Recognition Programs: Settings Overview

Using the recognition programs feature, you have the ability to add many recognition program types to your Awardco recognition platform such as holiday programs, employee of the month, wellness programs, and many more. There are very few limits to what kind of programs you can create. This article will show you how to add new recognition programs, manage existing ones, and change the settings in the recognition programs feature. 

This feature allows you to have a great deal of customization at your fingertips and ensures your programs operate exactly as you need. We strongly recommend discussing the setup of new programs with your Awardco Client Success Manager. We can help you understand the intricacies of this feature and help make sure everything is set before your recognition programs go live. 

Consider reviewing the Recognition Programs Sampler to explore the different programs being used across Awardco's client base.

Programs Setting Configuration

Locate the recognition programs settings page by logging into your Awardco account, navigating to the platform admin section by clicking the "Admin" button under your name, clicking into the settings tab, and by clicking the recognition programs sub-tab. On this page, you will see general programs settings that govern the wider recognition process, active and archived recognition programs, and the "Add Program" button that will allow you to create new programs.  

Recognition Programs General Settings

The settings on this page will be applied to all recognition programs built using this feature. 

• Recognition Programs
  • On/Off Toggle - This should be toggled on once the full setup is completed and you're ready for your users to see the "Recognize" tab on the home screen. 
  • Page Title - This is the name of the tab on the home screen. Generally we recommend naming the tab "Recognize" but this allows you to apply your organization's branding to the tab name if you have something else in mind. 
  • Question - This is the prompt on the recognition recipient search page. "Who do you want to recognize?" is the default question but this field allows you to fully customize your user experience.
                           
    
  • User Search - The "Metadata 1" and "Metadata 2" dropdown menus allow you to designate metadata values to be displayed alongside the names of your platform users in the user search section of the recognize page. Using the screenshot below as an example, the settings have been configured to display the city and department of the employees shown in the search results. This helps users identify the individual being awarded as the correct recipient. As this feature works off of metadata included in your user file, metadata must be included in the file sent to Awardco for you to utilize this feature. 
    
    
    
    
• Bulk Recognize
  • File upload - When enabled, an "Upload Users" button is displayed on the recipient selection page in the recognize tab. This allows users to upload a single column .CSV file designating all recipients via upload rather than typing the names of each recipient individually. This is particularly useful for department heads or other users who process awards for any number of individuals.  
                               
    
    
  • Advanced Grouping - When enabled, a user can recognize multiple people at once using metadata without having to add them one by one or uploading a file of employee IDs. Select "Edit Selected Fields" to designate which metadata fields you'd like to be available for usage in recognition programs.

                                             

During the recognition process, the user will click "Add Lots of People" then "Create Advanced Grouping". The user will search and select metadata values based on the allowed metadata fields. After selecting the metadata, the user can click Run Test to see who will be included in the recognition. After running the test, the rule can be edited to add/remove metadata or the selected people can be added to the recognition. 

                                                  

Once the people have been added to the recognition, you can add/remove individual users or continue on with the recognition process. Only 2,000 people can be added to a recognition. If the metadata selected includes more than 2,000 people, the user will receive a notice that the recognition group is too large.

   

• Approval Reminder - The approval reminder feature generates a weekly email to all users who have pending approvals waiting in their approval queues. This email reminds approvers that action needs to be taken on their part before the award pending their approval will be sent. The email generated is not customizable and is sent on Monday mornings to all users in your platform with approvals pending in their approval queue. 
  
                           
  
• Submitter Settings - If your recognition program has approvals in place, you're able to determine if users submitting recognitions can see the status of their recognition and who is pending its approval. Toggling "Submitter can see 'My Submissions' Approval Tab" to "On" will enable users to see all submitted recognitions while they are in a pending state in the approvals queue at the top right corner of their homepage. Toggling "Submitter can see 'My Submissions' Approval Tab" to "On" will permit users to see the name of the current assigned approver when looking at the the pending approvals queue. 

Adding an Automated Recognition Program

Automated recognition programs will need to be used with the Automated Service Award and Automated Birthday Award features. Please see these articles for more information on the creation ofautomated programs. 

Creating A New Recognition Program

To get started with creating a new recognition program, click the "Add Program" button at the top of the page. This will direct you to a recognition creation interface with several pages of settings configuration. These pages govern the general program settings, program rules, the submission form display, the questions the submitter will respond to, and the notifications the program will generate.

Please note, these programs can be difficult to configure. Your Client Success Manager is a wonderful resource for you as you consider the creation of a new recognition program. Feel free to schedule a call to walkthrough the process of creating a new recognition program. 

General

On this page, you will configure the basics of your recognition program including program name, program runtime, the tile image associated with the program, and a section that explains the program. 

• Name - The name of your program. This is the display name employees will see. This name is also used in several reporting functions. You can name the program whatever you like.
• Status - The start and end date of your program. While a start date is required, the end date is not. If you would like to make an ongoing program leave end date blank. If you include an end date, the program will be automatically archived on the date listed and will no longer be available for use in your platform. 
• Image - You can upload a custom image that users will see as the header image for the program when they select the recognition type. We have a selection of recommended images available to you, or you can select and upload your own. Image dimensions for this tile are 1200px by 600px.
• Text
  • Description - A brief description of the program that helps users identify and select the program they are looking for.
  • "Learn More" Link Message - Additional information accessed by selecting the “learn more” option for each program. This message can further aid users in selecting the correct program for nominations and recognitions. 
• FAQ - The FAQ feature, when enabled, displays a link on the recognition submission page which will generate a pop-up window that can be used to outline program guidelines that users should take into consideration when submitting the award. Click "Edit" to change what users see. If any value is entered in the "Display" field, the FAQ link will be shown on the submission screen, even if the message is blank. The HTML box contains the content that will be shown in the pop-up window when the link is clicked. Using HTML here allows you to host images, PDFs, or other custom documents in the pop-up window. To use this feature, contact your Client Success Manager. 

Click "Next" to save your settings and continue to the next step.

Rules

The rules settings govern program participation, recognition limits, budget policy, program approval requirements, and the award network to which the program will be tied. 

Configure the settings, section by section, using the guidelines below. 

• External Program - If you have any recognition programs that are administered outside Awardco by another platform, you can link them here. If enabled, you will be required to input a URL for the outside program. This feature allows for the consolidation of your recognition programs. If you use this feature, employees will see this program in Awardco, and when clicked, the system will forward them to the URL you provide. 
• Eligibility Limits 
  • Nominator Eligibility - Select which users are eligible to nominate others for this program. These users can be designated by group, metadata tag, or by explicitly listing individual users. 
  • Recipient Eligibility - Select which users are eligible to receive nominations for this program. As with the nominator eligibility, these users can be designated by group, metadata tag, or by explicitly listing individual users. 
• Nomination Limits - Nomination limits are added as rules, meaning you will have to configure the limit and then save the individual rule. Each rule can be configured using the following fields: 
  • Nominator - 
    • Limit By Users - Select individual users who are eligible to give recognition through this program. 
    • Limit By Specified Values - Select metadata points that will limit the users eligible to give recognition in this program. For example, if you select "Location: Tokyo," only users located in Tokyo will be eligible recipients for this program.
  • Recipient - Select the group of recipients to which this nomination rule will apply. 
    • Limit By Users - Select individual users who are eligible to receive recognition through this program. 
    • Limit By Specified Values - Select metadata points that will limit the users eligible to receive recognition in this program. For example, if you select "Location: Tokyo," only users located in Tokyo will be eligible recipients for this program. 
    • Limit By Category Same as Nominator - Select a metadata category that the system will match to the nominator when determining eligibility. For example, if you select "Department" as the category, the nominator will only be able to select users who are in their same department when using this program. 
    • Using these rules together - It is possible to use the recipient categories together. Using the examples above, if we set the Specified Values rule as "Location: Tokyo" and the Category rule as "Job Title" only users who have the same job title as the nominator and are located in Tokyo would be eligible to receive an award. 
    • Limit Period Based On -Limits can be defined to start on the first of the current period (ie first of the year, month, qtr, etc) based on the calendar, or be based on the listed program start date. If the latter is selected, limits will be based on the most recent anniversary of the start date (ie if today is 4/12/21 and program start date is 6/23/19, most recent anniversary is 6/23/20; if program start date is 3/23/15, most recent anniversary is 3/23/21.)
  • Frequency | Amount - Determine if you would like to limit by frequency or the monetary amount of the collective nominations submitted through this program. This limit is for a set amount of time - every 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year. 
  • Show Rule - When "Yes" is selected, the remaining number of recognitions available to the user submitting the a recognition will be shown on their recognition submission form. This is based on the limit rules you establish. For example, when enabled, if you allow users to submit 4 recognitions each quarter, users will see how many recognitions they have remaining for the quarter on the submission page. 
  • Don’t forget to click on "Add Rule" to ensure your changes are saved.
• Budgets
  • Show Budget Amounts - Choose if you would like the balance of budgets to be shown on the recognition submission page. This can be helpful if nominators have the ability to select from multiple budgets when submitting their award. If the program is assigned a 'Central Budget,' as explained below, we do not recommend showing budget balances.  
  • Budget Access - Determine which budgets will be accessed by this program. With the central budget option, all awards from this program will be funded by a single budget, assigned here. With the allowable access budgets option, awards from this program will be funded by budgets to which nominators have been assigned access. 
  • Central vs Allowable: Which is one is right for you?  
    • Central Budget
      • Allowed Budget - Select the single budget from which all funds awarded through this program will be sourced. 
    • Allowable Access Budgets
      • All - If the "All" option is selected, any budget to which an individual nominator has access will be available for use in this program. For example, if a sales manager has access to the organization's "Culture Award" and "Quota Award" budgets, when set to "Allowable Access Budgets = All" the manager would be able to access both budgets in the program. 
      • Limited - When "Limited" is selected, you are able to designate a range of budgets from which a nominator can attach points. For example, if you are creating one culture award for the whole company but there is a culture budget assigned to each department, you would use this option to link the individual departmental culture budgets to the program. This would ensure no budgets other than the approved culture budgets would be used in the culture program. If you have several budgets to add, you are able to bulk upload these budgets via a .csv file with a single column of all budget IDs you'd like to include. 
• Funding - Who will fund the awards sent in this program? 
  • Nominator Funded - This determines if the award will be funded by the nominator. When "No" is selected, any funding attached to the award will come from the award approver. 
  • Allow Nominator to Suggest Amount - When nominator funded is set to no, this designates whether the individual submitting the award will be able to submit a recommended value for the award. 
• Award Network - The award network designated here controls the redemption options available to the points awarded through this program. In most cases, "Standard" is the appropriate designation. If you would like to examine restricting the redemption options available to points awarded through this program, as outlined in the Smart Award Networks article, please reach out to your Awardco Client Success Manager. Separate award networks must be configured by an Awardco representative. 
• Approval - Like the nomination limits above, the approval option is a rule that must be configured and saved. Remember to click "Add Approval" after you're done configuring each rule for the rule to be saved to this program. Please note, through this feature it is possible to configure up to three levels of approval. For example, you could designate level 1 to be for awards valued $5-20 and have level 1 route to the award recipient's direct manager; level 2 to be for awards valued $20-50 and route to the department head for approval; level 3 to be for awards valued $50+ and route to the VP level. It is also possible to have multiple people review the same award by creating a rule for the same value at multiple levels (e.g. Level 1 at $0+, Level 2 at $0+, etc.). When multiple approval levels are configured, the recognitions will pass through the levels one at level at a time, beginning with level 1. These tiered levels must be saved as separate rules. Please note, managers will not be asked to approve awards for which they are the listed recipient. In this case, their award will be passed to their immediate manager for approval. Please contact your Awardco Client Success representative for any questions on the topic.  
  • Points | Funds - Designate the point value at which the approval rule will activate. If the award is non-monetary and you would like it to pass through an approval process, enter a $0 value. 
  • Level - Designate this rule's approval level as explained above. 
  • Approver - Select who will approve the award for this rule. 
    • Supervisor - If supervisor is selected, the system will use the hierarchy in the user file to identify the nominator or recipient supervisor based on the value selected in the supervisor of section. 
    • Metadata - Utilizing the metadata option will allow you to become quite specific in identifying the approving party. When used, the approval system will follow the manager hierarchy - for the nominator or recipient based on your selection in the supervisor of section - until the system finds a user who matches the metadata value you specify. For example, if you would like this level of approval to go to users with the role of department head, you could include "Job Title" in your file metadata and select "Department Head" here. This means the system would look for the nominator or recipient's department head and send the approval to them. If the system is unable to identify an individual matching the metadata entered here in the proper supervisor hierarchy, the approval will go to the admins. 
    • Specific User(s) - Assign specific users to approve awards routed to this rule.
    • Manual Override - This option allows for you to designate a specific approver for each employee in the platform. Manual override must be configured by an Awardco representative. 
  • Supervisor of - Designate whether the approval rule will follow the nominator or the recipient's manager hierarchy. For example, if "Nominator" is selected, and the approval is set to go to a supervisor, the award will be routed to the nominator's supervisor for approval. 

For additional information please refer to our Approval Configuration Options article. 

Click "Next" to continue to the next settings page and save your changes.

Display

Display settings determine how your program's recognition form appears to users in your platform. 

Configure the settings, section by section, using the guidelines below. 

• Post to Social Feed - Select whether or not you would like recognitions from this program to be posted in the social feed. When "Off" is selected, recognitions submitted through this platform will not be visible to any users in the platform and will only be visible in platform reporting. 
• Banner Image - When enabled, you'll be able to set a banner image to recognitions in the feed, it's another way to add visual stimulus around recognitions within the platform. The Banner image also has an identifier that can help you distinguish Doug from Sales and Doug from Operations, the identifier can be chosen and adjusted in the "Feed" tab under Admin Settings. 
• Allow Scheduled Recognitions - When enabled, users will be able to delay the submission of their recognition/award to a later date. There is no limit to how far into the future the recognition may be scheduled. The time displayed in the scheduler is in the platform user's local time zone. If the recognition requires approval, the approval will be requested on the scheduled date and the recognition will be automatically released once it has been approved. Once the recognition is scheduled, it will be displayed on the submitting user's "Recognize" page until the "Scheduled for" date and time when it will be sent. The scheduled recognition may be deleted up until the recognition is sent at which point the submitting user could delete the submitted recognition if the platform settings allow for this. 
• Units - This section allows you to select how the recognition amount options will be shown on the submission page. Currency will display the value of the award in local currency. Points will show the point value of the award in the platform. Labels will use custom labels defined on this page. If "Labels" is selected, you will need to input values below in "Preset Amount Labels."
• Preset Amounts - This section establishes the award value buttons shown to users on the submission page. For example, if you would like users to choose from $5, $10, and $15 when submitting an award in this program, you would enter those values here. 
  • Preset USD and Points Amounts - Enter the monetary value you would like displayed. You will only need to enter values in the currency or points input fields. The system will automatically convert the entry from currency to points or from points to currency. You will enter values in this field even if you are only displaying labels on the recognition submission screen. This section tells the system how much value to assign to the buttons displayed to the users submitting awards. 
  • Labels - Labels should be used when there is a special award tier or meaning associated with the amount being awarded. This meaning should be widely known and explained in training documents dispersed internally as the platform is rolled out. The labels entered in this field will be matched, one-by-one, with the values in the currency and points amounts field directly above it. For example, if you've chosen "Labels" in the Units section and entered 5, 10, and 15 points in the points field and "Bronze," "Silver," and "Gold" in the labels field, the program will only show the "Bronze," "Silver," and "Gold" labels at a value of 5, 10, and 15 points respectively to the user submitting the award. 
• Custom Amounts - Enable or disable custom amounts in this program. When enabled, there will be a field in which the user submitting the recognition can enter any amount, provided they have sufficient funding in the budget being used for the recognition. You have the ability to designate minimum and maximum custom amounts. 
• Tags - Using the Tags section, you can make company values or other identifiers available for users submitting awards to select and attach to the award. If you are using tags to track usage or generate data, by selecting "Required (1)" and enabling only one tag, the system will automatically attach the tag to each recognition processed through this program. Edit the tags available in your platform by clicking the "Hashtags" sub-tab in Settings.

Click "Next" to save your settings and continue to the next step.

Questions

The "Questions" settings page allows you to select what questions the submitting user will be presented with when submitting a recognition through this program. 

The default question for each program is “Reason for recognition,” but you can modify this open ended question with text specific to your program. For example, “Why are you nominating this person for employee of the month?” Using the "Add Question" button, you can add additional questions to the program submission form. While you are able to create as many questions as you like, keeping the submission page short and simple is one of the easiest ways to drive up employee engagement with your recognition platform. 

• "Reason for recognition" Edit - After selecting the "Edit" button, you will be able to edit the prompt text. Although there is a 600 character maximum, we recommend keeping this question relatively short. 
• Add Question by Type - Remember to click "Save" after configuring each additional question.
  
  • Multiple Choice
    • Question - Enter the question you would like posed to the respondents. 
    • Answers - When entering the multiple choice answers, type the answer and hit enter to log the entry and begin entering the next answer. Your entries will be displayed exactly as they are entered so remember to perform basic spelling and grammar checks on your entries. 
  • Short Answer - The short answer option allows you to type a prompt and allow an open text box for the response collection, much the same as the "Reason for recognition" option above. Enter a minimum or maximum character count to prompt your users to enter longer or shorter answers. 
  • Image - The image option allows you to include fun icons, gifs, images, or other colorful additions to the recognitions submitted through this program. Images selected by users will be posted to your company social feed (provided the program allows recognitions to be publicized) along with their recognition text. Using images will help your social feed feel more like a social media site and will reinforce the feed's celebratory and lively user experience. Manage these images through the Image Library. If several image categories are selected, you are able designate one category to appear before the others by selecting the star to the right of the category. This will assign the category as "featured." The option also exists for employees to upload their own images to their recognitions; if you'd like to enable this simply toggle the "Allow User Uploaded Images" option to On. It's also an option to either make submitting or adding images to a recognition optional or not.

Click "Next" to save your settings and continue to the next step.

Notifications

On the notification settings page, configure the automated notification templates you would like to send with each recognition program you create. Work with your Awardco Client Success Manager to create and upload custom email templates with your branding and user guidelines. Each of these notification fields are optional and an email does not have to be sent. To opt out of sending notifications, leave the fields blank and click "Finish."

Configure the email templates, type by type, using the guidelines below. 

• Needs Approval - This is the template that will be sent to approvers as soon as a recognition enter's their approval queue. Use this template to highlight the importance of a quick response to keep your programs running smoothly. 
• Declined Nomination - This is the template sent to nominators when a nomination has been declined by an approver. This template can be configured to include the message entered by the approver when the recognition was declined. 
• Approved Nomination - This is the template sent to nominators when a nomination has been approved, letting them know that their recognition was successful. 
• Recognition - This is the template sent to recipients of recognitions through this program. These emails are sent at the time of recognition if the program does not have approvals, or if the program does have an approvals process, the email will be sent when the approver at the top of the approval process approves the award. 

Click "Finish" to save the notification settings page and complete the setup of your recognition program.

Editing, Archiving and Duplicating Your Existing Recognition Programs

After your programs have been built and are displayed on your recognition programs page, to edit these programs, simply click on the program you would like to edit. This will open the program settings pages outlined above. Make your adjustments on the appropriate page and click through to the next page to save your settings. 

Archiving programs requires a simple adjustment to the date range field on the first program settings page. To archive a program, click the program you would like to archive and set the end date to a date that has already passed. This will move the program into the archived programs for your platform. Remember to click to the next page to save the date adjustment and archive the program. 

You're able to duplicate your programs by selecting the ellipses icon to the right of the recognition program, and then clicking "Duplicate." The platform then will prompt you to name this program and set a launch date. The duplicated program settings will match those of the original program.

Additional Assistance

Configuring your platform recognition programs can be a complex process. Always remember that your Awardco Client Success Manager is a software expert and has extensive experience configuring programs in this feature. Should you ever have a question on a specific setting or if you need to discuss your programs at a higher level, your Client Success Manager will be more than happy to assist you. 

If you feel this article left your questions unanswered, please contact your Client Success Manager so we can better assist you.