OpenWater vs. Submittable

This software is highly recommended to all schools, institutions and companies that carry out contests and awards, as it will speed up the selection, evaluation, awards and rewards tasks. It allows the entire contest to be done digitally, saving a lot of time and costs.

Incentivized

We love using Submittable for our grant applications. Sometimes, we've run into issues with filters inside the system not clearing -- and we lose access to some of our information. Submittable Customer Service is quick to respond and assist us in solving our problems quickly to get back up and running. We find their training videos to help us learn new ways to use the system.

Incentivized

• An omniChannel platform for end-to-end digital event management.
• Easy to use and intuitive user interface which works well for new users as well.
• Best support system which is very responsive for any problems or issues.

Incentivized

• Applicant (submitter) experience is positive, user-friendly.
• The ability to message directly with submitters within the portal in relation to their submission is a great feature.
• Application creation is very easy.
• Adding labels to submissions makes filtering simple and customizable to our needs.

Incentivized

• The reporting capabilities can be improved to make analysis easier.
• Customization is a bit difficult and requires help from OpenWater support and the solution team.
• From an administration point of view, the interface and navigation can be simplified.

Incentivized

• Advanced reporting is far from advanced. There are SO many limitations and the need to manually do so many things in order to get the report structure you want, and it is not intuitive. The reporting is by far the most frustrating thing about Submittable and actually adds on staff time instead of cutting it down.
• PDFs of submissions should include all supplemental files uploaded in the submission. You should not have to do massive exports with zip files and then merge everything manually to get one PDF of submitted content for simplified records or sharing.
• We should be able to see the account emails and names of individuals who have started a draft submission. In our former system (GIFTS online via Blackbaud), we could see that information and could reach out personally to applicants to ensure they didn't miss deadlines and could remove emails from our reminder communications from those we knew already submitted and simply opened up an accidental additional draft. When we send reminders in Submittable to draft submissions, without fail, we get 5-10 people who reach out and are upset because they already submitted but think this means they didn't, regardless of how we word the email and tell them they may have an extra draft if they think they already submitted.
• You should be able to simply build one report in whatever format you need and be able to switch between different projects that use the same exact form fields. My team has the same exact form used for nine different grant programs because they are the same programs, just for different local communities, but we have to build out the same report manually each cycle for each community.

Incentivized

We use this software annually to help with our grant processes. Without it, I'd be so lost! Our team relies on the data from our past years to sift applications and we try to prioritize those who have applied and been a finalist but perhaps didn't win in years prior

Incentivized

Submittable is very user friendly. Even our less tech-savvy team members were able to navigate Submittable and achieve what was necessary. The single limitation is that it is not easy to move information/documents/applications from the Submittable platform into other platforms, or even to download documents from Submittable into a separate storage system

Incentivized

We have thankfully never experienced an outage nor been affected by a technology issue on Submittable's side that has delayed our grant process. We have instead been able to distribute over $6M in donated dollars to AAPI small business owners because Submittable is trustworthy and available

Incentivized

We've had a quick and efficient submittable experience that has always been easy to use. When we need a report it downloads within seconds, even the larger reports are 30 seconds or less to download. Pages are quick to load and reports complete in a more than reasonable time frame

Incentivized

I think that they are good at answering our questions and solving our problems. We occasionally get reports from applicants about problems the Submittable team has not solved, but I do not know what the applicant has done to get the problem solved.

Incentivized

We did not receive in-person training technically, it was virtual but it was one on one with a specialist. They were very patient and skilled - she knew everything about the program and honed in on features that would help make our jobs easier. We are so grateful for the training!

Incentivized

10/10 because we were able to meet virtually and still get all of our questions answered! Online was effective too because we could easily record the sessions and review them later. Since we had to onboard our reviewers virtually, it was actually convenient that this was the same method we learned how to use the entire program virtually too.

Incentivized

I would say, provide Submittable as much detailed information on your planned use of the platform and your desires with the platform as possible, and the implementation will be tailored to accommodate your organization with minimal lag time and issues/problems.

Incentivized

When it comes to collecting applications, no one beats Submittable in terms of features and functionality. With other software we used, there were far too many limitations, including having to manually download data, inability to use logic for fields, and no analytics. The other products we used for application collection could not compare to Submittable.

Incentivized

Pricing is fair for the product and support received, and we are content with the billing being annual in order to save overall. Contract terms are fair, and don't seem inflated for any reason. Pricing per application is also fair, and you can actually have the applicant absorb the cost if necessary

Incentivized

We were happy to use this for many projects, but sometimes it can be hard to filter for a specific applicant and see how many of our projects and grants they have applied to without filtering by project. We're also hoping to have the feature added where reviewers can only see one project at a time if they don't have clearance to view all of the projects

Incentivized

• Removal of manual efforts in event management leading to low operating cost.
• Optimization and delight to employees lead to increased productivity.
• Ease of use which eliminates training cost and efforts.

Incentivized

• Ease of training new employees with the system, simple interface and similar to other CRMs, etc.
• We can launch a new grant fairly quickly now that we have the processes down and templates created
• Ability to respond quickly to provider questions/needs

Incentivized