Portal

An external facing portal is not a part of the Outbound Funds package yet. While we continue to prioritize requests and determine the future roadmap, we have provided a list of possible portal tools and considerations for selecting a tool.

A portal could mean many things to many people. Because the needs and requirements may vary greatly, different technologies may be better suited than others in certain situations or you might already be leveraging a product for applications noted in the previous section that can also serve as a portal for applicants or external reviewers.

The possible connection to a Salesforce Community played a large role in determining the structure of the Outbound Funds architecture. Specifically, we chose to use a Custom Object to manage Funding Requests so that using a Salesforce Customer Community remained a possibility.

Portal Tool Options

1. Salesforce Customer Community
2. Custom Website Integrations (e.g., Drupal; Wordpress)
3. Survey Monkey Apply or Fluid Review
4. Review the full list of recommended Application tools; you may be able to make one of those work without the cost of a community.

Considerations

1. Budget - each tool has a different pricing structure. Balance your needs with your budget.
2. External Access Needs
   1. Who will need to access the portal? Applicant, Grantees, Review Panelists, Others?
   2. What objects in Salesforce will need to accessible in the portal? Funding Requests, Requirements, Disbursements, etc.
3. What functionality do you need?
   1. Connection to Salesforce (to create records and map fields)
   2. Design Flexibility - how flexible is the form design?