New applicant portal: add new cycle + budgets and processing

Charlotte Burke

I am trying to add a new cycle for a new programme in the new portal. Adding a new cycle is straightforward. But it appears to be a requirement to select a budget before the cycle can be saved.

In selecting the cycle budget, there is only one option available, with a pre-set amount of £1,000,000,000 (I wish!). This must have been set up like this, but I cannot find where to edit the budget available for payments. Alternatively, to turn off the requirement to set a budget prior to publishing the programme.

Can anyone help with this please? Thank you.

Nick Mills

Hi @Charlotte Burke,

The Cycle Budget is a component that is required when setting up a cycle, however there is currently no functionality - it is not tied to anything else, and it does not draw down as you award grants, so there's no ability to edit it. This is more a placeholder for some potential future functionality, but because of how the system works, you MUST choose a cycle budget when setting up a new cycle, so we just set everyone to have that £1,000,000,000 cash budget so that there was something there that can be selected. You simply have to choose that one option and then set your cycle dates appropriately. This amount is not visible to any applicants.

Charlotte Burke

Hi @Nick Mills Thank you for your swift reply & explanation. That explains a lot! I'm relieved both that it's not visible to applicants, and that it sounds as if there's some upcoming functionality on the way.

In the meantime, it sounds as if the advice is to select it & ignore it, yes? If possible, could this be updated somewhere in the guidance notes for creating a programme please?

Many thanks.