Revised 03/18/2026
Testing is an essential step before opening a GOapply Opportunity to applicants. Whether you have built a Phase/Opportunity yourself or the akoyaGO team has built one for you, you should thoroughly test your Opportunities before opening them to applicants to ensure they function as expected. This Knowledge Article walks you through akoyaGO's best practices for testing.
If you need to make changes to an In-Progress GOapply Phase, please reference this Knowledge Article.
- Register an Account
- GOapply Opportunity Settings for Testing
- Test Phase 1
- Items to Check in Testing
- Test Third Party Responses
- Test Automatch
- Test Other Phases
Register an Account
Visit your GOapply URL (you can find this on the GOapply Settings record if you are unsure of your unique foundation URL). Register an account if you have not yet used GOapply. For more information on how to do this, refer to the GOapply Admin Guide on GOsupport.
Organization
The best practice is to register using your organization's information. Please note that a constituent record will be created for the organization you choose to register with if one does not already exist on your akoyaGO site.
Individual Users
If you are testing a scholarship or individual application, use an individual account. If you have not already used your foundation email address for an organization account, you can register as an individual using your foundation email address. If you have already used your foundation email address for an organization account, you will need to use another email address to register as an individual. Best practice is to register as an individual using your personal email address.
Another option is to use an alias email address. More information found here: Best Practice for GOapply Users Registering for Multiple Organizations
GOapply Opportunity Settings for Testing
There are three settings on the GOapply Opportunity form in akoyaGO that you should be aware of during testing.
1. Max Submissions: If your foundation limits the number of applications that an organization or individual can submit, you will need to set this to be greater than 1 if you plan to submit multiple test applications. Once testing is complete, make sure to set Max Submissions back to the allowable limit set by your foundation.
2. OpportunityType: This field determines what type of user(s) will be able to access this opportunity. Keep in mind which user type will be applying and which account you are using for testing.
3. Publish and Publish Date: To test your Opportunity, it must be published. Keep in mind that publishing will make it an open Opportunity in the GOapply portal. If you do not want applicants to have access yet, make sure to uncheck this field immediately after testing, or temporarily set this Opportunity to Invitation Only (more information below)
4. If your GOapply site is live to applicants, you may want to test an Opportunity, but ensure it is not visible to real GOapply users. In this case, we recommend temporarily setting the Opportunity to Invite Only and utilizing a Title Slug to access the Opportunity directly.
For example, I have temporarily set Invitation Only to Yes to ensure this Opportunity does not yet appear under the "Opportunities" tab for my GOapply users:
Now, I can utilize the Title Slug combined with the URL for my GOapply site to access this Opportunity directly. For example, my GOapply URL is https://goapply2.akoyago.com/Empowered/. I have set the Title Slug to JenGeneralGrant.
To access this Opportunity, I can go directly to https://goapply2.akoyago.com/Empowered/Application/JenGeneralGrant
If you are temporarily setting an Opportunity to Invitation Only for testing purposes, make sure to set the field back to No before publishing to applicants.
For more information on Invitation Only Opportunities and utilizing a Title Slug, please see GOapply Invitation Only Opportunities.
Each standard GOapply submission will create the following records:
1. GOapply Status Tracking Record: Created when a user begins a Phase (or when you advance them to the next phase).
2. Request: Created when a user submits Phase 1 of an Opportunity.
3. Contact Record for the Primary Contact of a request (if no matching email): A Contact record will only be created if your phase includes a panel mapped to Request – Primary Contact. The indicated lookup field determines which field is used to check whether a contact exists in akoyaGO. It is our best practice to use the email address as the lookup field for contacts, as it is the most unique identifier associated with an individual.
4. Constituent Record for the Applicant of a request (if no matching Tax ID): A Constituent record will only be created if your phase includes a panel mapped to Request – Applicant or Request - Payee. The indicated lookup field determines which field is used to check whether a constituent exists in akoyaGO. It is our best practice to use the Tax ID as the lookup field for constituents, as it is the most unique identifier associated with an organization.
Make sure you are aware of any test constituents, contacts, and requests created during testing, as an Admin User should delete them once testing is complete.
Best Practices
Entering Applicant: Register using your organization with your own Tax ID (make sure it is entered on your Constituent record in akoyaGO first), or use a “Test” Organization with a fake Tax ID (e.g., 11-1111111). Upon request, the Applicant will provide the information from the organization your user is registered with.
Entering Fiscal Sponsor (Payee): use an organization called Fiscal Sponsor Test with a fake Tax ID (i.e., 99-9999999)
Entering Contact Information: Use your organization staff or akoyaGO staff information for any Contact fields. This way, no grantees are accidentally notified of application submission.
You do not need to start a new submission to test changes you may have made in the application. On the GOapply Status Tracking record that your user created for testing use, the flow – Update Form Definition and set the Current Phase Status to ‘Draft’. This will now appear in your In Progress table on your GOapply site.
Delete the following records when testing is complete. Only users with the akoyaGO Administrator Security Role can delete records.
Request Record
GOapply Status Tracking Record(s)
Contact record if you created a new one
Constituent record(s) if you created new one(s)
Payment record(s) if you approved your Test Request
Requirement record(s) if created
Requested scholarship record(s) if created
Items to Check in Testing
We recommend checking the following items in testing:
- Mapping: Did all fields on the Request (or related records) fill in as expected? Is anything mapped incorrectly? Is anything not mapped that should be?
- Panels: If your phase includes any Dynamic Panels, did these work as expected? Test with an existing Constituent/Contact and with a new one.
- PDF: On the Documents section of the Request that is created, you will find a PDF and any uploaded attachments. Are there any formatting issues with the PDF?
- Formatting of Questions: Does the Input Type, Input Format, or Input Mask need to be adjusted for any questions? Do dates appear correctly? Currency fields? Numbers? Email addresses/phone numbers? etc.
- Character Counts: Do you need to adjust the character limits for any questions?
- Descriptions: Do any questions need a Description added to help the applicant?
- Logic: If your Phase includes any logic, test all possible branches (i.e. answer the questions both ways and ensure logic works as expected).
- Required Questions: Do any questions need to be marked Required? Are there any questions marked that do not need to be required?
- Read-Only: Should any questions be marked Read-Only, and are they just for an FYI for the GOapply User?
- Hidden Questions: Should any fields automatically populate upon submission with a hidden question (like the Request Title, Program, etc)
- Expression Questions: If your phase includes any questions set by default expression (i.e., they are totaling other questions, etc.), are these working as expected?
If using third-party responses (typically used for recommendations and transcript uploads for scholarship applicants), make sure to enter an active email address so you can test the email notification and third-party connection. For more information on third-party responses, reference the GOapply for Third-Party Responses Admin Guide.
If testing a Scholarship Automatch Opportunity, you will want to test matching in the GOapply UI, any additional scholarship-specific questions/forms, and ensure Requested Scholarships are created as expected.
For more information on Scholarship Automatch, please see:
Test Other Phases
To test the next phases, open the Request created through your GOapply submission. Then, click the “Advance to next GOapply Phase” button to make the next phase available in GOapply for your user. For more information about advancing to the next phase, reference the Advancing to the Next Phase Knowledge Article available on GOsupport.
When testing the next phases, follow the same testing standard as above. Each phase will create a GOapply Status Tracking Record, but all phases will tie to the same Request created on the first phase submission.