SmarterSelect Reviews

We have used the system for years as part of our scholarship and fellowship application process. This past year, we introduced a new chapter planning and evaluation tool for our organization. We decided to put this tool in SmarterSelect because of the ease of use by both the administrator and the end-user. The ability to have the end-user save work and come back has been invaluable. Since this is an evaluation tool, the ability to give multiple individuals evaluator access was a key factor in our decision to put this process in SmarterSelect.

The form builder fuction can be confusing at times.

Phenomenal Customer Service! Easily customizable without overcomplicating the process. Enough bells and whistles to be robust but not so many that it loses the thread of what you are trying to do. We were able to build a grant program from scratch and go from developing the forms to opening applications in 3 months. At a price that made sense for a county government. Other packages quote you a yearly price and then tack on $$$ to set up your account. SmarterSelect has complete transparency.

Honestly, there were a couple of things but they have added updates just recently that took care of those issues.

Matching feature for scholarship program; online evaluation function; linkage between applications that eliminates need to fill-in fields multiple times.

Frequency of "bugs" combined with inability to contact customer support by phone. The inability to contact customer support is not specifically a software issue, but it complicates the process as a user/administrator, particularly when the issue is time-sensitive.

I can customize the whole system to what I need it to do in order to fit Mt needs. So simple to add additional information when needed. So easy for my applicants, evaluators and myself to use. Love I can pull reports when I want.

Nothing I have found yet. Everything has worked great for us. We found some things like we need to have a person view each application since the applicant could download anything and shows it is complete when they are missing information still.

The product was easy to use by the applicants to our initiative, by the evaluators who reviewed the proposals submitted and by Initiative staff who managed the process and who had to extract data for our management review and decision making. This was our maiden experience and we had no system breakdown.

Grant management team would need to supply this answer.

As a super small non profit we needed a way to allow applicants to apply to our program and the services that we offer via an online application. We worked with smarter select to customize the application as much as the platform currently allows.

Not super user friendly for our needs. We need it for online application purposes. The software was set up mainly for grant purposes.

We love that the forms are customizable and are easy to set auto-calculation and autoscoring features. That is by far the best thing about SS! It is also easy for most of our evaluators to use, even first timers.

Okay, sorry, a few things. Firstly, although the evaluation is easy, having to scroll through the evaluations is inconvenient for our reviewers. I think drop-downs or a side-by-side review interface might be more practical. Secondly, the delete feature should be able to be canceled within a few seconds/minutes to avoid any permanent issues. Also, it would be great for us to be able to customize the css somewhat to adhere to our branding.

Customizable, has recommender feature so recs can come through the same system (which is missing from competitors), and easy to export information

UI isn't always clear, so I spend a lot of time playing customer support rep with applicants.

The few things I like best about SmarterSelect is the ability to create, link and launch applications easily, manage multiple programs with various deadlines throughout the year, and the capability to bulk email applicants, evaluators and recommendations with a just a couple clicks. What use to take a week to organize with paper applications now takes half a day.

Every once is awhile there is a bug that needs fixing, but Customer Service quickly identifies issues and fixes them without delay.

The system is highly customizable. The ability to imbed evaluator reviews was a plus. My team enjoyed the online instructional videos from SmarterSelect.

Please consider adding fillable tables as an application response option.

Our staff loves how fast and easy it is to create custom applications with a host of unique and useful functions. Our review committees enjoy being able to have online access to applications -- it makes their job a whole lot easier! And our applicants enjoy the ease and efficiency of being able to apply online. All in all, Smarter Select positively enhances our grant and scholarship application process while positioning us as a leader in our community.

If I could offer any improvement, it would be to add some additional options that could help to brand the system so that applicants can visually recognize which organization the are applying for support to. Another foundation in our region just purchased and implemented Smarter Select and this created some confusion for the non-profits in our region. We do include our logo at the top of the program for our applications, but it would be nice if there were ways to add it other places or on the log-in screen.

Hi Mike, Many thanks for your feedback and comments! We appreciate the opportunity to serve you and your team. Regards, Robert

Easy to Use, Great price to quality for the program. Unlike others, they don't raise prices dramatically every year and have kept the prices down, which is great for smaller budgets. Also While keeping prices down they've added more and more features. All problems I've ever had have been user error and not with their program. With the mid-level package there's SO MUCH you can do behind the scene to evaluate and rank (although matching still remains elusive). Any service to the site they've given plenty of notice so we can let students know the site will be down. Site stability and speed has been great.

No number to call right when you're having a problem-you have to send an email. To be fair, this is responded to promptly, but still... Once you know how to use the program it's very easy but there's no manual. Videos/support site and the topics are ok and expanding. Webinars help but can sometimes lose focus.

The scholarship program is relatively easy to use, and the support staff is usually quite responsive and helpful.

For grant applications, there are limitations because the grants show up under the name of the person who completed the application rather than by the name of the organization. Smarter Select has developed a couple of work arounds to help ease this problem, but it does present quite a bit more work on the backside. Also, for our teacher recognition program, the nominator is the one who shows up, rather than the nominee. This is an ongoing problem that we haven't really been able to solve. Our program is pretty unique, so a solution is probably not on the horizon and may not be worth Smarter Select's efforts to fix it.

Hi Susan, Thanks for your review! Stay tuned for some improvements to customize your Apps table view.

SmarterSelect listens to their customers and are constantly looking for ways to further improve. Their tech support is the best. They address every question quickly and with thought to answering in such a way that I understand the solution. I never am led to feel my question was too small.

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Easy to create programs and personalize them to the desires of the scholarship donors wishes. Recommendations are easy to set up and capture. Being able to create a common application has helped us immensely as we are collecting roughly 500-700 individual applicants per cycle.

Have had issues with individuals being able to create accounts other than applicant accounts. Have experienced issues with matching information not functioning.

I really love how user friendly this is for Evaluators

There are a bunch of tabs on the side of the program that I don't know how to use. For Example... it takes me a ton of time to try and find how I change the abstract

Hi, Many thanks for your review! Please reach out to our Support team and they will be happy to schedule a training session for the tabs on the side of the program. Regards, Robert

Before we found SmarterSelect we were mailing out paper applications and keeping hard copy files of all applicants. SmarterSelect made the whole application process so much easier.

There are times when it would be nice to actually call for technical help but for the most part they are very good about responding quickly.

I like that it can be customizable. It can have as many questions you want. It is versatile enough that we can use it for both our scholarship and our grant applications. It is easy to have the option for attachments.

I don't like that you cannot pick up a phone and call someone. A phone call has to be scheduled via email. Any issues have to be dealt with via email/chat. Sometimes it is a lot quicker/easier to explain a problem by talking rather than writing. I wish there could be a way to create a chart for applicants to complete on questions such as activities or work history over the years. Right now you have to ask a the same question for each time frame. It gets a bit redundant.

The ease in use and understanding the software. The cost was very affordable. There is good value for the cost.

The support is only available via email. You cannot always explain the nuances or a complicated problem via email, but you try. And then the answers come back not always on point. There is sometimes a loss in translation. To be able to talk to someone would be helpful sometimes.

SmarterSelect made it easy for us to make applications for different volunteer groups that we have. It is so easy to put the information into SmarterSelect and create applications and surveys, and send those out to our nurses.

I thought about this question for a while and truly cannot think of anything that I would say negatively about this program. We haven’t run into any issues using this software. It is easy to use and very functional.

We were able to design and customize each of our applications. The onboarding for the program was easy. We also liked the features that we would use with the evaluators as well.

There are a few components of the exporting system that aren't as intuitive as the rest of the system.

How easy it is to use and administer and the support is fantastic.

I can't set others as administrators without seeing all the information we have in Smarter Select. I wish I was able to limit what a new administrator can see.

I really enjoy the variety of options they have in terms of filling out an application, creating a survey, or even submitting an essay. There's all sorts of ways to create documents and make them user friendly for my students. The tracking system is great! They email you results and make it easier for you to gather information.

I would like if they included a back and forth on the pages. Easier to back out of certain parts of the creation of a document. I've had an issue with the reminder emails being sent directly to the spam folder but this may just be for our company.

Hi Patricia, Many thanks for your review! I'll have our Support team reach out regarding your questions on back and forth. Thanks, Robert

This product is user friendly and easy to export reports.

Would like a way to search all applications for a single applicant.

I like the ease of it' the software is very intuitive and simple to not only set up on the administrative side but also easy to use as the individual who is completing the application form. I also love the ability to auto score evaluations.

I would like to see the log in reset be a bit more simplified. I have had some issues with resetting my password, which was resolved through customer support, but I wish it was simpler to reset.