Deciding an application means choosing its status and, when helpful, selecting a status reason your association already set up. This article explains how to record that decision and how to start an award recipient record after you approve an application.
When to Use This
Use this task after you or your reviewers have decided what should happen to an application. You can approve the application, decline it, mark it withdrawn, or move it back to complete or missing references if you need to undo a decision. The Console only lets you change an application's status from this form.
Prerequisites
- Permission to edit Awards applications.
- If you want to explain the decision, at least one active status reason must already be set up for your account.
Record a Decision
- Open the application's page and select Edit, or open Manually Create an Application if you are entering the application and the decision at the same time.
- Set Status: to one of Complete, Missing References, Approved, Declined, or Withdrawn.
- If you want to explain the decision, choose a Status Reason: from your account's active status reasons.
- Select Save Changes.
Result
Rhythm saves the new status and status reason on the application, then returns you to the application's page.
Tip
A status reason is optional, and it is not tied to a specific status. You can choose any active reason with any status. Only active status reasons appear in the list, so a deactivated reason is not available for new decisions, even if older applications still show it.
Warning
This form does not control which statuses can follow other statuses. Anyone with permission to edit applications can set any status after any other status, with no confirmation and no automatic notice to the applicant. If your process only allows decisions to move one way, such as never moving from Approved back to Complete, your staff need to follow that rule because Rhythm does not enforce it.
Start a Recipient from a Decided Application
After you approve an application, you can start an award recipient record directly from the application. This saves you from entering the recipient record from scratch.
- Open the application's page.
- Select Create Award Recipient.
- Complete the recipient form that opens, which starts with the applicant already chosen.
Result
A new recipient form opens for the applicant. Rhythm does not store a link between the application and the resulting recipient record, so the recipient record does not show which application it came from. This option only opens the form with the applicant already filled in; it does not create a permanent connection between the two records.
What This Does Not Do
Recording a decision does not notify the applicant, trigger a review, or create a recipient record for you. Each action is a separate step. Applicant notices depend on the email your process sends, reviews use their own workflow, and approving an application alone does not create a recipient record. A recipient record is created only when you explicitly start one, either from a decided application or on its own.
If you need to notify approved or declined applicants and your process does not send that email automatically, build a query that returns applications with Approved or Declined status. You can then use an integrated marketing platform to send the notification to those applicants.
Related Reading
To find the application you want to decide, or to work with applications more generally, see Manage Applications. Once a recipient exists, you can see it alongside the rest of a contact's or organization's award history; see View a Contact's or Organization's Award History on Their 360 Page.