Contents

• Overview
• What are Soft and Hard Close Dates?
• ⚠️Important Notes
• How This Works With Rolling and Non-Rolling Cycles
• Step-By-Step Instructions
  • Enable Soft and Hard Close Dates
  • Add Soft and Hard Close Dates to the Intake Round
• What Applicants See
• Related Articles

Overview

This step-by-step guide shows Program Admins how to set Soft and Hard Close Dates for the Intake Round. 

What are Soft and Hard Close Dates?

Soft and Hard Close Dates let you set two deadlines for an award cycle. 

• Soft Close Date: The public deadline applicants see. 
• Hard Close Date: The final cut-off,  not visible to applicants. 

This feature lets you set a clear deadline that keeps applicants motivated to submit on time, while quietly giving yourself extra room to accept late submissions. 

• Who can enable soft/hard close dates and set them up?
  • Organization Owners
  • Client Admins
  • Program Owners
  • Program Managers

⚠️Important Notes

• Soft and Hard Close Dates currently applies to the Intake Round only (when you accept applications). It is not available for Review Round deadlines. 
   
• To extend either the Soft or Hard Close Date after it has passed in a published cycle, you must unpublish first. See ➡️ What You Can and Cannot Edit After Publishing Your Cycle for the full rules on what's editable after publishing. 

How This Works With Rolling and Non-Rolling Cycles

Not sure which cycle type you have? If Rolling Applications is not enabled in Cycle Settings > Workflow > Workflow Options, you're running a deadline-based cycle. For more info about each cycle type, see ➡️Deadline-Based Cycles vs. Rolling Cycles. 

🗓️ Deadline-Based Cycles

The Review Round stays closed until the Hard Close Date passes. Program admins can see the Hard Close Date during the Intake Round. Once it passes, you can start the Review Round. For more help, see ➡️Start First Review Round: Deadline-Based Cycles.

🔄 Rolling Cycles

You can manually move any completed application into the Review Round at any time — independent of both the Soft and Hard Close Dates. For more help, see ➡️Rolling Cycles Administration.

 

Step-By-Step Instructions 

Enable Soft and Hard Close Dates

1. Open the program, then click the gear icon to the far right of the cycle to open Cycle Settings. 
   
   
    
2. In Cycle Settings, click Workflow in the top menu, then select Workflow Options from the left menu.  
   
   
    
3. Toggle Soft and Hard Close Dates to Enabled. 
   
   ⚠️IMPORTANT: This toggle cannot be changed during test mode or after publishing your award cycle. 
   
   
    
4. Click Save Changes in the upper-right corner of the screen. 
   
   

• A confirmation message appears in the bottom-left corner of the screen. 
   

Add Soft and Hard Close Dates to the Intake Round 

1. In Cycle Settings, click Workflow in the top menu, then select Workflow Builder from the left menu.  
   
   
   
2. Click Expand+ in the upper-right corner of the intake round where you want to add the deadlines. 
   
   
    

3. Complete the following in the side panel: 
    

   a. Select your Soft Close Date using the calendar dropdown – the deadline applicants will see. Once you select a date, a time dropdown will appear. Select a deadline time from the dropdown. 
   
   
   
    

   b. Select your Hard Close Date using the calendar dropdown – your final cut-off, not visible to applicants. Once you select a date, a time dropdown will appear. Select a deadline time from the dropdown. 
   
   
   
   
   ⚠️IMPORTANT: Your Hard Close Date must be on or after your Soft Close Date. Entering them out of order (in either field) will trigger an error when you try to save. 
   
    

   c. Select a time zone from the time zone dropdown. 
   
   
   
    

4. To finish setting up the rest of the intake round settings, see ➡️Set Up an Intake Round. 
    

What Applicants See

• Applicants only ever see the Soft Close Date — on the Intake Form (application), Opportunities page, their Applications page, and in reminder emails.

  📌Note: The Soft Close Date also determines when the Intake deadline reminder email is sent.
  
  Example Opportunities Page: 
  
  

   

• The window between the Soft and Hard Close Dates is essentially a “grace period.” 
  • The application isn't locked during the grace period — if an applicant applies or submits after the Soft Close Date has passed, but before the Hard Close Date, it's accepted normally, with no message that they were late. 
  • Once the Hard Close Date passes, the application closes completely. 
     

Related Articles

➡️Set Up an Intake Round
➡️Set Up a Review Round







 

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