applicant's​ name. This poses a challenge when you are looking up applications by the applicant's name. Another issue with this is the recommender receives an email that does not say the actual applicant's name. The recommender does not see the name of the actual applicant until he​ or she opens the email. For example, if I create an account and start an application for my son Anthony, the recommender would receive an email that says Alex Rivera has requested that you submit a recommendation for the Achieve Scholarship. It is not until the email is opened that the recommender sees that Anthony is the actual person applying for the scholarship. This is often confusing for the recommenders. ​

We thoroughly enjoy using the SmarterSelect software for our scholarship applications and highly recommend this program.

Using the SmarterSelect software is very intuitive, and translated well from the hard copies of applications we used in the past. It is very easy to track when applications come in, and then to assign to evaluators. We are able to use the software for awards nominations, for scholarships and grants, and even for approving trademark designs. With applicants from across the country, there is easy access through the links we put on our website. Our evaluators are also able to access the applications from any location. Staff members find it easy to set up new applications with the copy feature, and adjustments area also simple to make.

We have not had any difficulties. If the staff have questions, the support team is always very timely with their responses.

Soooo streamlined! I love that I can customize the application to meet my needs. Students say it's a much better process on their end, and I get better results because the parameters of the app require them to upload certain file types, require answers to some questions, and flag if they miss any questions. A huge time saver on the administrative time for me - and there are reports I can pull throughout the application period to keep my finger on the pulse of things. Plus, my evaluators can quickly review the apps and rank them without needing to open and download lots of files - and again, easy to pull reports. Huge timesaver and brings us into the 21st century!

The learning curve is there - it takes a while to get the knack of things. And setting up the application and revising it to be exactly what you want can be cumbersome. There's not a great way to test the application other than creating "fake" applications to ensure everything works smoothly. That said - it works very well for our needs and allows me to process more apps in less time with much less frustration for both me and our candidates!

SO GLAD that we don't have to paper applications and send copies to reviewers. This has streamlined our process immensely.

Relatively easy to create an application. Great online support. Very good value.

My applicants seem to have a problem when I give them a link to a new app. It's as if Smarter Select has put a cookie on their computer and my new link takes them to an old app. The Prequalifying questions have to be answered with all "Yes" responses. Sometimes that means that the question I must create is convoluted and confusing.