Tracking Grant Milestones and Deadlines

GrantLink tracks funder report due dates through reporting cycles. It doesn't have a grant milestone record for other deliverables, compliance dates, owners, checklists, or completion status.

Use GrantLink for the report periods and due dates that it creates. Use your organization's calendar or project management system for every other milestone.

Types of deadlines

Before you set up reporting deadlines

• Check the grant's Period Start and Period End against the award.
• Find out whether the funder sets due dates as days after each period, as fixed calendar dates, or by another rule.
• Use the Member or Admin role to edit the grant.
• Keep the award or the reporting instructions with your compliance records.

Set up reporting cycles

1. Open Grants and select the grant.
2. Open Reporting and then Setup.
3. In the Reporting Schedule section, choose a Reporting Cadence:
   • Monthly
   • Quarterly
   • Semiannual
   • Annual
4. For quarterly reports, choose a Quarter Scheme.
5. Enter Days Until Due. If you leave it blank, GrantLink sets each due date 30 days after the period ends.
6. Select Save changes.

GrantLink creates the reporting cycles when you create a grant with one of these cadences. When you later change the cadence, dates, or Days Until Due, GrantLink rebuilds the upcoming cycles that nobody has worked on. It keeps cycles that have work or a submission. Check the cycles on the dashboard after each change.

Quarter scheme limitation: GrantLink saves the Quarter Scheme, but it builds every period from the grant's Period Start. For example, a grant that starts on February 1 gets quarters that start on February 1, May 1, and so on. Don't assume calendar or fiscal quarters without checking the periods that GrantLink created.

Check deadlines on the dashboard

1. Open Dashboard.
2. Find the Reporting section.
3. Review the overdue, due soon, and in progress counts.
4. Review the report rows. The section shows up to five reports that are overdue or due in the next 30 days. If none are due, it shows No reports due in the next 30 days.
5. Select a report row to open its reporting obligation.

The dashboard includes reporting cycles for Awarded, Active, and Closeout grants. You can dismiss an overdue or due report from the dashboard, and you can restore it later from the reporting obligations list on Reports. Dismissing a report hides it from attention lists, the dashboard, and reminders. It doesn't submit the report or change the funder's due date.

You can also ask GrantLink AI for upcoming deadlines or ask it to export a reporting calendar. GrantLink AI reads the reporting cycles, and it doesn't create milestones.

Track other milestones

For one-time deliverables, outcomes, events, compliance dates, and internal checkpoints:

1. Record the requirement in your team's calendar or project management system.
2. Assign an owner and an internal due date there.
3. Add related notes or documents to the grant in GrantLink when they help.

Notifications

You set notifications for yourself, for the current organization.

1. Open Settings > Notifications.
2. Turn on Enable notifications.
3. Under Topics, turn on Reporting deadlines.
4. Under Delivery channels, turn on Email. GrantLink sends email to your verified primary account email. SMS is marked Coming soon.
5. Optionally, turn on Daily digest for this organization. GrantLink sends at most one reviewed digest per day.
6. Select Save preferences.

GrantLink checks for reports due in 14, 7, 3, 1, and 0 days. GrantLink reviews each notification before sending it, and it doesn't send a notification when that review can't finish. Keep checking the dashboard, and don't rely on email as your only compliance control.

Complete a deadline

When you meet a deadline:

1. Submit the deliverable through the funder's required channel.
2. For a GrantLink report, link the report to the correct reporting cycle when that option is available. Linking a report moves the cycle to in progress.
3. Mark other milestones complete in your other system.
4. Keep confirmation numbers, receipts, sent files, and funder responses under your record retention policy.

GrantLink has no way to mark other milestones complete, and the grant workspace has no full editor for reporting cycles.

Recommended practices

1. Check the periods and due dates that GrantLink creates against the award.
2. Set earlier internal drafting and review dates in your other system.
3. Assign an owner and a backup for each deadline outside GrantLink.
4. Review the dashboard's Reporting section at least weekly and after any change to grant dates.
5. Keep proof of submission. A dismissed alert or a published draft doesn't prove that the funder accepted a report.

To draft reports, see Generating Funder Reports. For more on reporting cycles, see Reporting Cycles and Deadline Workflow.