Why hide the "Submitted" auto-match applications from applicants?

Jordan Martinez

In the Award Management Help Guide's "Manage Application Categories" page's "Recommended Category Settings" section, it states the following:

While every situation is unique, you'll likely want to follow these guidelines to ensure good experiences for applicants and reviewers.

• Hide Submitted and Declined auto-match applications from applicants

Could someone explain why this is recommended?


Students are contacting me to ask whether they have submitted an application for a given scholarship. Since we hide the 'Submitted' auto-match applications, it seems that the system does not have a page that indicates which scholarships for which students have applied. I'm wondering whether unhiding the 'Submitted' auto-match applications would reveal a page that shows that.

Otherwise, I will write some content via the 'Custom Text' settings to explain what's going on here.

Trish Reimer

You can unhide the submitted automatch applications by going into Site>Configurations>Application Categories. then go to the Automatch Categories section and Edit the Submitted category so that it's visible to applicants. Then, on the My Opportunities tab on an applicant's page, they will see those automatch opportunities for which they qualify.  I've used BBAM in two different community foundations--one where we kept the automatch opportunities hidden and another where it is visible to applicants.  Our reasoning for keeping it hidden was because it was a small community in which the majority of our opportunities were automatch.  We explained to applicants that they will automatically qualify for those scholarships for which they are eligible--they just needed to provide accurate and complete information on their General Application. It alleviated the calls of "If my kid qualified for 50 scholarships, why didn't she get one?"  Of course one could argue that by showing those they matched to would confirm for them that they did indeed qualify for several opportunities.  I'm working for a much bigger community foundation now and we keep these visible to the applicants. There hasn't been a good reason to hide them and if I do get those calls about "why didn't I get a scholarship" it's easier to explain that there is a very large pool of applicants and our reviewers made their decision at the best of their ability.  So, hiding or making it visible should be determined by your situation.

Jordan Martinez

Thanks. That does clarify the tradeoffs of hiding or showing them.