--- title: OpenWater Application and Review Cloud Reviews meta_title: 'OpenWater Application and Review Cloud Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 151 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how OpenWater Application and Review Cloud works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.4 review_count: 151 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-04' parent_category: name: Education url: https://www.g2.com/categories/education --- # OpenWater Application and Review Cloud Reviews **Vendor:** Advanced Solutions International (ASI) **Category:** [Scholarship Management Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/scholarship-management) **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 151 ## About OpenWater Application and Review Cloud OpenWater streamlines program management with its end-to-end solution for accepting and reviewing applications, awards, grants, scholarships, proposals, and abstracts. OpenWater’s secure, all-in-one platform makes navigating the review process easy with its user-friendly features. Empower your program administrators by automating time consuming administrative tasks, collecting high volume submissions, and driving data-proven decisions through custom reporting and analytics. ## OpenWater Application and Review Cloud Reviews ### 1. Exceptional Service & Easy to Use! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Marla P. | Grants & Research Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 16, 2025 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Once the submission process is set up, the system is very easy to navigate and use. Customer support is exceptional and makes learning the system fast. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Minor limitations on some processes, but customer service is adept at figuring out solutions. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater makes it easy to access information and sort data into reports to better analyze and improve outreach for submissions. ### 2. Useful, but incomplete **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Primary/Secondary Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater makes collecting a lot of data very easy, both for the administrators and for the end users. I use OpenWater to collect entries into a complex competition, with several rounds of judging and dozens of categories. My entrants rarely have issues uploading their data and navigating the submission portal. Once I receive the data, I can easily sort it and assign it to judging panels. The export functions to send judging data to Excel is extremely helpful when calculating final results. Overall, OpenWater makes running this competition vastly easier than any other software option I've tried. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater lacks several automation features that would save me time during my competition administration. There is no efficient way to advance round winners to future rounds automatically, which means I am forced to do it manually over several hours. It takes me a very long time to navigate the administrative portal to make any changes. The portal can also be slow at times when dealing with large amounts of data. A lot of the menus are also confusingly and sometimes conflictingly named, leading me to select the wrong options frequently. This is very powerful software, but the user experience is not as strong as it could be. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** I run a large-scale competition with thousands of entries into dozens of categories. OpenWater manages the collection of the submissions and organizes the data so that I can move it through the judging process and ultimately award winners. If I didn't use OpenWater, this process could take months of work manually sorting and organizing entries by hand. This software saves me countless hours of work and makes managing a massive event very easy. ### 3. OpenWater is a fantastic contest management software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brandon P. | Managing Designer and Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 15, 2025 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater is a straightforward and easy-to-use platform for managing all aspects of running an online contest, from administration, entry management, payments, public brochure site, judging, and winner selection. Their onboarding is fantastic, and their support team is a quick chat away. I love how we can impersonate users to be able to support them on their submissions, too. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Overall, the site design feels dated and old, especially regarding the public-facing website as part of our contest. OpenWater would undoubtedly benefit from refreshing its design experience. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater is primarily allowing to run an online contest with hundreds of users across our state. ### 4. OpenWater is user friendly and affordably priced. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Media Production | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The features of OpenWater make it very easy to track information and pull reports that tell me exactly what has taken place in our competition. Information is updated in real time. The tutorial helps me insure that our competition is accurate and administered with integrity. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The only downside I can think of is that some of the time, when I need to make a change or add some information, there are so many layers of where the information is stored that it gets difficult to find where the change should be. Some of the changes, such as adding an entrant, require going to multiple tabs to update information. I worry I will overlook getting something changed. But, we are lucky that our changes are very infrequent. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** We received over one thousand entries in our awards competition in 2024. OpenWater makes life easy by keeping all of the entry information in one location that is easy for us to review and for our entrants to submit. ### 5. Robust system for all scholarship application managment needs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Edwin G. | Manager, AICPA Foundation Scholarship & Fellowship Program, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 20, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The ability to give system users within my organization different levels of access or access per scholarship program. The developers have thought out and implemented feedback from users to make it a flexible system for the needs of different types of organizations. The customer support is great. I have always received prompt and courteous responses from our account rep through the chat function. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The reports function is challenging to understand at first, and even then, it is not as easy to create different types of reports for the data we want to pull. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allows us to quickly create new applications from previous templates, schedule email reminders, and simplifies the judging process when using multiple volunteers that need to review and score applications. ### 6. Works well for our annual awards program. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 30, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Openwater works really well for our annual awards program. We love that we can simply copy/paste a previous award season's entire program, saving us hours of setup time. Further, when we have a question, our dedicated AM is very responsive and helpful. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The interface is a little clunky and not completely intuitive. It would also be nice if our package allowed more than one team member to get in touch wiuth our AM. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater helps save us countless hours on awards program management. It's easy for our internal team to use and also for our team of judges that help out with the prgram for a few weeks each year. ### 7. Navigating Success: OpenWater Application and Review Cloud **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Danielle J. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 23, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The most helpful aspect of OpenWater Application and Review Cloud lies in its seamless navigation and intuitive interface, which greatly simplifies the submission process. Its flexibility stands out as a significant upside, as it can be tailored to meet the unique requirements of various projects. Additionally, OpenWater serves as more than just a submission tool—it fosters collaboration and communication among reviewers, volunteers, and collaborators in real-time, enhancing the overall experience and streamlining the review process. Its user-friendly interface, adaptable features, and collaborative capabilities make it a catalyst for growth, innovation, and success in application and review management. For those seeking a platform that combines efficiency with innovation, OpenWater Application and Review Cloud proves to be the ideal companion, guiding users towards success in award submissions, volunteer management, and case report compilation. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There are some features that we are still learning how to use/develop. The demos are somewhat limited on how to navigate through those extra features. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater Application and Review Cloud has not only helped us overcome operational challenges but has also empowered us to work more collaboratively, efficiently, and effectively towards our goals. ### 8. OpenWater is a powerful solution for contest management **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 19, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater's online training modules are very helpful for administrators who need to set up a competition from scratch. Customer support is also very responsive. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The OpenWater system is very comprehensive and offers many features that aren't relevant to my particular needs. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater helps me manage a journalism competition that draws upwards of 1,000 entries. From entry submission all the way through judging, OpenWater makes the process easy. ### 9. Capable and Robust, with Top-Tier Support Staff **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Keir H. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 03, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The platform is highly customizable and adaptable to the program applications within our business model, which we use frequently and for varied processes. The support team—from our dedicated support specialist to the team who backs them up—is incredibly reliable and diligent in chasing down everything from configuration quirks to more significant integration complexities. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The user interface is clunky and makes usage difficult at times. Features and functionality have been added to the platform over time without recurring reviews of the UX. Things like configuration settings, templates, and other aspects are scattered across multiple pages and tabs, making it difficult to know where a variable is set, which template an email is applying, and other conditions. Some dialogs have buttons for clear calls-to-action, and others have slight, almost unnoticeable links. The platform could use a top-down UI/UX review so that the (again, robust) feature set can be more effectively utilized without having to dig through knowledgebase articles or ask for support as often. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Collecting and vetting application quality are key time-savers. ### 10. Well thought out software with a lot of built in functionality and great tech support. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jaime C. | President, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 26, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** We are using Open Water to get our scholarship application online to make it easier for both candidates and reviewers going forward. After investigating half a dozen options we chose Open Water and feel it was the right choice for our organization. I am NOT an IT professional in anyway so it took some time to learn the system. However, the sales people assured me they had great customer support. It's one thing for a sales person to say an organization excels at customer support, but quite something else to deliver on it consistently and their team do so in my experience thus far. They have been great and this software is a game changer for our organization and me personally. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The software can be pretty complex due to all the built in functionality but it is fairly user friendly and the support staff answers questions quickly. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Streamlining our application and review process ### 11. OpenWater is a hefty tool to use, I recommend! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Medical Practice | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 20, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The best part about OpenWater is having one central platform that collects submission and application data for each of our unique programs. Several different teams within my organization utilize OpenWater in their own way so it's great to have a platform that allows for multiple admins and data control/visibility. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The conditional logic behind the storage space could be improved. My organization has used OpenWater for an entire decade now. It's great to see everything stored in one place but there should be a way to improve the storage space capacity. I would also include having the capability to allow administrators to "hard delete" what may no longer be needed is also another limited facet. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** My organization has several teams that utlize OpenWater in different ways. This includes for scholarships/projects, volunteer opportunities, awardees. OpenWater allows us to have one platform for all these teams to successfully execute their programs. ### 12. A great system for our Awards Program! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Construction | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 27, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I would say that the best part of this system is not only the ease of reviewing the data (and it's implementation) but its the customer service that is fantastic. It was easy to intregrate into our database and our members had no issues accessing the system. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** It's a bit expensive to use annually, but if you can increase your applicaiton frequency as well as any potential sponsorships to cover the cost, it can equal out in the end. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Collecting the data for our awards as well as integrating with our AMS makes the process for our members extremely easy for both them and us. ### 13. OpenWater is a One Stop Show **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ashley F. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 26, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater allows us to house all information about session proposals in one place. We can easily extract data using the robust reporting tools, but the fav-favorite tool is the email wizard. It used to take hours to email all proposal applicants, and now it is done with the click of a button! This allows staff to use our limited time on improving other areas and expanding our form offerings to include not only session proposals but now awards applications. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Ceratin integrations seem a bit pricey, but I'm sure you get what you pay for and it is a very powerful addition. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** A volunteer committee is tasked with reviewing hundreds of awards applications, each with numerous supporting documents. OpenWater will be launched to house all information in one place to ease the burden on the volunteers who are tackling the project. ### 14. OpenWater positive experience **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 20, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Ease of use for the back end - adding/editing submissions; pulling reports; adding reviewers/judges and setting them up in groups; customer support is amazing and prompt. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Can sometimes be confusion if we have multiple meetings open, when the timelines overlap. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** The selections for the question above don't really apply - we are utlizing this system for our members to submit abstracts which are then presented at our large meetings twice a year. We also have peer review on these abstracts, done in OpenWater. This system consolidates the process, and has multiple ways to pull the necessary informaiton via reports. ### 15. Changed the way we work **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** It is increidbly flexible. We run multiple applications at once, some that are simple and some that are complex, and OpenWater does them all with ease. It's simple for users, applicants, and judges alike. Their customer service is also OUTSTANDING! **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** In order to parse information in a visual way, you'll likely want to ingtegrate with a platform like AirTable. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** We manage 20+ applications per year, some with 800+ applicants. OpenWater helps us do this with ease. ### 16. It works but could be better **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alicia B. | Board of Directors: President, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 28, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There are very helpful help articles available for the AAF awards program, which I have used year after year. The customer service team is extremely helpful when I have a question or an issue. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I can't exactly give examples of how it could be fixed or elevated but some of the processes are a little hard to navigate unless you have been using it for a while. When we are doing our judging process, I wish there was a way to easily showcase the entries instead of having to go one by one. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps us manage our awards program pretty easily, I feel like we would be completely lost if we had to navigate how to set up and run the awards program without it. ### 17. Reliable service **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cdat I. | Coordinator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The customer support is great and easy to reach **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The systems could be slightly more intuitive to use. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Open Water Was able to adapt to our rather unique evaluation process. ### 18. Very Intuitive System for Collecting Information **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michael L. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I like how easy it is to customize information collection. We have implemented it with very little issue to collect information from scholarship winners, speakers, and others. I also like how responsive customer service is to our questions and concerns, and they are always ready to help. We use this for many of our applications, and use it daily. We also have enjoyed the ease of integration with with our CRM, NetFORUM. We also appreciate the reporting tool, which has helped us with data collection. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** We would appreciate it if OpenWater would consider a unified e-mail correspondence tool so our marketing department can give our emails a unified look and feel, and so that we can limit the possibilities of errors by using substitution variables to fill in key information. Communicating with applicants and users who interact with our platforms is critical, and we want to make sure we get that right every time. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater is helping streamline business processes by reducing the number of emails we send back and forth to scholarship and award winners and recipients. Not only do we use OpenWater to administer the actual award and scholarship applications, but we also use OpenWater to collect critical tax and acceptance forms, headshots/photos, and travel information (when required) from applicants. This helps staff by aggregating all the information in one place, and then after the establishment of a deadline we can pull a report or bulk download attachments without the need to search our inboxes. ### 19. Great for company awards! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Telecommunications | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 20, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The ease of being able to move our judging to different rounds in the process is amazing. We had planned to use Google docs which wouldve been a nightmare, but with this everything is contained and easy to navigate. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The only downside is the price. It is one of the more expensive options, then again, you get what you pay for. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** This product helped make the process easy for submitters and judges. Everything is in one spot and easy to naviagte. ### 20. Works well constant improvements **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Corey G. | Conference Planner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 18, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Fast reliable customer service. Takes users suggestions into account when adding and refreshing features **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Judging portal can be clunky and hard to navigate. Some reports are built in and easy to use but for some reason the judging reports require lines of code. Please change the judging reports to act the same as submission and session reports with the dropdowns. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Reviews and places abstracts. Easy to navigate ### 21. I used OpenWater to manage funding applications and award nominations **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Evan S. | Program Specialist, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 27, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Single sign-on validation is critical. Its customer service is fantastic. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The user interface is not very intuitive. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's validating applicant identities which saves the reviewing team dozens of hours a month. **Official Response from Debbie Willis:** > Hi Evan, we appreciate the feedback on the user interface. I'm excited to share that the OpenWater team has been working on a new UI for the past 12 months and it will be releasing soon. ### 22. OpenWater Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kate B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 26, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater makes running our awards program easy. The software is very intuitive and because we use it every year, we have historical data that we can use to inform decisions on the program going forward. Programs are easy to set up and implement, and if you do run into trouble, the customer support is incredibly helpful **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There's nothing that I dislike about this program - we have used it for over 10 years, and have no complaints. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Using OpenWater saves me money because my jury can work remotely, through the program, instead of having to get together in person to review submissions. ### 23. Openwater as a whole is a strong platform with many capabilities **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ben B. | Coordinator, Education & Learning Serviees, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 23, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The openwater review platform as a whole is quite strong with many capabilities. A great feature is being able to handle huge amounts of application and review processes with many different levels of user involvement, and being able to navigate all of that information is great **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Openwater could use with some QOL improvements or features. Sorting and searching data could use a bit more work. We frequently had to work with our openwater rep to find workarounds for things we were trying to do, which took time and resources. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Having a mass amount of submitters and reviewers and being able to effectively collect reviews and analyze data ### 24. Administrator review of OpenWater with three years of experience **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater meets most of our needs. We use it register hundreds of presenters and hundresd of reviewers. They have many helpul features such as Singlew Sign On, contingency questions, email blasts, and the dashboard is easy to see relevant information. It is easy to use and we are able to make changes and updates by ourselves. They have strong customer support and are quick to respond to questions with solutions. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The cost of OpenWater is quite expensive. Prices have gone up significantly over the past several years. We were told that we would pay a one time fee for Single Sign On and now we pay for it every year. When we asked the rep about the app that goes with OpenWater, they could not provide us with much information which was frustrating and disappointing. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Aligning our email system with their email system. ### 25. Extremely satisfied and customer service is top-notch **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Austin S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 23, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I appreciate how intuitive the system is. There have only been 2 questions I've had and one was answered via the FAQ page and the other was answered by chatting with support. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I don't have any complaints at this point. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater helps us make what could be an extremely tedious process of managing applicants and then managing the judging process into a process that is simple and easy. ### 26. Openwater - Our go to service for almost everything **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** J-D B. | Director of Marketing and Sales, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** We started with Openwater a decade ago and found it fast and easy to use. We now run over 100 programs in it a year, everything from Scholarship applications to a near 2,000 entry video and audio festival. Customer service is top notch and Louisa's team does all they can in a super prompt manner. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Recent price increases set us back as a small non-profit, but we still find it a good value. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's a one stop shop for collection a review of materials, especially large file formats. ### 27. AAF Oklahoma ADDY Awards Chair **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sarah H. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 10, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The OpenWater portal is well organized by event/competition and preserves all historical data. The ability to email applicants in bulk based on various rules is extremely beneficial and saves very valuable time, especially for larger competitions with over a thousand entrants. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The email took is very glitchy when it comes to branding, design, copying/pasting, and formatting. It would be nice also if the email tool imported or carried over emails from prior years to use as templates instead of having to individually clone them every year. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater houses the creative media for each entry and organizes it very nicely by category. I also love the ability to download custom lists into Excel, especially, when it comes to the V/O scripts ### 28. Robust Application Platform **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dakota N. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater allows for us to manage a variety of award types in an easy to use platform for administrators and front-end users with a wealth of customization tools. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The integrations when using the platform as a nomination portal for awards are at times limited and do not synch well with IMIS requiring manual input of data into openwater and into our database. To improve it would require extensive development work that would not achieve all of our end needs. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Openwater solves our need for an integrated and robust application platform that is easy to use and administrate. It creates a single place for our members to go and access al of our portals. ### 29. Efficient system for awards process **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** It allows for multiple volunteers to find and review applications for man different applicants easily. Front end users need a small amount of training in order to use the system which is helpful. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The backend system for openwater can be convoluted which requires more time for staff members and admins to find the section of their applications prior to editing. There are too many clicks between what an admin wants to accomplish and the source area to make those edits happen within the backend of the application. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to provide a complete online system for awards applications and assessment management. It allows us to complete the process fully remotely and include experts from across the country making our process more diverse. ### 30. Once you learn how to use it is a very poweful tool **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The app has a steep learning curve and at the beginning it is quite difficult to go through it, but once you get used to terminology and procedures, it is very powerful and customizable. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The help system could be improved. Especially since there are different types of users and not all of them have the same level of access, sometimes the steps outlined in the help pages do not apply and users do not know why. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Before using OW we performed our job using free forms on the web and manual emails. Now everything is centralized in one place and it makes working in a team much easier. ### 31. Customer service fan! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Heidi B. | Senior Meeting Planner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I love that I can set up the system (mostly by myself now), but if I need help I can reach out to my tech who is ready to help and is very responsive. I feel very accomplished when I can triage issues on my own. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There are some things like adding a headers that don't work easily and I always need help with. Perhaps it's just not intuitive enough for me. Also, reviewers have a difficult time accessing the system often and need to clear their cache and refresh before it works. This is frustrating for them and me. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Collecting abstracts and sending automatic emails to authors and reviewers takes out the manual process we used before so it's definitely a timesaver. I think it could be even better if I new more tips and tricks. I would love it if OpenWater offered a course to planners on how we can use the system better. ### 32. Supportive Platform **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater is an intuitive platform with a few quirks that the support team is always available to work through. Takes some time to learn, but once you have it saves you a ton of money and truly helps keep your grants organized. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There are some quirks and less intuitive aspects of the platform but they are the minority and the support team is always available to help with what it is you are trying to accomplish. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Affordable and organized grant management means greater efficiency of time and resources. ### 33. Straight-forward tool for applications and contests **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michelle F. | Associate Advertising Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Client support is great. Their reps are very responsive and helpful. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The interface can take some getting used to. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenWater made it easy to collect entries, set up a landing page for users, and organize submissions. ### 34. Excellent platform with superior customer service **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Delia Cruz N. | Honors Nomination Coordinator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 09, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** It is easy to customize a program to your needs after learning the basic setup. It is straightforward for users and has complex features if/when needed. The previous platform I used made it challenging for admins to extract only the necessary information and did not allow this much customization. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There isn't much to say here. Even the basic features are great. We've received support for more complex customizations to our programs so there are things I wish we could easily implement as customers but it's not realistic to expect a platform to be exclusively tailored to a company's needs. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our team deals with over 80 different programs that are reviewed by 80 different committees who each have 3-12 volunteers. OpenWater makes it easy for us to collect the information that needs to be reviewed and enforce unique and diverse applicant requirements. This year, OpenWater has allowed our team to process over 1,200 applications reviewed by around 320+ volunteers. The cherry on top was being able to easily access and export any/all data needed for our team to do reporting. ### 35. Great responses on technical support. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dave P. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** It is very intuitive. Lots of information. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Too many windows open when using it. Lots of clicking required. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Running reports is easy. ### 36. Good with occasional issues **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rusudan Z. | Conference Coordinator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 30, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Overall, our experience with Open Water has been positive. The response times are always speedy, and the system is user-friendly from the administrator's backend. It's easy and fast to generate reports using complex conditions for filtering information. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** On occasions, the development work has taken much time without giving a reliable estimated time for completion of work. Our participants have also complained significantly about how cumbersome the platform is from the user's perspective. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Open Water helps us manage a high volume of data coming from submitted applications. It is also helpful to have communications and receiving payment tools embedded in the platform as it decreases our need for working with too many third parties. ### 37. A New Comer's Perspective **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The best part about OpenWater is having live chat support. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There are so many odd UI/UX paths through the system. So many times I have to dig in menus for a commonly used thing. And the overall look is unappealing. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's simply another platform, one place to hold all our applications and coordinate phases of the review process. ### 38. Get ready to grow **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Courtney J. | Director, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 27, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Increased our capacity for giving awards 10-fold. Organized, cloud-based, data retention. Great training modules and superior help-desk and on-boarding. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The fact that I did not prepare to grow as fast as we did. Still requires staff management and wished I had prepared for additional staff to manage to increase in capacity - this is a good thing ultimately. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** The capacity to onboard and manage sophisticated awards. ### 39. OpenWater works great for our academic conferences **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 08, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater is incredibly intuitive. Their training materials were extremely helpful in getting us going in the right direction for the initial setup. Once you become familiar with the basics, the pieces fall into place. Our account reps have been great at suggesting various ways to accomplish our goals using the system. Their knowledge rubs off, and we are now taking our programs to the next level and using even more OW features than before. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The price tag is a little steep, but with the power and flexibility of the system paired with the incredible customer service, it's worth it for the experience our users now enjoy. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have been working to make our conferences less reliant on person-specific knowledge to maintain continuity as employees come and go. So much changed during the pandemic that it gave us the impetus to look at a complete renovation of our conferences to serve in-person and virtual attendees better, and that's where OpenWater filled the void. ### 40. It's easy to use and the support staff is excellent. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Writing and Editing | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 06, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** We use it for our magazine's annual awards program. I'm able to gather everything I need for a magazine article as part of the submission process, including high-res photos. Once I know the winners, I can easily assign feature stories because I have all the winners' materials in one place as part of their submission. In addition, the judges can preview those high-res photos easily, which makes their job judging much easier and quicker than having to download high-res photos. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Honestly, there's nothing I dislike about this program. It's worth every penny! **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Previously, we used Sharefile for our awards program. It was tedious and judging was nearly impossible because the judges had trouble previewing photos without downloading them. OpenWater is easy for our team and intuitive for the judges. I give them one instructional email and they're off an running on the first portion of our judging process via OpenWater. ### 41. Incredibly easy setup **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brad S. | Information Architect, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 06, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** From a developer standpoint, I was expecting some level of interaction to get parts of the project off the ground. Thus far, OpenWater has been incredibly easy to produce applications/forms. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Parts of the interface aren't where I'd normally think they were. There's some thought behind the placement, but as a new user, given the amount of use, it would take a daily user to navigate without issues. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allows the organization I work for to put all of their assets under one roof, instead of reinventing the wheel each year and relying on host institutions to fill in those gaps. ### 42. A robust management tool with superior customer service. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cameron W. | Associate Director of Standards and Technology , Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 28, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Beyond being fully customizable, Openwater is reliable as our centralized tool for all aspects of program management **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There are a few small cumbersome features, but the customer service team is always readily available to assist. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Application collection, management and the entire judging process. ### 43. User Friendly Software That Gets the Job Done! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carol K. | Awards, Scholarship and Volunteer Coordinator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The software is easy to set up and manage for the applicant, judges and administrator. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The most frustrating is that emails from the Open Water software either do not reach the intended receivers or are blocked by internet security systems. This creates additional work for the administrator to try to make contact with recommendation letter writers. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Open Water has eliminated many manual tasks that I had to do with our previous software. Frees up valuable time to focus on more important tasks and I am able to provide better service to the users. ### 44. So important to our organization that we moved to unlimited **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Angie M. | Senior Website Specialist, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 31, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater is an easy system to use, learn, and implement -- we don't have to worry about lost data or site speed **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I wish there was more customization for the display of the judging view. I also wish we could add pages for reviewer questions for long programs **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to manage our main awards as well as some of our grant programs through this software ### 45. Keeps me together and organized **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Elizabeth D. | Adminstrative Assistant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** OpenWater's customer support is outstanding. They are just a message away and always keep me moving forward in the process. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I am not the most robust "backend" user of the software, so when updating everything section by section - I feel like I always miss something in an area and need to go back in when a user finds an issue. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** They just keep me moving forward. ### 46. Overall a good experience navigating Open Water. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ashley S. | SSCS Administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 07, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** There are many functions on Openwater; I like how when I've had any inquiries or questions about a feature, I've been supported and assisted with my inquiry. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** A lot of information needs to be retained while navigating Openwater, especially as a new user; it would be helpful if there were supporting tutorial videos and step-by-step instructions for various tasks. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** I haven't come across this issue/matter as of yet. I am still very new to Openwater. But overall, I will say that Openwater does promote productivity for Award related tasks. ### 47. The tool does almost anything you need it to do. Looks old and some things are not very intuitive. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 07, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I love how many options there are in OpenWater. There is almost always a solution to your issue. However, I'd be a bit lost without my designated support rep. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** As a person who has been through 2 awards program launches, it's very frustrating to see that the confirmation emails are not sending or are sending the wrong thing. Another issue we have at Oracle is the SSO login. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** We need a platform to host our awards program on, and OpenWater makes it easier to track, pull reports, and ensures everything is official. It eliminates integrity questions. ### 48. I don't find the platform intuitive at all. Looks and feels clunky for the admin and the user. **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civic & Social Organization | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2023 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** The staff is SO helpful via chat. Extremely responsive and timely. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** It just looks like it's from 2002. Judges and nominators have to create accounts. Can't embed the form into my org's website without paying extra. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's not really. It's just a system that we've used for a while and we're changing too many other things at our org right now that it's not worth it to change this one too ### 49. Difficult to Use **Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** zeina m. | User experience and systems designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 15, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** I do like the features and the fact that we can have a whole number of sites/programs. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** It's not a very intuitive system. Things are where you would not expect to find them. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use it for awards nominations, other volunteer applications, where we need judges to review and grade people's applications. ### 50. Excellent Application **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Elizabeth (Burke) D. | Administrative Assistant - Media Relations and NJEA Frederick L. Hipp Foundation for Excellence in E, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 06, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Having a place for all of my grant submissions and ease of access, coordination and use. The customer service at Openwater is fantastic and constantly helps me make my project successful, despite myself. **What do you dislike about OpenWater Application and Review Cloud?** Nothing. I need to take more time to do trainings provided. **What problems is OpenWater Application and Review Cloud solving and how is that benefiting you?** Organization of grant applications and pushing into electronic judging this year. ## OpenWater Application and Review Cloud Discussions - [Is there any plan to expand the capabilities of OpenWater to an Event Management Tool?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/13738-is-there-any-plan-to-expand-the-capabilities-of-openwater-to-an-event-management-tool) - 1 upvote - [When will we be able to customize more with CSS?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/13605-when-will-we-be-able-to-customize-more-with-css) - 1 upvote - [View OpenWater Application and Review Cloud pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/openwater-application-and-review-cloud/reviews?page=2§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-07+05%3A54%3A09+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=fdae6b97-3c81-4b6e-b93d-62da2d8b992e&secure%5Btoken%5D=7179bca9aaa3dc5390cb04f71b0cbf11a979afd96216a64f3d5c9f60006cdfd1&format=llm_user) ## OpenWater Application and Review Cloud Integrations - [Agentforce Sales (formerly Salesforce Sales Cloud)](https://www.g2.com/products/agentforce-sales-formerly-salesforce-sales-cloud/reviews) - [Drupal](https://www.g2.com/products/drupal/reviews) - [Higher Logic Vanilla](https://www.g2.com/products/higher-logic-vanilla/reviews) - [iMIS](https://www.g2.com/products/imis/reviews) - [Impexium](https://www.g2.com/products/impexium/reviews) - [Neon CRM](https://www.g2.com/products/neon-one-llc-neon-crm/reviews) - [Nimble AMS](https://www.g2.com/products/nimble-ams/reviews) - [Personify](https://www.g2.com/products/deepquery-personify/reviews) - [Protech AMS](https://www.g2.com/products/protech-ams/reviews) - [Swapcard](https://www.g2.com/products/swapcard/reviews) ## OpenWater Application and Review Cloud Features **Application Collection** - Custom Application Forms - Attachments - Scholarship Matching - Application Tracking - Status Tracking - Activity Tracking - Progress Tracking **Proposal Management** - Form Building - Review Tools - Grantee Portal - Attachments - Task Management - Customizable Forms - Collaboration Tools - Ratings/Reviews - Document Review - Deadline Management - Contact Management - Contract/License Management - Document Management - Grant Application Management - Compliance Management - Workflow Management **Submission Management** - Form Builders - Countdown Timers - Landing Pages - Applicant Portal **Application Review** - Automated Review Assignments - Scoring Tools - Review Portal - Review Comments - Messaging - Document Review - Applicant Portal - Collaboration Tools **Fund Tracking** - Disbursements - Grant Allocations - Email Notifications - Alerts/Notifications **Judging Management** - Judge Assignments - Multiround Scoring - Scoring and Voting - Submission Dashboards **Administration and Integrations** - Administrative Dashboard - Reports - Integrations **Impact & Outcomes** - Program Evaluation - Ad Hoc Reporting - Dashboards - Administrative Reporting - Financial Reporting **Awards Administration** - Event Support - Applicant Communications - CRM - Reporting **Additional Functionality** - Electronic Payments - Generative AI - Customizable Branding - Multi-Currency - Audit Management - Application Management - Customizable Questions - Student Management - Email Templates - Approval Process Control - Access Controls/Permissions - Reviewer Management - Preview Functionality - Labeling - Categorization/Grouping - Single Sign On - Admissions Management - Forms Management - SSL Security - For Nonprofits - Customizable Fields - Reporting & Statistics - AI Copilot - Alerts/Notifications - Scoring - Data Import/Export - Role-Based Permissions - Email Reminders - Recommendations - For Schools - CRM - Search/Filter - Workflow Management - Interview Management - Grant Management - White Label **Grant Prospecting** - Funder Lists - Automated Responses **Compliance** - Eligibility Screening - Auditing **Integrations** - Fund Accounting - Donor Management - Forms Management **Additional Functionality** - Third-Party Integrations - Generative AI - AI Copilot - Role-Based Permissions - Configurable Workflow - Data Import/Export - Customizable Branding - Customizable Reports - Email Reminders - Audit Trail - Monitoring - Reminders - Categorization/Grouping - Quotes/Estimates - Customizable Templates - Search/Filter - For Grantseekers - Grant Discovery - Grant Award Tracking - Electronic Submission - Payment Tracking - API - Customizable Fields - Reporting & Statistics - Activity Tracking - Applicant Tracking - Customizable Questions - Due Date Tracking - For Grantmakers - Budgeting/Forecasting - Budget Control - Status Tracking - Impact Measurement - Approval Process Control ## Top OpenWater Application and Review Cloud Alternatives - [Submittable](https://www.g2.com/products/submittable/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (167 reviews) - [SurveyMonkey Apply](https://www.g2.com/products/surveymonkey-apply/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (42 reviews) - [Award Force](https://www.g2.com/products/award-force/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (289 reviews)