Enabling Application Collaborators

Control whether Applicants can add Collaborators to their Applications — as an organisation-wide default, and per Funding Round.

Application Collaborators let an Applicant give someone access to a single Application without giving them access to the rest of their organisation's data. You can control whether this is available in two places: an organisation-wide default, and an override on each Funding Round.

Setting the organisation-wide default

Go to Settings > Organisation, click Edit Details, and find the Collaboration section.

The setting is Allow applicants to add collaborators, with Enabled and Disabled options:

If enabled, applicants can invite other applicants to collaborate on their Applications. Individual Grant Rounds can override this in their Advanced Settings; when a Grant Round leaves the setting unset it inherits this organisation-wide default.

Collaborators are enabled unless you turn them off.

When Collaborators are enabled:

Applicants see a Manage Collaborators option on their Applications
Administrators see Manage Collaborators in the Actions panel on an Application, and in the dropdown on the Applications list
A Collaborators column is available on the Applications list

Turning Collaborators off at the organisation level is not just cosmetic. Existing Collaborators immediately lose access to the Applications they were added to — the Applications stay intact and the Collaborator records are retained, but those users won't be able to open them while the setting is off. Turning it back on restores their access.

If you are disabling Collaborators on a portal where they are already in use, let those Applicants know first.

Overriding it on a Funding Round

You can also set this per Funding Round, so a round can differ from your organisation-wide default.

Open the Funding Round for editing

From Grant Rounds, click Edit on the round you want to change. You'll land on step 1, Details.

Expand Advanced Settings

Scroll to the bottom of the Details step and expand Advanced Settings.

Set the collaborator option

Tick or untick Allow applicants to add collaborators:

Let applicants invite other applicants to collaborate on their Applications in this Grant Round.

Continue through the wizard and publish your changes as normal.

This is useful where the type of funding changes who should be involved — for example allowing Collaborators on a research round where an Applicant works with partners at another institution, while keeping them off for an individual scholarship round.

Turning this off on a Funding Round does not remove anyone. Collaborators who have already been added to Applications in that round keep their access and can carry on working as before. The setting only controls whether new Collaborators can be added from that point on.

This is different from the organisation-wide setting — see Which setting applies? below.

Advanced Settings on the Details step also holds Eligible Types of Applicants, which controls whether Companies, Individuals, or both can apply to that round. Both settings follow the same pattern — leave them alone and the round follows the default.

Which setting applies?

If you change nothing, Collaborators are available across your portal.
A Funding Round that has never had the setting touched inherits your organisation-wide default.
A Funding Round with the setting applied uses its own value for Applications in that round, regardless of the organisation default.

The two settings behave differently when switched off

This is the important difference, and it catches people out:

Turning it off at organisation level

Turning it off on a Funding Round

New Collaborators can be added

Existing Collaborators keep access

No — access is withdrawn immediately

Yes — they carry on as before

Use the Funding Round setting when you want to stop new Collaborators being added without disrupting anyone already working on an Application.

Use the organisation setting only when you intend to withdraw collaborator access across the portal — including from people who are actively using it. Turning it back on restores their access.

This setting controls only whether Collaborators can be added. It doesn't change what a Collaborator can see once they have access — that is fixed. See Inviting a New Collaborator to an Application for the full access list, including why Collaborators can never see Contracts or Contract Milestones.