Updated Import Applicant Award History

Organization Owners, Program Owners, and Program Managers have the option to import awarded application history details from their legacy system to their NextZen platform, offering administrators a holistic view of their relationship with awarded applicants over time.

We've updated our Applicant Award History import functionality to accommodate additional data points, providing you with more comprehensive historical records. Using a CSV file, the user has the option to import all or selected ranges of awarded applicant history details. Imported field options now include expanded data points such as: Name of program, Award Status/Decision, Award Amount, Applied Date, Awarded Date, Accepted Date, and more.  Reporting on Applicant Award History is to follow in a later release. 

For detailed guidance, we've created a comprehensive help article with step-by-step instructions for both Applicant Award History and Profile imports, including downloadable templates to ensure successful data migration.

Reimbursement Invoice Generation

Program Owners and Managers can now generate PDF invoices directly from reimbursement requests. This feature simplifies the reimbursement process by allowing organizations to create and customize formal invoices, which are essential for processing through ERP and AP systems. By automating this step, you can expect faster reimbursements and improved compliance with audit requirements.  For instructions on how to generate a reimbursement invoice, please see this article.

Enhanced Program Manager Control: Review Process

Program Managers can now start Review Rounds directly from the Intake Round listing page, eliminating unnecessary navigation steps and streamlining the application review process. The existing functionality on the Review Round page remains unchanged.

Additionally, Program Managers have gained the ability to test and publish workflows independently, including for rolling application cycles, providing greater autonomy and reducing administrative bottlenecks.

These enhancements maintain the existing Review Round page functionality while adding convenient access points that save time and improve program administration efficiency.

Export Functionality Enhancements

Enhanced Export CSV: Improved Request Data Correlation

The Export All CSV feature now includes additional data fields that better correlate intake form responses with submitted requests. The enhanced export includes critical request information such as intakeSection, intakeField, recipient details (name, title, email), status, and timestamps. This improvement ensures more accurate data mapping and provides a more comprehensive view of the relationship between intake forms and their associated requests.

Improved Handling of Large Exports

The Export "All Application Data" functionality has been enhanced to handle large volumes more efficiently. For programs with numerous records (1000+), exports now process asynchronously via a queued job system, preventing timeouts and failures during large exports.

Key improvements:

• Real-time export status updates while on the Intake Round listing page
• Ability to download completed exports directly from the interface
• Clear status indicators for completed, in-progress, and failed exports

Note: This enhancement currently applies to the "Export All Application Data" function on the Intake Round listing page. The Review Round listing page export functionality remains unchanged.

Also Released:

Our team has been hard at work addressing bugs—some of which are minor annoyances, and some which we know introduce workflow blockers. Here's a summary of key improvements from this month’s releases:

Email System Enhancements

• Email Deadline Display Fix: We've resolved an issue where notification emails were displaying deadline dates in UTC time format instead of the intended local deadline date. All email notifications now correctly show deadline dates in the appropriate time zone, ensuring users receive accurate timing information for their submissions.
• Status Notification Accuracy: We fixed a critical issue where waitlisted applicants were receiving incorrect notice of application status.
• Reviewer Experience Improvement: We addressed a dual issue with reviewer automatic emails - login buttons are now properly included, and review deadline notifications are successfully delivered even when schedules are set for the day after.

Applicant Experience

Form Enhancements:

• The gender field dropdown is now fully visible.
• “Copy from above” functionality correctly displays in both Individual and Organization profile forms, reducing duplicate data entry.
• We resolved an issue where request forms that included a signature field prevented applications from being submitted and applicants from receiving an error message. 
• When a required field is missed on a profile form, the user is now properly notified and directed to the field.
• The "request a revision to this application" option no longer displays for applications that have already advanced.
• Award agreements now correctly display all terms and conditions during the acceptance process, ensuring awardees review complete documentation.

PDF Documentation Improvements:

• Applicants can now save and download their applications in draft form, allowing them to review their content offline or share it with others before final submission.
• The filled/completed budget section is now displayed in the downloaded PDF.
• Hidden fields are no longer displayed to applicants in the PDF download.
• Award agreement PDF downloads no longer contain raw HTML and show the corrected multi-select values.

Navigation & System Reliability:

• Applicants can now download their full draft application, allowing them to review their content offline or share it with others before final submission.
• We eliminated the 404 error that occurred when applicants clicked "Back to all reimbursement requests" while reviewing expense details.

Review Experience and Management

• Review assignments now correctly display a single feedback form.
• Reviewer status indicators now accurately reflect current review progress and completion and assign-by-group review assignment counts now properly align with the counts shown in the slideout panel.
• Review Rounds now supports setting score field percentages to zero for non-weighted criteria.
• We fixed data inconsistencies that occurred when multiple reviewers submitted scored feedback on the same candidate.
• We restored proper functionality to the review candidates export feature, ensuring complete and accurate data extraction.