How to Build: Service Award Automation

This article will help you to automate your Service Awards. The service award automation is a must use feature in the Awardco platform. Instead of maintaining complicated lists of employee anniversaries or worrying about that upcoming reminder to schedule a massive file of fast approaching awards, configure the automation in your Awardco platform and never worry about celebratory administration again. 

* Once you've set up this service award automation, we highly recommend reviewing the MemoryBooks: Digital Service Awards article for more information on taking the next step in modernizing your tenure celebration efforts. 

How to: 

1. Format Your User File
2. Build the Automation
3. Upload User File
4. Configure Final Settings

Formatting Your User File

In order for the automation to be able to process awards, the platform user file sent to the Awardco servers must include a hire date for each user in the platform. The hire date will be accepted in any of the following formats:

As you consider sending this information, please contact your Awardco point of contact before making any changes to your user file. The more our team knows about the information you're sending over, the better assistance we can provide. 

Building the Automation

Locating the Service Award Program in Settings

Once you have loaded a hire date for each user in the platform, the next step is telling the platform what to do with that date. The rules for this automation will be entered into the platform by uploading a .CSV file in the service awards sub-tab in the settings tab of your admin section. To begin, download the template by clicking the "Upload CSV" button and "service-awards.csv" under the template section in the pop-up window. Open the .CSV file and follow the instructions below. 

Service Awards Grouping

In the Awardco service award automation, there are 3 ways by which the awards can be grouped and settings established:

1. Country
2. Year level
3. Metadata Rules

These groupings are established in this order. That is to say, each country can contain many year levels and a year level can contain many metadata rules configurations. To further illustrate this point, please consider the following example. 

A company operating in the US, UK, and France is configuring their automated service awards program. This company awards points at the 5, 10, 15, and 20 year levels but they provide different amounts to their employees based on their location. Employees located in the country capitals receive $15 more per service level than employees located outside the capital city. In this case, their automated file would require two lines per service level or 8 lines per country. Their automated file would have 24 total lines in the .CSV file configuring their program. 

Service Award Rule File Fields Explanation

To better assist you as you create this file, please reference the sample file attached to this article.

Country Code - Service programs are organized by country. Each country running a service program will fill its own row. Begin by inputting the two letter country code for each participating country. For example, Canada is CA, the United Kingdom is GB, the United States is US, Mexico is MX, Germany is DE, and so on. You can find two letter country codes at World Atlas or another similar site. There are a few countries with two letter codes that can be represented in different ways, so if you are unsure of the code you should use here, please contact us.

Year - Here you will enter the year level. It isn't necessary to list every single year (1-70). List only the years for which you would like the employee to receive an award.

Metadata - Using the metadata rules column, it is possible to tailor your service awards to specific subgroups of your organization. To utilize this option, you must include metadata in your user file. Enter data in cells under this column using the following format {"Metadata Header":["Metadata Value"]}. For example, {"Department":["Sales"], "Clearance Level":["1","2"]}. Be sure to omit the "#" value before "Department" and "Clearance" in the metadata header, as it is needed on your user file to upload the data, but not necessary on this file. When using this option, remember to configure a service award row for users in the listed metadata grouping and any users who are not a part of the metadata grouping. For example, if you create one row for employees in the US who are at a 5 year level and who are in sales, unless you include a second row for US employees at the 5 year level who are not in sales, no other employees will receive an anniversary. Please see the attached sample .CSV file to see this principle applied.

From Supervisor - The 'From Supervisor' column must be filled with a "True" or "False" value. If you enter "True," the system will access the hierarchy established in your user file and will use the award recipient's direct manager as the "from" value on the recognition. The recognition in the platform and any reference to a "from" user in the email will reference the user's direct manager. If you enter "False," you will need to input a value in the "From User" column.

From User - If you enter "True" in the "From Supervisor" column, leave this cell blank. If you enter "False" in the "From Supervisor" column, enter the employee ID for the user you would like the recognition to be sent from. 

Note - This is the text that will be attached to the recognition in the platform feed. While you are able to enter what you like, we recommend keeping this message rather short. If you would like to communicate messages from the CEO, comments on the employees' dedication to the organization, or any other lengthy message, we recommend including these in the email that is sent to the user—or better yet use our MemoryBooks feature to enhance your digital service awards. 

Amount - This is the monetary amount you will be awarding to each anniversary level. Remember, this award can be monetary or non-monetary. For example, if you only want to recognize employees celebrating awards at five year increments, you would enter 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. in each "year" row. This would instruct the system to recognize employees celebrating anniversaries at the 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. year levels and no other.

Another example would be to recognize at every year level but to only award employees at five year increments. In this case, each employee celebrating an anniversary would receive an email and a recognition in the platform while the monetary awards would be reserved for those experiencing anniversaries at 5 year increments. 

To quickly recap, by leaving the year off of the file, the user will receive no award or email. By including an amount equal to zero, the user will receive a non-monetary award. By including an amount greater than zero, the user will receive a monetary award. 

Budget - If you are awarding any amount greater than zero with this service award, you will need to designate the budget from which the funds will be sourced. For the automation to function correctly, the budget name entered here must exactly match the name of the budget in the platform. For example, if you would like to pull from the "Service" budget and you type "Service Awards" in this cell, the platform will be unable to pull funds from the correct budget.

Public - This field is a "True" or "False" statement. When you enter "True," the recognition will be displayed publicly in the platform's feed. When you enter "False," the recognition will be processed privately and will not be displayed on the public feed. 

User Email Template - In this field, enter the name of the template that you would like to send to the employee celebrating the anniversary. The value entered here will need to match the name of the template exactly. While this field is not required, we recommend working with the Awardco team to build and utilize an email that will celebrate your employee. As discussed in the "Amount" section, we recommend sending an email to every user, including those who are not receiving a monetary amount. We firmly believe there is never a bad time to celebrate an employee's contributions to your organization, especially when they are celebrating the completion of another year with you. 

Supervisor Email Template - In this field, enter the name of the template you would like sent to the employee's direct manager. The value entered here must match the name of the template exactly. Like the user email template, this field is not required but is recommended. We recommend providing specific guidelines for managers when notifying them of their employees' anniversaries, as some employees may not appreciate public recognition in the workplace. Providing manager guidelines helps to ensure that managers are mindful of how they help their employees celebrate.

User Day Offset - This field designates the number of days before the anniversary date that the email listed in user email template should be sent to the employee celebrating their anniversary. We generally recommend leaving this value blank. When left blank, the email to the award recipient will be sent on the day of their anniversary. The user day offset field must be between -20 and 0.

User Day of Week - This field designates the day of the week on which the congratulatory anniversary email is sent. We generally recommend that this value be left blank. If you would like to designate a day on which the award will be sent, enter the number of the day of the week, 1-7. 

User Day of Month - This field designates the day of the month on which the congratulatory anniversary email will be sent to the employee. This field is generally left blank but can be used if your program awards all users each month on a single day. If you would like to designate a day on which the award will be sent, enter the number of the day of the month, 1-30. 

Supervisor Day Offset - This field designates the number of days before the anniversary date that the email listed in supervisor email template should be sent to the manager of the employee celebrating the anniversary. We generally recommend that this offset is utilized to provide ample time for the manager to prepare for the upcoming anniversary. The supervisor day offset field must be between -21 and 0. 

Supervisor Day of Week - This field designates the day of the week on which the supervisor email is sent. We generally recommend that this value be left blank. If you would like to designate a day on which the award will be sent, enter the number of the day of the week, 1-7. 

Supervisor Day of Month - This field designates the day of the month on which the supervisor email is sent. We generally recommend that this value be left blank.If you would like to designate a day on which the award will be sent, enter the number of the day of the month, 1-30. 

Hour - The hour must be entered in the 24-hour format. For example, if you would like the recognition to be processed at 3:00 pm, enter "15." As the system will only process recognitions on the hour, a minute value should not be provided. 

Time Zone - Enter the time zone by spelling the time zone out completely. For example, east coast time in the U.S. would be entered as Eastern Standard Time. There is no need to adjust for daylight time as the system will automatically make the adjustment based on the time of year. You may reference this Wikipedia article to locate your local time zone. 

Program Name - The program name field is to be utilized only if you are using the Smart Award Networks feature in the platform. By working with your Awardco point of contact you have the ability to set up a redemption network that is available only to the service award recipients in your platform. This is useful if, for tax purposes, you limit service award recipients' access to an Amazon only redemption network, or would like to make special catalogs visible only to these recipients. For more information on setting up this feature, please speak with your Awardco Client Success Manager. 

Uploading the .CSV File

After you have built the file, return to the platform and in the same pop-up window, upload the new file by clicking "Choose File." Click "OK" to load the file into the platform. If there are any problems with the file, follow the directions in the error message to correct the file, and re-upload the file. If you cannot resolve the file issue, please speak with your Awardco point of contact. Once the file is successfully loaded into the system, you will see your file loaded into the table below the headers on the Service Awards page.

Final Settings Configuration

At this point, you need to go through final settings configurations to enable the automation. On this page, select "Weekends + Weekdays" or "Weekdays" in the "Send On" section to determine if you would like the awards to send only during the work week or over the weekend as well. If you select "Weekdays" and an anniversary falls on a Saturday, the award will be sent on the Friday before the day of the award. If the anniversary falls on a Sunday, it will be sent the next day on Monday.

Next, at the bottom of the feature settings there is a section called "Start Date." Enter the date on which you would like the first service awards to be sent. If you have any offsets in place, those emails will still send before the start date, on schedule. This date allows you to set the earliest date on which awards may be sent to the employees.

Finally, return to the top of the page and click the "On" switch next to "Service Awards" to turn the automation on. If you have questions about the "Teammates" section, please see MemoryBooks: Digital Service Awards.

Please note that this automation does not award retroactively. The system will use the rules you have loaded to search the platform once a day and schedule upcoming awards in the bulk recognize function. You can view and delete these pending awards by going to the queues tab in the admin section. Service awards will be scheduled up to one month in advance. 

If you have any questions, please contact our Awardco Support Team.