How the Government Prepares Grant Application Forms – Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, we explained the content development process for new and updated Grants.gov forms. In Part 2, we focus on Grants.gov’s role in the technical development of forms.

The development time of each form can range from one month for a cosmetic change to up to six months for a new, multi-page form. The following provides a high-level overview of the forms development cycle:

1. Finalize Requirements – Agency works with Grants.gov to finalize form requirements, logic, and business rules
2. Develop Form – Grants.gov creates draft form design for agency review. Iterative changes made until final sign-off. Grants.gov begins more detailed form development (system and application package integration) and internal testing process
3. Test Form – Agency and public users perform acceptance testing on form
4. Integrate Form – Agency/Applicant integrate approved form into their systems
5. Deploy to Production – Grants.gov posts form to production system for use with application packages and makes form data specifications available in the Forms Repository

With Release 15.4, this process became even more involved due to the launch of online forms.

For every form, Grants.gov creates both a PDF version and an HTML version. (These online forms are being rolled out gradually; not all PDF forms have an online version quite yet).

Furthermore, with each form that is developed, there also needs to be an extensive amount of testing, to ensure forms are able to be filled in smoothly by applicants on deadline.

Questions or comments? Please share them below. Part 3 of this series will detail how and when the content and technical development cycles overlap. Comment Policy and Privacy Notice.