A monthly series to help you grow your expertise, use the platform to its utmost potential, and ultimately improve your programs.
This post was originally published in October 2024
In case you missed it, Submittable recently announced our latest Transfer Submission Ownership capability. This month, dive into a ‘Lesson 101’ to learn about this highly anticipated feature, and gain a few best practices that will help you to determine when to choose between Submittable’s existing collaboration tools versus transferring ownership to a new user.
In the spirit of learning about recently released features, be sure to watch our on-demand webinar ‘What’s New with Submittable: Q3 2024 Edition’ . The Submittable Product Marketing team and fellow Submittable community members reviewed new features in action, and gave a sneak peek of what you can expect in Q4 (like new Financial Oversight tools!).
Introducing Transfer Submission Ownership
Now available for all Submittable users, administrators and submitters can each transfer ownership of a submission to another user at any time throughout the course of a program, without having to contact Support. Here’s why every Submittable user will love it:
- Submitters can alleviate time-consuming work-arounds and ensure that the right stakeholders are involved at the right stage of the grant lifecycle. Learn more here.
- Administrators (Level 4 and 5) can better support their applicants and reduce bottlenecks created with staff turnover. Learn more here.
Everyone benefits from:
- Autonomous change-management
- Greater compliance
- Improved transparency
- Better efficiencies
Top tips for streamlined experiences:
- Communicate the transfer: Always notify the new owner and clarify their role and responsibilities. Transferring a submission to a new owner will require the new owner to accept ownership, so clear communication can help prevent misunderstandings and ensure a seamless transition.
- Track ownership history: Submittable automatically tracks submission ownership for administrators within the submission’s Activity Details. However, actively monitoring these changes can benefit your organization by streamlining auditing processes, resolving disputes, and ensuring full transparency throughout the submission process.
Transfer Ownership vs. Collaborate on a Submission
Transfer Ownership and collaboration on a submission both help administrators and submitters ensure that the right stakeholder can contribute to an application. Understanding each capability’s benefits and limitations can help you to choose the right tool. Check out these examples:
When to Transfer Ownership of a Submission
- The submission owner is leaving an organization: If the original owner of a submission is leaving their organization, a new submitter should take over ownership before their departure to ensure that corresponding stakeholders can maintain access to the application. Administrators can also help to complete this action if this is not proactively done before the original submitter departs.
- A new Submission Owner needs to be responsible for ongoing communications: The owner of a submission is the only party that can submit ongoing communication as needed throughout the application lifecycle. If a new owner needs to be appointed to this responsibility, both applicants and administrators can transfer ownership to the necessary user.
When to Collaborate on a Submission
- When a stakeholder is only contributing to a specific form or form field: Encourage your submitters to add collaborators, rather than transferring ownership, so that they can delegate tasks while still retaining overall control and accountability of the application/submission.
- When maintaining original Personal Identifiable Information (PII): If a submission has been transferred to a new user, any previously collected PII information will remain concealed to the new owner, including Bank and Fraud Prevention details. Encourage applicants to add collaborators instead of transferring ownership when they need to maintain visibility and access to PII.
Bonus: Keep in mind that collaboration can be turned on or off at any time throughout a program’s lifecycle on Initial, Additional, and Request Forms.
That’s all folks! Thanks for tuning in. Remember that your friendly Customer Success team is here to help should you ever need support managing your programs to achieve your program goals.
Sam is Submittable's Product Marketer focused on Foundations, Non-Profits, and organizations that distribute grants or awards. She is passionate about helping organizations of any size to measure their impact and scale their programs with the platform. When not at work you can catch her in the mountains of Montana with her golden retrievers.