DD Suite Knowledge Base
- Stephen V
- Christine Joyal
Welcome to DD Suite Help
As you can see under Navigation, the documents are organized into General Information, Account and Organization Overview, Grantee Overview, and Funding Organization Overview. The first two categories would be of interest to all users, and the last two are targeted to specific users.
If you cannot find what you need via the Contents Navigation, you should try the keyword based Search Help at the top of the page. Enter your terms, click on Keyword Search, and locate your hits in the Search Results panel.
If your issue is regarding the policies or requirements of your Funding Organization, then please contact them directly.
To ask the DD Suite team a question or to report an issue, we have provided a Technical Assistance form. You must be logged in to access this form. Find the form at the bottom of the Navigation panel. We appreciate lots of information in your issue description, and will be able to address your question more quickly with these details.
Account and Organization Overview
Recent Updates - See all the new features and updates that have been added to DD Suite
We have released a new Dashboard in DD Suite for Councils / Funding Organizations and Grantees. We did this for a better user experience.
New Council/Funding Organization Dashboard
You will see that the previous dashboard had the modules on the right, now we have them on the left-hand side of the Dashboard.
The Notifications will be on the right-hand side, they were previously on the left-hand side. The colored graph will change each time the page reloads, if you have it to Show All. Otherwise, it will just have the specific Notification you choose. (See below for more information).
We also added another new feature, the search function. The search function will allow you to search for all of the related search items, not having to go to each of the modules, NoFA, Applications, Projects, Periodic Reporting, etc. The search result will bring up everything under that keyword.
You can find out more information here: New Dashboard
New Grantee Dashboard
We have also updated our Grantee Dashboard. All the links will be the same, but they are just moved to the left side and the Reports, Projects, and Applications are in the middle. Any Notifications will be on the right. You can find out more information here: Grantee Dashboard
Search Feature for Councils/Funding Organizations
When you hit enter in your search, it will bring up the next page. As you can see the search results will show up newest to oldest.
Notifications
Another feature on the Dashboard is the Notifications Graph on the right hand side of the page. The colors will change each time the page reloads. You can select multiple options in the dropdown menu above the graph.
The Notifications will be on the right hand side, they were previously on the left hand side. The colored graph will change each time the page reloads, if you have it to Show All. Otherwise, it will just have the specific Notification you choose.
This new feature in DD Suite allows a Council / Funding Organization to be able to enter the Outputs/Outcomes from the Goals and Objectives in the their Five-Year State Plan. The Outputs and Outcomes with will appear (view only) in Grantee Periodic Program Reports, based on the state plan associations in the project work plan.
This feature will be helpful for grantees when completing Periodic Program Reports.
If you don’t add anything, you won’t notice the changes.
In the example below: you can see on the Periodic Program Report, the Outputs and Outcomes are not listed for Goal 1 Objective 2 (since nothing was added - see above) but they are listed for Goal 1 Objective 3 because Outputs and Outcomes had data entered when setting up the Goals and Objectives (see above).
You will find notifications of releases and updates in the comments.
Performance Measures
Removed old Performance Measures from dropdown when working on Work Plan. (5/30/2022)
Areas of Emphasis and Primary Activities
The new State Plan (and PPR) allow multiple Areas of Emphasis and Primary Activities to be chosen. DD Suite now allows you to choose multiple Areas of Emphasis and Primary Activities to be selected for Applications, Grants and Council Activities. (6/9/22)
Save / Cancel Scroll Buttons This feature will be in another update soon. Many pages in DD Suite will have a scrolling Save or Cancel button when working on a longer page. (5/18/2022)
Leave Page This is a new feature that will display a dialog box with a reminder that says you have made changes but have not saved them. If you hit cancel, it will bring you back to the page to save changes. If you try again to leave the page you are working on and haven’t saved, you would get the next dialog box to leave unchecked for creating additional dialog boxes, or check to not receive notifications during that page session. (5/18/2022)
Email or Export Applicants is a new feature which allows a Funder to generate a csv email list and/or directly email all of the applicants for a specific NoFA/RFP. Criteria for inclusion would be all individuals listed under the “People” section of each Application. Application can be in progress or submitted. (05/09/2022)
Add all Demographics Measures is a new convenience link when editing a Project Work Plan. It is only visible when a Project Objective has no demographics. If a Project Objective has no demographics, then a convenience/utility link will be available that will add all demographics (including council-defined sub-measures) to the Project Objective. After they are added, the “display” is exactly the same as it is today. After they are added, the Funding Organization could then edit each one individually to set target values and remove any individually after they are added. Once, or if, a Project Objective has any demographics already assigned, the link will not appear. Grantee Edit also has the convenience link. (03/18/2022)
The Unique Entity ID (SAM) will be replacing the DUNS number for Organizations, and will be required by the federal government. You can learn more at Sam.gov. For now, DD Suite supports both ids. (01/18/2022)
Funding Preferences for adding items to Periodic Reports, Councils/Funding Organizations can prevent Grantees from adding Budget items to Budgets, Activities to Work Plans, and/or Performance Measures to Work Plans in Periodic Reports. FYI: The preferences default to "yes - allow Grantees to add items" and it will be up to Funders to turn the adding capabilities off. (01/08/2022)
Quick Views are found on each NoFA summary, Application summary, and Project summary page. Because many summaries are very long, clicking a Quick View will take you directly to the section of interest but you can only view, until you go into that section on the Navigation Bar. (01/18/2022)
Project Review for PPR is an overview of all projects within a fiscal year. The information provided is the State Plan Objective (or lack) associated with each Project Objective, as well as the Reporting Year set for each Program and Summary Periodic Report. (12/29/2021)
Reset filters button will clear a page's filter settings and return them to default values. (11/28/2021)
Spending and Match Report has been added to the Reports and Queries module. Based on the entered date range, this report shows the Spending and Match amounts from Periodic Expense Reports. (09/09/2021)
Periodic Summary Reports has a new feature. The user can click on a "View Measures" link to see all of the Performance and Demographic Measures associated with a State Plan Objective.
KPI's and Demographics by Goals and Objectives reports no longer show KPIs or demographics with zero totals. The csv downloads for these reports now match what you see on the screen, making them easier to use for the annual PPR.
Grantee Staff list is now available for Funders under Administration->Grantee Organizations. This new report provides a list of all Grantee Organizations who have applied for a grant, or who have had a grant with the Funder. Administrators can download a csv file with all of the Organizations and staff.
KPIs by Objective and KPIs by Goal reports have been split into 4 reports. Demographics were removed from the KPI reports and put into their own reports.
Goals and Objectives are now labeled with a Funder Preference. All DD Councils have defaulted to "State Plan" Goals and Objectives. The State Plan text can be changed by visiting the Administration module, and then selecting Preferences. The new option is in the Terminology section.
Migration to Amazon Web Services (AWS): DD Suite is now officially in the cloud. AWS promises to be more cost-effective, scalable, and secure than our previous architecture.
Restrict Funder Staff Edits allows Funders to specify that only Local Administrators can edit grants. This feature is controlled via Preferences.
Grantee Edit provides Funders with a mechanism to allow Grantees to edit a grant. Funders can specify any combination of the People Tab, the Budget Tab, and the Work Plan Tab to be open for Grantee editing.
Phase 2 of Grantee edit is live. Councils and grantees can see exactly what they have changed on the Project Summary Page while the grant has Grantee Edit status or Grantee Submit status.
Summary Report Narratives by Organizational Objectives is the latest in the Reports and Queries module. DD Councils will need this report to organize Summary answers into required PPR information.
Summary Reports Phase II adds all the features of our other Periodic Reports including Dashboard Notifications and emails to Grantees and Funders.
Reports and Queries reports have convenient new totals. See Key Performance Indicators by Organizational Objectives and Key Performance Indicators by Organizational Goals for this added information.
Filters have a new look! Users can now drop down the filters to refine or expand the selection, or close the filter section.
Periodic Summary Reports have been added to the Periodic Reporting module. Funders should visit Funding-Organization->Reports-and-Queries->Summary-Overview to see how to set up and use this new feature. Grantees can learn how to use the report under Grantees->Grant-Reporting->Summary-Reports.
Key Features (August 21, 2020)
Periodic Program Reports have new reporting fields.
Work Plan Objective Narratives: Funders can specify that Grantees provide progress narratives about Project Objectives.
Project Options: Funders can select whether or not Grantees provide Work Plan Objective narratives and/or Work Plan Activity narratives.
Reports and Queries - Narratives by Organizational Objective: Objective Narratives are a new option for this report.
User Interface Upgrades
Tabs: The current tab is differentiated by color, and all tabs have icons to speed your DD Suite navigation.
Improved look: The filters and breadcrumbs are easier to read and better looking.
List pages: Alternating stripes make one able to read long lists more quickly. Icons let you know which columns can be resorted.
Banner: Sleek and less distracting!
Elimination of the Verification Email: For new users, or users who are changing their email address, we have replaced the verification email with a second field for re-entering the email address.
Letters of Interest have been moved to the Funder Dashboard. Letters of Interest are used to solicit initial brief responses to grant solicitations. Funders can then choose which applicants will complete and submit a full application. This feature is optional for each NoFA / RFP.
Application and Project Budgets, and Periodic Expense reports can be downloaded to a comma separated (.csv) file which can be used with Excel for further data manipulation.
Improved performance and increased data security was achieved when the DD Suite platform was upgraded with new components. (February, 2020)
Add User to Organizations: Local Administrators and Grantee Administrators can create new user accounts for their own Organization. Local administrators can also add Grantees and initiate a Join request to a Grantee organization.
Sub Indicators or Demographic Performance Indicators: Visit the Performance Indicators page for more information. Sub Indicators add the capability to use Performance Indicators (aka Performance Measures) for capturing gender, race, and location demographics. Funders can use system subs or create their own demographic sub indicators.
Pre-defined fixed demographic measures have been added for Gender, Race, and Geography.
Pagination of NoFAs/RFPs, LOIs, Applications, Projects, and Periodic Reporting lists has been added to improve usability.
Pagination, meaning limiting the number of items per page, allows users to look at a manageable number of items and improves performance as we return fewer results at a time.
The number of items per page is user-controlled.
Users can resort the entire list by clicking on an underlined column header. Click again, and the sort order will reverse. Most columns will sort alphabetically, and can be toggled between ascending and descending.
Filters and list information have been simplified.
Print All will return the entire list, formatted for printing.
Staff Filter is available to Administrators. This selection list will contain all active Administrators and Staff.
Letters of Interest: Visit the Letters of Interest (LOI) Overview for more information. Letters of Interest allow Funders to weed out Grant applicants before they have to go through the more lengthy grant application phase.
OMB Support: DD Suite provides a mechanism for Funders to capture the information required in federal financial reports. This information is added to Application Budgets and Project Budgets, and is seen as justification in Applications, Projects, and Periodic Expense Reports.