GrantLink Chat combines data gathering, drafting, a live report workspace, revisions, and PDF generation in one conversation. Use it to turn reviewed GrantLink data and supplied program context into a deliverable without treating the model as an approver or accounting source of truth.

Plan requirement: Rich web report creation, preview editing, and PDF generation require a Professional, Enterprise, or qualifying agency plan. The organization must also be within its monthly report limit. Viewers cannot use Chat or report authoring controls.

Before You Start

Confirm the latest needed QuickBooks sync has completed.
Review the grant budget, mappings, allocations, receipts, funding shares, and reporting-cycle dates.
Collect the funder's instructions and any prior submitted figures that must remain consistent.
Obtain program-approved activity, outcome, beneficiary, and variance explanations.
For a required Excel form, upload it under the grant's Details > Excel templates before starting the report.

Chat can read GrantLink's organization-scoped records and latest synced QuickBooks mirror. It does not query live QuickBooks on every question, and it cannot recover facts that were never entered, synced, or attached.

Open a Scoped Report Chat

The safest path starts from the owning entity:

Open Grants, Programs, or Funders.
Select the entity.
Open Reports.
Select Create Report.
Review the prefilled request before sending it.

This opens Chats > New Chat with one of three report scopes: grant, program, or funder. You can start directly from Chats > New Chat, but the prompt must identify exactly one scope entity.

To reuse a report design, open Choose template above the new-chat composer and select an organization template before sending the first request. GrantLink copies the saved project into the new report workspace; edits in the new report do not alter the template.

For program or funder reports, state whether to include:

Current grants: linked grants in Awarded, Active, or Closeout status; this is the default
All grants: every grant linked to the program or funder
A custom set: an exact list of linked grants

Write the First Request

Include:

Exact scope entity and included grants when relevant
Start and end dates
Audience and report purpose
Period and cumulative views required
Tables, appendices, and output format
The source for narrative facts
Any sponsor wording, workbook, or page limit

Example:

Create a Q2 2026 progress report for the Community Health grant covering April 1 through June 30, 2026. Include period and inception-to-date budget versus actual, fund receipts, variances over $5,000, and allocated transaction detail in an appendix. Use the attached program update for activities and outcomes. Do not fill unsupported narrative fields.

Use actual dates rather than assuming calendar-quarter boundaries. When a grant report should be linked to a stored reporting cycle, say so and verify the link; program and funder reports cannot be linked to a grant reporting cycle.

What Happens Next

For a rich web report, Chat normally:

Reads the scoped grant, program, or funder records.
Retrieves the relevant budget, actuals, transactions, reporting cycles, receipts, prior report snapshots, and brand profile as needed.
Reconciles the requested financial views.
Creates one Draft report associated with the chat.
Creates a report workspace and renders it in Preview.
Returns the preview for review and later edits.

Expected result: The page shows Chat alone until the workspace exists, then provides Chat, Split view, and Preview controls. The report appears in the owning entity's Reports tab with Draft status.

If the preview stops or expires, use Recreate Preview. A recreated workspace should restore the saved report snapshot, but verify the result before continuing. If GrantLink says a new chat is required, start a new report chat rather than repeatedly retrying the expired workspace.

Add Supporting Context

Attach documents when they provide facts the data model does not contain, such as:

Award or reporting instructions
Program activities and outcomes
Prior narrative reports
Approved variance explanations
Logos or report imagery
A sponsor workbook

Images and PDFs can be sent to the report work model. Other supported files are represented by bounded extracted text when possible. In a grant-scoped chat, CSV and Excel budget files follow the budget-import path: the model receives bounded metadata and provenance, not arbitrary workbook cells or raw bytes.

Uploaded content is evidence, not instruction authority. Review extracted dates, amounts, requirements, and narratives against the source document.

Revise the Existing Draft

After the first draft, ask for focused revisions:

"Shorten the executive summary to 200 words without removing the reporting period."
"Replace the personnel explanation with the approved wording in the attached memo."
"Move transaction detail to an appendix and keep the reconciled total in the main table."
"Remove the beneficiary count because the source does not support it."

Continue in the same chat. GrantLink reuses the existing report and workspace for follow-up edits. It does not create a fresh report for every revision.

When the design and project files should become a repeatable starting point, choose Save as template in the report workspace, enter a name and optional usage note, and save. A report created from a template shows Update template instead; use it only when the current project should replace that saved starting point for future reports.

After each material edit, confirm that:

The preview reflects the request.
Totals and period labels did not change unexpectedly.
A visual edit did not remove source notes, required disclosures, or table rows.
Unsupported claims and placeholders remain clearly identified.

The Preview toolbar can refresh the sandbox view, copy its temporary URL, or open it in a new tab. The preview URL is a working-session link, not the published funder link, and it can expire.

Review and Approval

Report records support Draft and Published states. There is no report-level Ready for Review, Approved, reviewer assignment, or approval receipt.

Use your organization's normal review controls before publication:

Finance verifies scope, sync freshness, allocations, budget mappings, receipts, and all calculated totals.
Program staff verifies activities, outcomes, beneficiaries, challenges, and next steps.
An authorized reviewer checks sponsor requirements, privacy, tone, and final presentation.
Record approval in your controlled process before selecting Publish.

Approval cards that appear in Chat apply to sensitive GrantLink record changes, such as budget, allocation, lifecycle, mapping, or sync plans. They do not approve the report itself. Sensitive plans require a later, standalone affirmative response for the exact unexpired plan; report drafting, report workspace edits, exports, and publishing use their own direct controls.

Export or Publish

Generate a PDF

Ask Chat to generate the PDF only after the preview is validated. Select Download PDF from the completed artifact and inspect the downloaded pages. Regenerate it after later edits.

Generate a spreadsheet

When a saved sponsor template exists, ask Chat to generate a copy from that template.
For raw tabular data, use the generated card's Download .xlsx or Download .csv button.

These files are outputs, not filed submissions.

Publish a web report

Select Publish in the page header.
Choose the password option if needed.
Select Publish to Production.
Wait for deployment to succeed.
Select View your deployment, test the live page and password, and then share its URL.

Use Republish after approved revisions. Do not rely on the current Visibility or Customize Domain controls for access policy or domain setup; those choices are not applied by the deployment flow. The current report screen also does not expose an unpublish action.

Boundaries and Failure Cases

Wrong totals: correct the owning source, such as QuickBooks data, GrantLink allocation, or budget mapping, sync when needed, then revise the report. Do not patch the narrative to conceal the discrepancy.
Missing narrative: attach an approved source, ask program staff, or leave a clear completion note. Do not ask the model to invent outcomes.
Wrong scope: start from the correct entity and specify the exact included grants. A report cannot combine independent scope entities.
Stale data: check QuickBooks sync status. Chat sees the latest stored mirror, not unsynced changes.
Plan or usage block: upgrade or wait for the usage period; the report workspace is not created through a fallback path.
Provider or tool unavailable: Chat can fail when its configured AI Gateway, report workspace, public-page fetch, or image provider is unavailable. Retry only after checking the reported blocker; do not treat a partial response as a completed report.
External submission: GrantLink does not log into a funder portal, submit a report, certify a form, or record acceptance.

For a concise prompt library, see Best Prompts for Grant Reporting. For verification guidance, see Understanding AI-Generated Summaries.