This release brings improvements across the board, from a smoother Participant Network experience and support for running multiple Cycles in parallel, to expanded approval controls and a first wave of enhancements to the Financial Module. Read on for the full breakdown.

Participant Network Enhancements

Org Owners now see pending membership requests directly in the Participant Network table, alongside some layout improvements that make the table easier to scan. 

A membership request happens when an applicant asks to join an organization already in Next, so they can apply on that organization's behalf — this approval step keeps anyone from claiming to represent an organization without permission. These requests normally go to the organization's Profile Owner, but when there's no Profile Owner, Org Owners can now step in and manage them directly.

The Member Requests column shows a hyperlinked count of pending requests for each organization, so Org Owners can spot and jump into them without digging through individual profiles.

Learn more: See Pending Membership Requests in Your Participant Network

"Submittable Next" Branding Consistency 

We've audited and updated all outgoing emails, notifications, and generated documents to remove any remaining legacy "NextZen" or "WizeHive" branding, so everything awardees, reviewers, and admins see is consistently Submittable.

Next up: updating the product's URL, which currently still references wizehive.app. This will be changing to a Submittable-branded URL — more to come on that.

Parallel Published Cycles 

Program Owners and Managers can now publish multiple Cycles at once within a single program — the old "close previous cycle" gate is gone. Start a new Cycle for a fresh group of applicants while an existing Cycle is already in review or awarding, and both run side by side without stepping on each other.

Applicants see each published Cycle as a separate opportunity in the Opportunities portal and apply to whichever one fits best. Reviewers don't lose anything either — access to in-progress reviews from earlier Cycles stays available through the Cycle Selector.

Please contact support if you need this setting turned on for your programs.

Learn more: Parallel Published Cycles (Coming Soon)→

Reviewer Conflict of Interest Enhancement

Program Admins can now turn the Conflict of Interest question on or off per review round, and decide whether reviewers must explain their conflict with a required comment field — set independently for each round, so it can apply to just the first round or all of them. 

When a reviewer reports a conflict, their assignment is removed and admins can see their comment clearly from the Review Assignments panel. Reviewers get clearer guidance on what's expected of them, and can now reverse their response if they selected it by accident.

Learn more: Using the Conflict of Interest Question in Review Rounds

Approver Customized Certification Statement 

Program Owners and Program Managers can now require a custom certification statement for each approval group — across Award, Disbursement, and Reimbursement approvals alike. 

Approvers must check a box to acknowledge the statement before they can approve, and may add a note if they wish. The acknowledged text is preserved permanently in the approval audit history.

Learn more: Customized Sign-Off Language (Coming Soon) →

Approval Configuration Enhancements

Added a new Minimum Decisions Required toggle. Previously, only approvals counted toward the minimum. With this enabled, any response — approve or reject — counts toward the minimum, and once it's met, remaining approvers are automatically lapsed.

Learn more: How to Set Up Approvals for Awarding, Disbursements & Reimbursements (Updates coming soon to this article)

Financial Features & Enhancements

This release kicks off a series of improvements to the Financial Module, giving admins more control over what awardees submit, more visibility into disbursement documentation, and stronger safeguards against overspending. This is just the first wave; more Financial Module enhancements are on the way in upcoming releases.

The following features and enhancements are for those using our Financial Module.

Expense Settings Enhancements 

Two new cycle-level controls give admins more say over what awardees submit with an expense:

• Mandatory Upload — make the Upload field required on awardee expense submissions, so receipts and invoices are always collected up front.

• Service Period — a new date-range field on expense logging that ties each expense to the period it actually covers.

Learn more: Help Article (Coming Soon) →

Attachments on Disbursements 

Program Owners and Program Managers can now upload supporting documents — invoices, contracts, award letters and purchase orders — directly to a disbursement when creating or editing it. 

Approvers see and can download those same attachments, read-only, right from the approval flow, so everything they need to make a decision is in one place.

Once a disbursement is paid, its attachments lock, keeping the record exactly as it was at the time of payment.

Learn more: Disbursements (Coming Soon)→

Award Balance Enforcement 

Award Balance Enforcement lets Program Owners and Program Managers cap the combined total of disbursements and expenses at the award amount, so spending can never exceed what was awarded. The setting is off by default and, once a cycle moves to Test or Publish, locks in place for that cycle. Validation runs at award creation, entry, and amendment — so an over-award can't slip through at any stage.

Note: Currently, in the product, this feature is labeled as Award Tie-Up. This will be corrected very soon.

Learn more: Award Balance Enforcement (Coming soon) →