Publishing Secure Funder Reports

Publishing turns a reviewed GrantLink report into a Vercel-hosted web link. The published page is a shareable report, not a funder account or login-based portal.

Before You Start

Confirm that:

• You have a member or admin role. Viewers cannot open chat or publish reports.
• The report is scoped to the intended grant, funder, or initiative and reporting period.
• QuickBooks has synced through the cutoff date.
• Budget, allocation, receipt, funding-share, release, and indirect-cost figures used in the report have been reviewed.
• Internal notes, unsupported assumptions, personal information, and unnecessary transaction detail have been removed.
• Your organization has approved both the content and the access method.
• If you need password protection, the organization is on Professional, Enterprise, or an agency plan.

Create or Reopen the Report

1. Open Chats > New Chat, or select Create Report from a grant, funder, or initiative's Reports tab.
2. State the audience, report type, period, and exact scope.
3. Review and revise the draft in chat.
4. Confirm the report appears under the associated record's Reports tab. Draft reports show Open Draft; published reports show View Report.

For a grant-specific sponsor workbook, upload the workbook under the grant's Details > Excel templates and ask the assistant to complete it. That generated workbook is a downloadable deliverable; it is separate from the published web report.

Choose Password Protection

From the report's chat page, select Publish, then open Password.

Choose one of:

• No password (public access): anyone with the URL can open the report.
• Use grant's default password: available only for a grant report when that grant already has a default report password.
• Custom password: protects this publication with the password you enter or generate.

To configure a reusable grant password first:

1. Open the grant's Details tab.
2. Find Report password.
3. Select Set, enter or generate a password, and save it.
4. Copy the password immediately. GrantLink tells you to save it because it will not be shown again.

Grant default passwords and custom report passwords require Professional, Enterprise, or an agency plan. A funder or initiative report cannot use a grant's default password; use a custom password instead.

Publish

1. On the report chat page, select Publish.
2. Open Password, choose the approved option, and select Save.
3. Select Publish to Production.
4. Wait while GrantLink synchronizes the latest report workspace and deploys it.
5. When publication succeeds, select View your deployment.
6. Test the URL in a signed-out or private browser window. If protected, confirm that the page requires the expected password.
7. Copy the final URL from the opened report and share it through the approved channel.

Publication is asynchronous. GrantLink rejects another publish or unpublish operation while one is already queued or deploying. If the deployment reports an error, review the message and use Retry Publish only after correcting the issue.

What the Access Controls Do

Control	Boundary
Organization membership	Controls who can create, edit, and publish inside GrantLink
Published URL	Gives the recipient access to the deployed report page; no GrantLink account is required
Report password	Requires a shared secret before the deployed page can be viewed
Grant default password	Reuses one grant-scoped secret for grant reports that explicitly select it

Password protection is shared-secret access, not recipient identity, expiration, per-recipient permissions, or an access log. Anyone with both the URL and password can view the report.

Current control limitation: The publish popover displays Visibility and Customize Domain controls, but the current publish request does not persist either selection. Do not treat Private as Clerk-login protection or assume a typed custom subdomain was applied. Use a report password when access must not be URL-only, and verify the deployed URL directly.

Republish and Remove Access

Use Republish on the report's publish popover after reviewing updated content or changing its password choice. Republish updates the deployed report associated with that report record; confirm the live result again afterward.

GrantLink's backend supports unpublishing a deployed report, but the current report interface does not expose an Unpublish action. Do not promise revocable self-service access in a delivery plan. If an already shared link must be removed immediately, contact GrantLink support and follow your incident-response process. Changing a password and republishing can restrict future access but does not retract screenshots, downloads, or previously copied information.

Secure Sharing Checklist

• Open the final link outside your signed-in GrantLink session.
• Confirm the title, scope, period, totals, and narrative.
• Confirm password enforcement when selected.
• Send the password separately from the URL when practical.
• Record the approver, publication date, recipient, and report period.
• Do not include information the funder does not need.
• Retain the reviewed source export or reconciliation evidence.

Published reports and publication requests are organization-scoped, and GrantLink records publish activity. That audit trail does not replace your organization's content approval, secure-transmission, or retention controls.