Workspace is the standard way for organizations or individuals to apply for federal grants in Grants.gov. Workspace is a shared, online environment where members of a grant team may simultaneously access and edit different forms within an application. For each funding opportunity announcement (FOA), you can create individual instances of a workspace.
One of the primary benefits of Workspace is the ability to separate individual PDF forms that make up the traditional application package. This allows multiple team members within an organization to access and edit forms at the same time.
Upon completion of individual forms, applicants have the ability to upload completed forms to the workspace so other team members may view and edit the forms. Applicants may also choose to complete forms in a web browser, rather than downloading and filling out individual PDF forms.
Applicants can also reuse workspace forms when applying for new funding opportunities, provided the older form shares the exact name and version of the form in the new funding opportunity.
Grants.gov Workspace exists to make applying for a federal grant as convenient as possible. By leveraging a range of user roles and access levels, applicants can control access to forms, create a custom workflow and save time on their application.
A Workspace Participant is a registered applicant with access to at least one workspace.
The Participant can perform actions on forms within the specific workspace(s) to which they have been added.
Participants are those users who are contributing to the completion of the opportunity package (i.e., the "application" in Workspace).
All of the Participants of a workspace are listed in the Participant tab on the Manage Workspace page.
Participants may be either members of the applicant organization or registered Grants.gov applicants outside the organization.
Individual Applicants: If you are registered in Grants.gov and only have an individual profile (i.e., not applying on behalf of an organization), some of the steps and user roles associated with Workspace do not apply to you. Review the Individual Applicant Registration help article for more information.
The Workspace Participant access level is considered a category of access. Any user listed in the Participants tab, thereby defined as a Workspace Participant, may also have the Workspace Manager role, Standard or Expanded AOR roles, the Workspace Owner access level, a combination of these roles and access levels, or no additional role or access level. All of these users are still Workspace Participants contributing their part in that workspace.
The Workspace Manager role enables a user to create new workspaces.
Upon creating a workspace, the user with the Workspace Manager role inherits the Workspace Owner access.
Any Participant with the Workspace Manager role may have the Workspace Owner access level assigned to them by the current Workspace Owner.
A Participant with the Workspace Owner access level allows the user to manage other users' access to a workspace. There can only be one Workspace Owner per workspace.
The Standard Authorized Organization Representative (Standard AOR) role enables a Workspace Participant to submit applications on behalf of the organization.
The Standard AOR role may only be assigned by an AOR with the Expanded AOR role for that organization.
If a workspace does not have a participant with the Standard AOR role, the application can only be submitted if a user with the Expanded AOR role accesses the workspace and clicks the Submit button.
Watch the video below and review the Grants.gov Roles & Privileges page for a detailed breakdown of all the roles.
Note: Only Participants with the Workspace Manager role or a custom role with the Own Workspace privilege can become a Workspace Owner. If your organization uses custom roles rather than the core roles in Grants.gov, please refer to your internal training resources about Grants.gov. The Grants.gov Online User Guide uses the core roles (i.e., Workspace Manager, Standard AOR, and Expanded AOR) to explain which users may access and perform actions. For more information, review the Manage Organization Roles help article.