Checking and activating a call

Performed by: Call manager (or call organiser, or staff)

A call opens for proposals when it is activated. Activation runs the workflow check first, and refuses a call whose workflow cannot run as configured.

Call activation process

Once all configurations are complete:

1. Review all configurations:

   • Verify general settings are correct
   • Confirm team assignments are complete
   • Check that offerings are properly configured
   • Ensure role mappings are defined — without them the Activate call confirmation warns No role mappings: projects allocated from approved proposals would have nobody on them

2. Run the workflow check — see Checking the workflow before activation.

3. Activate the call:

   • Choose Activate from the call's actions to open it for proposal submissions, and confirm in the Activate call dialog
   • Activate stays disabled, with the reason on hover, while the call has no round, no enabled workflow step, not exactly one enabled allocation decision, or no accepted offering
   • Once activated, the call becomes visible to potential applicants
   • Applicants can now submit proposals during active rounds

Checking the workflow before activation

The call's Validation tab, between Manage and Edit, says whether the call's workflow works as configured. Its Check sub-tab lists every finding with its severity and a link that opens the setting to fix:

• Errors mean the call cannot run as configured — for example no round, no enabled step, no or several allocation decisions, an award response before the decision, a step that nobody can complete, a run condition naming a missing or later step, an accepted offering missing, or a notification rule that can never reach anyone.
• Warnings never block — for example step durations up to the decision that exceed the round's time to decision (the allocation date, else Target days from cut-off to decision), steps without a duration, or an empty reviewer pool.
• Info lists, for example, the roles the call managers assign by hand and the steps that differ from the template the call was created from.

Activate runs the same check and refuses the call while there are errors; the action shows their number (Activate (2 errors)), and a refused activation lists all of them at once. There is no override. The calls list shows the verdict too, under Workflow check in the call's expanded row.

An archived call can be activated again the same way.

The other sub-tabs of Validation help confirm that the workflow does what you intend: Roles, Notifications, Diagram, Timeline, Paths, Dry run, Scenarios, and Changes — the call's saved workflow versions, compared with each other or with the template the call was created from.

Changing an active call

Workflow steps stay editable while the call is active, but a reconfigured step applies only to proposals submitted afterwards: each proposal keeps the path it was submitted with. Make structural changes before activation wherever you can — see Rules across a call's steps.