Scholars-success User Guide

1. Ways to Sign In

Scholars-success provides three secure ways for students and applicants to sign in:

• Email One-Time Code: Enter your email address to receive a secure 6-digit numeric verification code sent from our support mailbox. The code expires in 10 minutes. There are no passwords to remember or reset.
• Google Sign-In: Sign in with your verified Google account. If your verified email matches an existing account, your login is linked seamlessly.
• Microsoft Account (Work, School, or Personal): Sign in with your Microsoft Entra ID or personal Microsoft account. To protect your account integrity, your email address is verified via a 6-digit confirmation code before your session is established.

Staff and enterprise administrators access administrative tooling on their designated admin host using Cloudflare Access Single Sign-On (SSO).

2. Session Duration and Expiration

Student sessions are secured by an encrypted browser cookie (__Host-scholars_session) and managed with strict safety rules:

• 24-Hour Idle Expiry: If you remain inactive for 24 hours, your session automatically expires for your security. Your idle timer refreshes each time you interact with the app.
• 14-Day Maximum Lifetime: Regardless of activity, sessions expire after 14 days, after which you will be prompted to sign in again.
• Signing Out: Selecting the Sign Out button in the header immediately terminates your active session on the server and clears your session cookie.
• Session Ended Notice: If your session expires while using the app, you will be redirected to the sign-in page with a friendly prompt to sign in again.

3. How Sign-Up Works

At launch, Scholars-success is strictly available for individuals 18 years of age and older. Every new user must confirm their age during sign-up. If someone indicates they are under 18, access is refused, and no profile or workspace is created.

During initial sign-up, you choose how you will use the application:

• For myself: Creates a personal workspace where your scholarship search, essays, and application drafts remain private to you.
• For an organization: Creates an organization workspace where teams collaborate on institutional scholarship programs. The creator is assigned the initial administrator role.

4. Workspace Switcher & Data Boundaries

You can hold a personal workspace and belong to one or more organization workspaces under a single verified account. The Active Workspace dropdown in the top header displays your current working context.

Data Isolation Guarantee: Documents, tracked scholarships, and notes do not cross workspace boundaries unless you explicitly choose to copy an item. Administrators of an organization cannot inspect or read items in your personal workspace.

5. Organization Policy Settings

Organization administrators can configure how members use Scholars-success through the Settings page:

1. Organization use only (Default): Members act exclusively on behalf of the organization. Personal workspaces cannot be created under this organization email.
2. Members may apply for themselves through us: Members can maintain a personal workspace alongside their organization duties. The organization can see that a member has a personal workspace active, but cannot read or view their personal writings or uploaded files.
3. Member's choice: Members decide at sign-up whether they wish to create a personal workspace or act solely within the organization.

6. Tracking Scholarships in "My Scholarships"

The My Scholarships page lets you track scholarship opportunities, requirements, and deadlines by hand.

Application Statuses

Track each scholarship through six clear pipeline stages:

• Saved: You discovered an opportunity and saved it to explore or research later.
• Preparing: You are actively preparing your application, gathering transcripts, drafting essays, or requesting recommendations.
• Submitted: You have formally submitted your completed application to the funder and are awaiting a decision. Submitted entries do not trigger overdue warnings.
• Awarded: The funder offered you an award. Congratulations!
• Declined: Your application was not selected.
• Closed: The deadline passed or the award closed before you submitted.

Deadlines and Alerts

• Due Soon: Opportunities with deadlines occurring within the next 14 calendar days are highlighted as "Due soon" and displayed on your Home dashboard.
• Overdue: Opportunities whose deadline has passed (in UTC calendar dates) are highlighted as "Overdue", unless the entry has been marked Submitted, Awarded, Declined, or Closed.

Sharing in Organization Workspaces

• Private by Default: When you add an entry in an organization workspace, it is private to you by default. Other members and administrators cannot see it.
• Sharing: You can choose to share your entry with the organization at any time using the Share with Organization button in the scholarship details.
• Visibility: Shared entries are visible to all members of that organization workspace.
• Editing & Deletion Permissions: Only the creator can edit a scholarship's details or change its status. Organization administrators can unshare or remove a shared entry, but cannot edit another member's scholarship fields. Non-admin members cannot edit or delete another member's shared entries.
• Personal Workspaces: In a personal workspace, all entries are private to you. Sharing is not applicable.

Deleting an Entry

Deleting an entry removes it from the database immediately (hard delete). The deletion action is logged to the workspace audit history, but no scholarship data remains in storage.

7. Legal & Data Privacy References

For complete details regarding data storage, security, and disclaimers, please consult our official documents:

• How Your Data is Stored and Used (Privacy Policy)
• Wiki and Information Disclaimer