GOapply V2 Testing Best Practices
Testing is an extremely important and essential step before opening a GOapply Opportunity to applicants. Whether you have built a Phase/Opportunity yourself or if the akoyaGO team has built for you, you should thoroughly test your Opportunities before opening them to applicants to ensure your Opportunity functions as expected. This Knowledge Article walks you through akoyaGO best practices for testing.
Register an Account
Visit your GOapply URL (you can find this on the GOapply Settings record if you are unsure of your unique foundation URL). Register an account if you have not yet used GOapply. For more information on how to do this, reference the GOapply Admin guide found on GOsupport.
Organization
The best practice is to register using your organization's information. Please note a constituent record will be created for the organization you choose to register with if one does not already exist on your akoyaGO site.
Individual Users
If you are testing a scholarship application or individual application, you should test using an individual account. If you have not already used your foundation email address for an organization account, you can register as an individual using your foundation email address.
If you have already used your foundation email address for an organization account, you will need to use another email address to register as an individual. Best practice is to register as an individual using your personal email address.
Another option is to use an alias email address. More information found here: https://gosupport.akoyago.com/knowledgebase/article/KA-01649
GOapply Opportunity Settings for Testing
There are three settings on the GOapply Opportunity form in akoyaGO that you should be aware of during testing.
1. Max Submissions: If your foundation limits the number of applications that an organization or individual can submit you will need to set this to be greater than 1 if you plan to submit multiple test applications. Once testing is done make sure to set the Max Submissions back to the number that is allowable by your foundation.
2. Application Type: This field determines what type of user(s) will be able to access this opportunity. Keep in mind what user type will be applying and what type of account you are using for testing.
3. Publish: To test your application, this field must be selected. Keep in mind that publishing your application will make it an open Opportunity in the GOapply portal. If you do not want applicants to have access yet, make sure to uncheck this field immediately after testing. You can also set your Opportunity to Invite Only if you would like to publish to test but hide from other GOapply users.
See the location of these fields below:
Each standard GOapply submission will create the following records:
1. GOapply Status Tracking Record: Created when a user begins a Phase (or when you advance them to the next phase).
2. Request: Created when a user submits Phase 1 of an Opportunity.
3. Contact Record for the Primary Contact of a request (if no matching email): A Contact record will only be created if your phase includes a panel mapped to Request – Primary Contact. The lookup field that is indicated will determine what field is used to check for an existing contact in akoyaGO. It is our best practice to use Email Address as the lookup field for contacts since this is the most unique identifier associated with an individual.
4. Constituent Record for the Applicant of a request (if no matching Tax ID): A Constituent record will only be created if your phase includes a panel mapped to Request – Applicant or Request - Payee. The lookup field that is indicated will determine what field is used to check for an existing constituent in akoyaGO. It is our best practice to use Tax ID as the lookup field for constituents since this is the most unique identifier associated with an organization.
Make sure you are aware of any test constituents, contacts, and requests that are created in testing, as an Admin User should delete them once testing is complete.
Best Practices
Entering Applicant: Register using your organization with your own Tax ID (make sure it is entered on your Constituent record in akoyaGO first), or you can use a “Test” Organization with a fake Tax ID (i.e., 11-1111111). The Applicant on Request will fill in from the organization your user is registered with.
Entering Fiscal Sponsor (Payee): use an organization called Fiscal Sponsor Test with a fake Tax ID (i.e., 99-9999999)
Entering Contact Information: use your organization staff or akoyaGO staff information for any Contact fields. This way no grantees are accidentally notified of application submission.
You do not need to start a new submission to test changes you may have made in the application. On the GOapply Status Tracking record that your user created for testing use the flow – Update Form Definition and set the Current Phase Status to ‘Draft’. This will now appear in your In Progress table on your GOapply site.
Delete the following records when testing is complete. Only akoyaGO administrators will be able to delete records.
Request Record
GOapply Status Tracking Record(s)
Contact record if you created a new one
Constituent record(s) if you created new one(s)
Payment record(s) if you approved your Test Request
Requirement record(s) if created
Items to Check in Testing
We recommend checking the following items in testing:
- Mapping: Did all fields on the Request (or related records) fill in as expected? Is anything mapped incorrectly? Is anything not mapped that should be?
- Panels: If your phase includes any Dynamic Panels, did these work as expected? Test with an existing Constituent/Contact and with a new one.
- PDF: On the Documents section of the Request that is created, you will find a PDF and any uploaded attachments. Are there any formatting issues with the PDF?
- Formatting of Questions: Does the Input Type, Input Format, or Input Mask need to be adjusted for any questions? Do dates appear correctly? Currency fields? Numbers? Email addresses/phone numbers? etc.
- Character Counts: Do you need to adjust the character limits for any questions?
- Descriptions: Do any questions need a Description added to help the applicant?
- Logic: If your Phase includes any logic, test all possible branches (i.e. answer the questions both ways and ensure logic works as expected).
- Required Questions: Do any questions need to be marked Required? Are any questions marked that do not need to be required?
- Read-Only: Should any questions be marked Read-Only and are there just as an FYI for the GOapply User?
- Hidden Questions: Should any fields automatically populate upon submission with a hidden question (like the Request Title, Program, etc?)
- Expression Questions: If your phase includes any questions set by default expression (i.e. they are totaling other questions, etc.), are these working as expected?
If using third-party responses (typically used for recommendations and transcript uploads for scholarship applicants,) make sure to enter an active email address so you have access to test the email notification and third-party connection. For more information on third-party responses, reference the GOapply for Third-Party Responses Admin Guide.
Test Other Phases
To test the next phases, open the Request created through your GOapply submission. Then, click the “Advance to next GOapply Phase” button to make the next phase available in GOapply for your user. For more information about advancing to the next phase, reference the Advancing to the Next Phase Knowledge Article available on GOsupport.
When testing the next phases, follow the same testing standard as above. Each phase will create a GOapply Status Tracking Record, but all phases will tie to the same Request created on the first phase submission.