Contents

• Overview
• ⚠️Important Notes
• Step-By-Step Instructions
  • Open a Report
  • Approve a Report
    • What Happens After a Report is Approved?
  • Reject a Report
    • What Happens After a Report is Rejected?
• Awardee Experience
• Related Articles

Overview

This step-by-step guide shows Program Admins how to approve or reject a submitted Progress Report in Next. 

• Who can approve/reject a progress report? 
  • Organization Owners 
  • Client Admins (in partner-managed accounts) 
  • Program Owners
  • Program Managers

Looking for instructions on how to request a revision to a progress report? See ➡️ Request Progress Report Revisions.

⚠️Important Notes 

• Eligible statuses: You can only approve or reject reports with a status of “Submitted,” “Late Submitted,” or “Revision Requested.” After a report is approved or rejected, no further action is available. 
   
• Rejecting is final: Once a report is marked Rejected, it cannot be edited, resubmitted, or reopened — there is currently no way to undo it. If you want to give the awardee a chance to fix and resubmit a report, use Request Revision instead of Reject.
   
• New Reports Can't Be Submitted During Amendments: If an amendment is in progress on this award, the awardee can't start any new progress reports until the amendment is complete. Drafted reports can be submitted, and reports already submitted remain available to approve, reject, or request a revision on.
   

Step-By-Step Instructions 

Open the Report

1.  In the program, click the cycle name to open the cycle. 
   
   
    
2. In the award cycle, click  Post Award > Progress Reports in the left-hand menu. 
   
   

3. On the Progress Reports screen, click the hyperlinked Report Name to open the report. 

Approve a Report 

1. In the report, click Admin Controls in the upper-right corner. A panel slides open from the right side of the screen. 
   
   
    
2. In the Admin Controls panel, Click Approve Report.
   
   
    
3. In the confirmation pop-up, enter an optional comment in the Comments box, then click Approve Report. 
   
   

• A confirmation message appears at the top of the screen. 

What Happens After a Report is Approved? 

• Status Updates: The report’s status updates to “Approved” in both the program admin and awardee views. 
   

• Email Notification: The awardee receives an automatic email informing them that the report was approved in the subject line. 
  
  

  This email is set up by default, under the trigger "Report Approved" in the Post-Award stage. To remove this email or edit the template, see ➡️ How to Manage Your Email Communications Setup + How to Manage Your Email Communications Template Library.

   

• If a Disbursement is Linked to the Report: If the report was a dependency for a disbursement, you’ll now be able to initiate that disbursement. 
   

Reject a Report 

1. In the report, click Admin Controls in the upper-right corner. A panel slides open from the right side of the screen. 
   
   
    
2. In the Admin Controls panel, Click Reject Report.
   
   
    
3. In the confirmation pop-up, select the checkboxes next to the reason(s) for rejecting the report (You can select more than one), then click Reject Report. 

• A confirmation message appears at the top of the screen. 

What Happens After a Report is Rejected? 

Important: Once a report is rejected, the awardee cannot resubmit it. . 

• Status Updates: The report’s status updates to “Rejected” in both the program admin and awardee views. 
   
• Email Notification: The awardee receives an automatic email informing them that the report was rejected in the subject line. 

This email is set up by default, under the trigger Report Rejected in the Post-Award stage. To remove this email or edit the template, see ➡️ How to Manage Your Email Communications Setup + How to Manage Your Email Communications Template Library.

• Awardee Can View Rejection Reason: When the awardee logs into their portal and opens the report, they can see the rejection reason you selected. 
   
• If a Disbursement is Linked to the Report: If the report was a dependency for a disbursement, you won’t be able to initiate payment for that disbursement.
   

Awardee Experience 

• Awardees can check the status of their progress reports in the applicant portal by going to Your Awards > View > Reports.
   
• Approved and rejected reports show the matching status.
   
• Awardees can see any admin comments tied to the approval or rejection decision. 

💡 For the full awardee-facing steps, see ➡️ Submit a Progress Report (coming soon).

Related Articles

➡️Request Progress Report Revisions

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