Example Workflow: Building an RFA Checklist

Understanding the Challenge

Research Funding Announcements (RFAs) present a common challenge for research administrators. While they contain critical information about deadlines, eligibility requirements, award details, and application components, this information is rarely organized consistently across different funding agencies.

This is where Vandalizer truly shines. Let’s walk through creating a workflow that transforms varied RFA documents into standardized, actionable checklists that your team can rely on.

Creating Your RFA Checklist Workflow

Step 1: Upload Your RFA Document

Begin by uploading an RFA document to the Document Viewer window. You can simply drag and drop the file or use the “Upload File” button.

Vandalizer will immediately begin analyzing the document with its Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process, indicated by the spinner icon in the corner. Wait for this process to complete—when you see the icon, Vandalizer has successfully extracted all the text and is ready for the next step.

Tip

Take a moment to click the icon and review the extracted text to ensure the document was processed correctly before proceeding.

Step 2: Design Your Tasks

For an effective RFA checklist, you’ll need to create two types of tasks:

  1. Six Parallel Prompt Tasks - These tasks will identify and pull out specific categories of information from the RFA document regardless of where it appears or how it’s labeled. You’ll create separate prompt tasks for:
    • Dates & Deadlines
    • Eligibility Requirements
    • Award Information
    • Application Components
    • Budget Requirements & Policies
    • Submission Details
  2. Formatting Prompt Task - This task will organize and consolidate all the information gathered by the six prompt tasks into a clean, standardized checklist format.

To create these tasks: - Click the Tasks tab in the Toolbox window - Click the + button at the bottom and select “+New Task” for each task - Name each task descriptively (e.g., “Dates & Deadlines Extraction”) - Write specific prompts for each task that focus on its particular information category - Create the formatting task with instructions on how to consolidate and organize the outputs

Step 3: Build Your Workflow

Now that you have your tasks created, let’s organize them into a workflow:

  1. Navigate to the Workflows tab in the Toolbox window
  2. Click “+New Workflow” and give it a meaningful name like “RFA Checklist Builder”
  3. Add two sequential steps to your workflow:
    • First step: “Extraction” (this will contain all six prompt tasks)
    • Second step: “Formatting Prompt” (this will contain your formatting task)

Step 4: Connect Your Steps

In Vandalizer, each step in a workflow receives input and produces output that flows to the next step:

  • Assign all six prompt tasks to the first “Extraction” step
  • Assign your formatting prompt task to the second “Formatting Prompt” step

This creates a powerful parallel processing approach where each prompt task focuses on a specific type of information simultaneously, and then the formatting task consolidates everything into a standardized checklist.

Step 5: Run Your Workflow

With your workflow built, you’re ready to put it to work:

  1. Make sure your RFA document is selected in the Document Viewer
  2. Click “Run Workflow” in the bottom right corner of the Toolbox window
  3. Watch as Vandalizer processes each step, first running all six prompt tasks in parallel and then formatting the combined results into your checklist

The result? A comprehensive, well-organized checklist containing all the critical information from the RFA, presented in a consistent format regardless of how the original document was structured.

Step 6: Reuse With Future RFAs

The real power of this workflow is its reusability. The next time you receive an RFA:

  1. Upload the new document
  2. Select your saved “RFA Checklist Builder” workflow
  3. Run the workflow with a single click

This consistent approach ensures that every RFA is processed the same way, creating standardized checklists that your team can immediately use for planning and compliance tracking.

Note

The parallel prompt task approach is particularly effective for RFAs because it allows each task to specialize in finding a specific type of information, even when that information is scattered throughout the document or described using different terminology across funding agencies.