Revised 08/21/2026
- Set Up Scholarship Automatch
- Enable Scholarship Automatch
- Scholarship Automatch User Experience
- Records Created in akoyaGO Upon Submission
- Add to Review Group
Set Up Scholarship Automatch
Setting up Scholarship Automatch involves three key components:
- Defining eligibility criteria for each Scholarship.
- Creating a Scholarship Application (the Application Phase of a GOapply Opportunity) that includes all questions needed to determine applicant eligibility.
- Creating any scholarship-specific supplemental forms that eligible applicants will be required to complete.
Step 1: Build Criteria on Scholarship(s)
The Scholarship table can be accessed from the Grants Management area of akoyaGO:
For more information on data tracked on a Scholarship record, please see Scholarships Table in akoyaGO.
On each Scholarship record, a Criteria Builder is located at the bottom of the General tab. This is where Scholarship eligibility criteria will be defined to determine which applicants will qualify for this Scholarship.
Scholarship criteria is configured much like building criteria of a View. You can use fields on the Request table to create Scholarship criteria. You can also access fields from tables related to Request (such as Primary Contact) by scrolling to the bottom "Related" section. You can use both out-of-the-box and custom fields to define criteria.
As when building Views, choose the field, the modifier, and the value for criteria.
For example, if students must be college freshman with a High School GPA of 3.0 or above to be eligible for this Scholarship, criteria might look like this:
As you build criteria, carefully consider whether all criteria must be met (AND) or whether meeting any of the criteria is sufficient (OR) for a student to be eligible. For example, if a student may qualify by being either a nursing major or pursuing a career in education, group those criteria using OR.
Click Save when you have built the scholarship criteria. Upon save, the criteria will be saved as Fetch XML in the Internal tab of the Scholarship.
Important: Any criteria that will determine eligibility must be included as questions in the main Scholarship Application (Application Phase of the Automatch Scholarship Opportunity).
Repeat this process for all Scholarships that should be included in the Automatch process. If a Scholarship us Automatch Enabled but does not have criteria for its eligibility (all applicants are eligible), the Criteria Builder can be left blank.
Step 2: Build Scholarship Application
If you have an existing Scholarship Application, it can be edited to include questions that will determine each Scholarship’s criteria.
If you do not have an existing Scholarship Application, you will need to create one. This will be a new GOapply Opportunity.
Again, the Scholarship application should include questions mapped to all fields on which the criteria are built. This ensures Automatch has the information needed to evaluate the applicant's eligibility.
For more information on setting up a GOapply Opportunity and building a phase, please see the GOapply Administrator Guide - Building Opportunities and GOapply Simple Form Builder.
Step 3: Build Applications for Scholarships
If any Scholarships require eligible applicants to provide additional information or documents, a Scholarship-specific form can be created using the Form Editor on the Scholarship record.
From the Form Editor tab on Scholarship, click Launch Form Editor, which will launch GOapply Simple Form Builder.
Configure Scholarship-specific questions the same way you configure questions for a Phase.
For additional instructions, see GOapply Simple Form Builder Knowledge Article.
The Scholarship form also includes a Transcript and Recommendation Form Editor if a specific Scholarship requires transcripts or letters of recommendation from a third party:
If utilizing transcript or recommendation panels for a specific Scholarship form, third-party uploads will be stored in a Scholarship-related table called Requested Scholarship Attachments.
For more information, please see the GOapply for Third Party Responses Knowledge Article.
For Scholarships that require additional information, the Form Definition field will populate with a JSON file once the Scholarship form has been created:
Enable Scholarship Automatch
After your Scholarship Opportunity is built and Scholarship records have been configured, several fields control whether scholarship automatch is enabled.
GOapply Settings
Automatch Enabled must = Yes. This enables Automatch for the GOapply site.
Automatic Opt-In: When set to Yes, applicants will be automatically opted in for all scholarships they are eligible for. If any Scholarships they are eligible for require supplemental forms, they will be directed to complete them. When Automatic Opt-In is set to Yes, the checkboxes on the GOapply UI Automatching Page will be hidden, not allowing the GOapply User to opt out. The associated Requested Scholarship records that are created will have a status of Opted In so foundation staff have the opportunity to decide which Requested Scholarships to approve/deny.
Note: When Automatic Opt-In = Yes, the Max Scholarship Opt Ins field will be hidden. This is because if Max Scholarship Opt Ins is set to 10 but the student is eligible for 15 scholarships, they will only be opted in for the first 10.
Max Scholarship Opt Ins This is an optional field that can be used to limit the number of Scholarships an applicant can opt in to. If utilizing this feature, enter a whole number. For example, if an applicant is eligible for 15 scholarships, but this field is set to 10, they can only opt in to 10 of the 15 Scholarships. If you do not want to set a limit, leave this field blank, and applicants will be able to opt in to as many scholarships as they want/are eligible for.
No Scholarship Match Text: Found on the Labels tab of GOapply Settings, this optional rich text field will display to applicants if they do not match any scholarships. If left blank, a default message will show. We encourage you to customize the language in this field to clearly communicate with your applicants. This is a good opportunity to explain why they have no matching scholarships and any next steps your organization has in place.
Scholarship Records
Automatch Enabled must be set to Yes for a scholarship to be included in the Automatch process. If this field is set to No, the Scholarship will be excluded from the Automatch process and will not appear in an applicant's matched Scholarship list, even if criteria have been configured in the Criteria Builder.
Automatch only evaluates Scholarships where Automatch Enabled = Yes. If a scholarship has no criteria defined but this field is set to Yes, Automatch assumes all applicants are eligible and will still include this scholarship in the matching process.
GOapply Settings: This optional field can be used to restrict the GOapply site where a Scholarship is available. For example, if a Scholarship is intended only for applicants on a specific GOapply site, select the corresponding GOapply Settings record to prevent this Scholarship from appearing on other GOapply sites.
GOapply Opportunity
On the main Scholarship Opportunity, the Request Type must = Scholarship and Automatch Enabled must = Yes.
Scholarship Automatch User Experience
The GOapply User first completes the main scholarship application (GOapply Phase), which determines their eligibility. After submitting, they are directed to a screen with a list of scholarships they are eligible for based on their answers.
Important: Depending on the number of Scholarships, the Automatch process may take a few moments to complete. Applicants must remain on this screen while processing takes place, as the on-screen instructions state.
The user will be brought to Matched Scholarships once Automatching is complete. The user can return to this list at any time from the Matched Scholarships option at the top of the screen.
If Automatic Opt-In (on GOapply Settings) is set to Yes, all eligible Scholarships will appear. The users will need to complete any supplemental forms.
Here is an example of Matched Scholarships when Automatic Opt-In = Yes. Note there is no checkbox to opt out of a Scholarship.
If Automatic Opt-In is set to No, the GOapply user will select which Scholarship(s) they would like to apply for (opt-in to). After selecting Scholarship(s), the GOapply User will complete any supplemental forms, and click Submit All to complete the submission.
If a selected Scholarship does not require an additional form, the Status will say “Selected”.
If a selected Scholarship requires an additional form, it will be indicated after the checkbox is checked. The Status will say “Selected, Add’l Info Required”. The GOapply User can fill out the form by clicking Complete Application.
If the student has selected to opt-in to any Scholarships that require supplemental forms, the user will not be able to click the Submit All button until those forms are completed.
Leaving the "Apply for this Scholarship" box unchecked indicates that the user is opting out of the scholarship.
The user can also opt out from the supplemental scholarship form.
After the additional form has been submitted, the Status will be Selected and the button will be greyed out and read ‘Application Completed’.
Applicants can save a draft of this form, but after they click Submit and Close, they cannot make changes to this form.
When all supplemental forms are filled out, and the user has selected which Scholarships they want to opt in for, they will click Submit All. Once they click Submit All, the list of matched scholarships will disappear, regardless of whether they opted in to all scholarships.
Records Created in akoyaGO Upon Submission
Like all standard GOapply applications, a Status Tracking Record is created when the applicant starts the application. Upon submission, a Request is created.
For further information on processing the Request record created through GOapply automatch, please see GOapply Automatch Scholarship Requests - Start to Finish Knowledge Article.
Because this is an automatch Scholarship application, in addition to the Request record, Requested Scholarship records are also created for each scholarship the applicant is eligible for. For more details on Requested Scholarships, please see Scholarships Table in akoyaGO - Requested Scholarships.
If Automatic Opt-In on GOapply Settings was set to No, the applicant chose which Scholarships they wanted to opt in/opt out of. If Automatic Opt-In was set to Yes, the applicant will be opted in to all Scholarships they are eligible for.
This is noted as the Status Reason on the Requested Scholarship record:
If the Scholarship had an additional form to fill out, there will be a Form Response and a Submitted File on the Requested Scholarship record.
Add to Review Group
When the Request is added to a Review Group, any additional forms the applicant submitted will appear in the Attachments section.
Reviewers can download these attachments only if the Allow Individual Attachment Downloads setting on the Review Group is set to Yes. For more information on Review Group settings, please see GOapply Reviewer Administrator Guide - Review Group Settings
For information on adding Scholarship Requests to a Review Group, please see GOapply Reviewer Administrator Guide - Add Pending Requests and GOapply Reviewer Administrator Guide - Add from Requested Scholarship.