Consultant/Vendor tracking in BBGM

Picheska Marrero

Hello, BB Community!

I've been tasked with trying to make BBGM an avenue for us to keep track of consultants that we hire (usually they do TA projects for many of our grantees). However, to make this happen, I think we'll have to build out a customized 'form' to meet this need. It would include fields like tax id, contact info, notes, etc. Has anyone manipulated BBGM forms to track things not grant related, especially tracking consultants and/or vendors? If so, would you be willing to share some screen shots of your form's fields?

Patricia Barron

Hello!

We've used the system for other "contracts" that are not considered grants because the fields resemble those for grants (start/end dates; amount, deliverables, contacts, etc). Although we can use the same Blueprint form that we use for grants, we opted to create a separate form so that we don't have empty fields that are not applicable to these contracts (you can create one specific to consultants). Another advantage to having a separate form is that we can rename relevant fields (e.g., Grant Amount changed to Contract Amount). We also had to create new Type/Status in place of the ones dedicated to grants (e.g., instead of using Cash Grants/Pending and Approved, created Program Contracts/Pending and Approved), We also use the "grant" primary contact for the request record, which corresponds to the contract contact (person who will be contacted regarding details on the contract/progress on deliverables). The organization record can be utilized as well so that you can enter the relevant information of the contractor; you don't have to use all the fields - we use it for name, address, tax ID, and organization contact (CEO, etc). There are pros/cons, but it has been a good way to separate grants from contracts and can be useful if you'd like to keep track in one system. Let me know if you'd like to chat offline!


Be well,

Patty Barron

pbarron@mhm.org

Alexis Fish

Hi Picheska

Great question! We have lots of folks who use BBGM to track non-grant related things such as consultants and vendors. The forms can vary greatly and I'm sure your peers will have some great suggestions.

I wanted to chime in to offer a tech tip- BBGM has the ability to customize the role on the affiliation which will be helpful in identifying your vendors vs consultants. There is other coding that could be hidden on the application as well to help alleviate work on the back end.