Note: Awards are only available on the Organization plan (as well as certain legacy plans).
Awards allow you to create company-funded awards, which means your company is recognizing individuals instead of recognition coming from peers.
To manage awards, you must either be a global admin or have awards admin permissions.
Admins can view and manage your awards from the Awards page. To access Awards page:
Go to your Bonusly admin dashboard.
Click Recognition on the left-hand sidebar. Then, click Awards.
You will be directed to your Awards page.
The Awards page displays an index of all active awards in your company. The index table has 6 columns that are all sortable:
Name: How both admins and users can refer to the award
Bugdet used: Total amount of points that has been given for this award
Max points budget: Total amount of points budgeted for the award
Budget period: Timeframe that determines when the budget resets
Points per award: Predefined point amount given with each award
Award givers: Who can give out the award, listed by email or as group properties
Pending: Amount of awards that are awaiting approval (when clicked, directs admins to the Pending Approvals page).
Company admins can toggle off the awards program from the Admin > Company > Account settings > Feature access page. When toggled off:
Awards button no longer shows under the give box for award givers
Awards no longer shows in the Create new menu for award givers
Awards no longer shows in the homepage feed filter options
Admins can still see the Admin Awards page and are able to create and edit awards
Award approvers can still see and approve/reject the award requests on the Admin > Recognition > Pending approvals page, but we have added a warning that awards has been turned off
Existing award recognition posts will still show in the feed on the homepage
Manage an Award
To approve, review, edit, or deactivate an award, click the corresponding ellipsis icon on the far righthand side of the table and choose an option from the dropdown.
Recognition Activity: Directs admins to the Recognition activity page.
Review posts: Directs admins to an award feed page where they can view all award posts to date.
Edit: Allows admins to edit award details.
Deactivate: Allows admins to deactivate the award.
Create a New Award
To create an award, click the Create new button in the top right of the Awards page.
The Create new award form is divided into five sections:
Basic setup
Eligibility settings
Budget
Recognition posts
Approval process
Basic Setup
Complete the following fields in this section:
Name: Enter a name for your award.
Description and instructions: Describe what this award is for and what criteria needs to be met. Include any other details or instructions to help givers determine who has earned this honor.
Eligibility Settings
This section allows admins to define who is able to give out this award. You can set inclusion or exclusion rules based on properties like department, location, team, or other custom properties.
By default, admins are prompted to designate at least one person to give out the award by providing their email.
You can change how you want to add givers by clicking the Email dropdown. Choose from department, location, team, or any other provided custom property.
You can also apply multiple filters. By default, every individual or group listed will be designated award givers — the “OR” condition will apply.
However, you can target the intersection of two groups by applying the “AND” condition. To do this, make sure “And” is selected.
If no one matches the applied filters, an error alert will appear.
Budget
The Budget section controls how much this award can give out, and how much goes with each one. Find it under Admin → Recognition → Awards → the ellipsis at the end of the row → Edit
There are two independent choices here.
If your account has Rewards in Awards, this section starts by asking whether the award gives out Points or a Reward. The choices below apply to a points award. For attaching a real catalog item instead.
Maximum budget per period is optional. Enter a total points amount to cap the award, or leave it empty for an unlimited budget. Pick the period next to it: per week, per month, per quarter, per year, or does not refresh. "Does not refresh" means the budget never resets, so once the award has given out that many points it stops. Awards set that way show as "One-time" in the Budget period column on the Awards page.
Points per award is how much each individual award is worth
Give the same amount every time locks it. You then enter the Points amount per award, and givers can't change it.
Amount can vary per recipient lets the giver decide. You can optionally check
Customize give amounts to offer up to seven suggested amounts as one-click chips,
so givers get a steer without being forced.
Whatever you choose, an alert below summarizes the result. If you set a cap, it estimates how many times the award can be given. If you left the budget unlimited, it says so.
Recognition Posts
Use this section to customize the look and feel of your award posts.
First, upload an image for your award. Then, complete the following fields:
Title: Enter a title for your award.
How much control should givers have over the award message: Choose a message option:
Write custom message: Admins do not write any message text and givers are fully responsible for the message
Use provided message only: Admins can standardize the text that accompanies this award and givers cannot edit it
Edit provided message: Admins write a message that’s a starting point for givers to change if they wish
Visibility: Choose a visibility option:
Public: Everyone in the company can see who got the award
Private: Only the person who got the award, their manager, and admins can see it
Team: Only the person who got the award, their manager, and people who have the same manager as award recipient can see it
When you're done, click the Preview button to preview what users will see.
Approval process
The “Approval process” section lets admins determine when an award requires approval before points are distributed. Admins can configure who approves the award and create up to four approval steps.
By default, awards are automatically approved.
To set up an approval process, select Specific people must provide approvals.
The approval process can have up to four steps: first approval, second approval, third approval, final approval. You can specify one or multiple approvers for each step. To add an approver, type into the input and search by name or directly enter an email address.
Only one person per step has to review the request for it to be approved or routed to the next step in the approval process.
Award approvers do not have to be global admins or award admins. Approvers are notified by the Action Items email, and can approve or deny from that email or from the Action Items page.
Attaching a Reward to an Award
Instead of giving points, you can attach an actual item from your rewards catalog as the award's prize. You choose the item yourself, or set a budget and let the giver choose at give time.
Giving an Award
If users are designated as an award giver, they will see the Award button just below the give box at the top of their Bonusly homepage.
To give an award, click the Award button and select an award.
The give form walks down one field at a time:
Recipient. Who's getting the award. You can pick people or groups, or upload a CSV for a larger list.
Points. Only shown when the award lets givers vary the amount. If the admin fixed it, the amount is set and this field doesn't appear. Suggested amounts show as chips when the admin added them.
Attached reward. Only on awards that come with a gift. See Rewards in Awards.
Message. Why they deserve it. Locked when the admin standardized the wording. You can add emoji, hashtags, links, mentions, GIFs, images, and video here, same as a normal recognition post.
Visibility. Who can see the post, when the admin allows it to be changed.
Award giver. Show or hide your name on the post.
Your remaining budget for this award shows at the top right, as a point balance or, for a gift award, how many gifts you can still send.
If the award needs approval, a note at the bottom says so before you send. Click Give award to finish.
Awards Feed
Once an award is approved, the post will appear in all relevant homepage feeds. Other users can comment, add-on, or react to award posts.
Giving Award using a CSV File
To give award using a CSV file follow the steps:
This feature is not available in the mobile app.
Awards with a reward attached go to one person at a time, so CSV upload and groups aren't available on those.
Click the Award button in the give box on your Bonusly homepage.
Then, select an award.
Click the Recipient button and then select Add multiple recipients from CSV from the dropdown.
Select the CSV file you would like to upload.
Note: You can only upload CSV files. The first column of the CSV file should contain user emails (one email per row). There is no limit to the number of emails that can be entered.
Enter a name for your custom group. The group name cannot include special characters that are reserved for other uses in the award post (“@”, “&”, “#”). Note: The custom group will not be saved for reuse.
You will receive the following error message if any of the user emails are invalid. Correct or remove the invalid emails to proceed.
Click the Insert group button.
The group tag will appear in the Give award modal box. Hover over the group tag to preview the list of group members.
Complete your award post with a brief message, a hashtag, and a point amount. When you're done, click the blue Award # points button.
Admin Award Information Export
Admins can now export their Award information!
New export button with options for exporting active awards, archived awards or all awards
Export includes the following: Name, description, budget used, max budget, points per award, givers, # of pending awards, Approval Process (auto-approve or approval required), each approval level (with the approver's emails), created, and updated
Questions? Send us a note to [email protected]; we'd be happy to help!
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