Why automated celebrations matter
Milestones matter. A birthday, a work anniversary, a first day these are moments that make people feel seen. But in any team larger than a handful, they're easy to miss. Someone's five-year anniversary passes without a word. A new hire's first week goes by without a proper welcome. Nobody meant to forget, they just didn't know, or didn't have time.
That's especially true for remote and distributed teams, where there's no office cake or hallway high-five to fall back on. When milestones go unnoticed, people notice the silence.
Bonusly Celebrations solve this by automating the moments that matter. The right person gets celebrated on the right day, the whole team gets a chance to join in, and nobody has to manage a spreadsheet of dates. Points come directly from the company not from anyone's recognition allowance -- so celebrations are always additive, never a trade-off. Celebrations are included on every Bonusly plan.
What Bonusly celebrates
Bonusly comes with built-in celebration types that cover the milestones most teams care about:
Birthdays. On each team member's birthday, Bonusly posts a celebration to the recognition feed (and to Slack or Teams if you're connected). The team sees it and can pile on with comments and well-wishes. No one needs to track dates or set reminders.
Work anniversaries. When someone hits a work anniversary, Bonusly celebrates it automatically. For milestone years -- a first anniversary, five years, ten years -- you can customize the recognition with different point amounts to make those moments stand out.
New hire welcomes. New employees get a warm welcome from the team on their first day (or on account creation, depending on how your company has it configured). It's a small thing that sets the tone for someone's entire experience -- and it happens without anyone lifting a finger.
Custom celebrations. Have a company tradition that doesn't fit the standard types? Create a custom celebration for any recurring date -- a founding anniversary, a team appreciation day, or anything else worth marking on the calendar.
Every celebration can include points, a personalized message, and a custom icon or image. They appear in the recognition feed, in Slack or Teams channels, and on the celebrations widget -- where your team can see today's celebrations, recent ones, and what's coming up.
Setting up celebrations (admins)
Admins manage celebrations from Recognition > Celebrations in the Bonusly admin dashboard. From there you can create new celebrations, edit existing ones, and activate or deactivate them as needed.
Each celebration has a few key settings:
Name and messaging. Give the celebration a name and write the message your team will see. Messages support dynamic placeholders -- use
@recipientto tag the person being celebrated,nthto insert the anniversary year (1st, 2nd, 5th, etc.), andanniversary_dateorbirth_dateto reference the relevant date. You can also choose a custom icon and image to give each celebration its own personality.
Points. Set the number of points to include with the celebration. Points come from the company, not from anyone's allowance. You can also set the amount to zero if you want the celebration post without points.
Audience. By default, celebrations go to everyone. But you can target specific groups -- by location, department, or team -- if you want different celebrations for different parts of the organization. When multiple groups are selected, anyone in any of those groups will receive the celebration.
Visibility. Choose whether celebration posts are visible to the whole company, just the recipient's immediate team, or kept private. Individual team members can also override this for their own celebrations (more on that below).
When you're happy with the setup, toggle the celebration on. It'll start running automatically.
One thing to know: edits to celebrations take effect at midnight, so any changes you make today won't apply to celebrations that go out on the same day.
Work anniversary milestones
Work anniversaries deserve special attention -- especially the big ones. Not every year needs to feel the same: a first anniversary is worth marking, but a tenth anniversary is a bigger deal. Bonusly gives admins three ways to set up anniversary points, so you can match the recognition to the milestone.
Option 1: Same amount every year
Everyone gets the same number of points on every work anniversary, regardless of how many years they've been at the company.
This is the simplest option. If you set 25 points, a person gets 25 points on their 1st anniversary, 25 on their 2nd, 25 on their 10th -- every year, same amount. It's predictable and easy to manage.
Option 2: Customize milestone years
Everyone gets a celebration every year, but milestone years get a bigger reward. You define which years are milestones and how many points each one is worth. Non-milestone years still get a celebration -- just at a different (usually smaller) point amount.
Here's an example of how you might set this up:
Year 1 -- 50 points (first milestone)
Year 5 -- 100 points
Year 10 -- 250 points
Year 20 -- 500 points
All other years -- 25 points
With this setup, someone celebrating their 3rd anniversary gets 25 points. Someone celebrating their 5th gets 100 points. Someone celebrating their 7th gets 25 points again. The big years stand out, and no year gets skipped.
You must define at least one milestone year, and milestone years must have a point amount greater than zero. The non-milestone amount can be zero if you want milestone years to feel even more special by contrast.
Option 3: Only celebrate specific milestones
Celebrations only go out on the years you specify. No post, no points, and no notification on non-milestone years.
For example, if you set milestones at years 1, 5, 10, and 20 -- someone at their 3rd anniversary won't receive a celebration post at all. Only the milestone years trigger a celebration.
This option works well for companies that want to reserve anniversary recognition for the big moments, rather than every year.
Previewing your setup
Before saving, use the Preview button to see exactly how the anniversary message will look -- including resolved ordinals (1st, 2nd, 5th) and dates. This is a good way to catch anything that looks off before it goes live.
Bonusly supports ordinal translations in French, Spanish, German, Czech, Portuguese, and Italian, so anniversary messages read naturally in your team's language.
Custom celebrations
Beyond the built-in types, admins can create custom celebrations for any date that matters to your company. A founding anniversary, a seasonal appreciation day, a team-specific milestone -- whatever fits your culture.
Custom celebrations work like the built-in types: set a date, choose an audience, write a message, assign points, and let it run. They're a flexible way to mark the moments that are unique to your organization.
A note on timing: Custom celebrations are scheduled based on your company's timezone, not each individual recipient's local timezone (which is how built-in celebrations like birthdays and work anniversaries work). For most companies this difference isn't noticeable. However, if your company timezone is set to a region well ahead of UTC -- such as Australia, New Zealand, or parts of East and Southeast Asia -- custom celebration posts may arrive later in the morning or around midday rather than first thing. This is expected behavior, and the celebrations will still go out on the correct date.
Managing your own celebrations
As a team member, you have control over your birthday and work anniversary celebrations.
Opting in or out. In your profile settings, you'll find checkboxes next to your birthday and work anniversary. Check the Celebrate box to opt in; uncheck it to opt out. You can also enter or update your birthday and hire date here.
Making it private. If you'd rather not have your celebration visible to everyone, check the Private box. Private celebrations are only visible to you, your manager, and admins -- the rest of the team won't see the post.
These settings are yours to control. Your admin sets up the celebrations, but you decide whether and how you participate.
Getting birthday and hire date data into Bonusly
Celebrations depend on knowing when people's birthdays and hire dates are. There are two ways to get this data in:
HRIS integration. If your company uses an HRIS or HRMS that's connected to Bonusly, birthday and hire date data syncs automatically. There's nothing extra to do.
Manual entry. Admins can add dates for individual users through the user management page, or update many users at once using the bulk upload feature.
Team members can also add their own dates in their profile settings. Bonusly doesn't store the birth year for any user, for privacy reasons -- only the month and day.
Celebrations in Slack and Teams
When Bonusly is connected to Slack or Microsoft Teams, celebrations automatically post to your recognition channels alongside peer-to-peer recognition. Your team sees them in the flow of their day -- no need to open a separate app.
Teammates can add on to celebration posts with their own recognition or leave a comment to make it personal. A birthday post that starts as an automated message often turns into a thread of genuine well-wishes from the team.
Tracking and reporting (admins)
Admins have two tools to stay on top of celebrations:
CSV export. Export a report of all active celebrations for the year. The report shows who has upcoming celebrations, whether anyone has opted out, when celebration posts were sent, and how many points have been given. This is useful for auditing your program or spotting gaps.
Manual send. If someone didn't receive their celebration as expected -- maybe their hire date was entered after the fact, or they were added to the system late -- admins can manually trigger a celebration for specific users.
Check the export first to confirm the user's celebration preference is set to public and that no post has already gone out.
FAQs
What if a team member doesn't have a birthday or hire date in Bonusly? They won't receive birthday or work anniversary celebrations until that data is added. If you're using an HRIS integration, the data syncs automatically. Otherwise, admins can add it through user management, or team members can enter their own dates in profile settings.
Can I send a celebration without giving points? Yes. Set the point amount to zero and the celebration post will still go out -- just without points attached.
When do changes to a celebration take effect? At midnight. If you edit a celebration today, the changes apply starting tomorrow. Any celebrations going out today will use the previous settings.
Can team members opt out of celebrations? Yes. Each person can opt out of their birthday and work anniversary celebrations in their profile settings. Admins can't override this -- it's the individual's choice.
What time do celebrations post? It depends on the celebration type. Built-in celebrations (birthdays, work anniversaries, and new hire/welcome) post at 8:00 AM in the recipient's local timezone. Custom celebrations post based on the company's timezone instead. For most companies the difference is minimal, but companies in timezones well ahead of UTC (e.g., AEST, NZST) may notice that custom celebrations arrive later in the morning or around midday.
Why did my custom celebration post later than expected? Custom celebrations are scheduled using your company's timezone rather than each recipient's local timezone. If your company timezone is set to a region significantly ahead of UTC -- such as Sydney (AEST, UTC+10) or Auckland (NZST, UTC+12) -- the celebration post may arrive later in the morning or around midday instead of first thing. Built-in celebrations (birthdays, work anniversaries, new hire/welcome) are not affected by this and will still post at 8:00 AM in each recipient's local timezone.
What time do celebrations post? Celebrations post at 8:00 AM in the recipient's local timezone. For custom celebrations tied to a company-wide date, they post at 8:00 AM in the company's timezone.
Can I target celebrations to specific groups? Yes. Audience settings let you filter by location, department, or team. You can also leave it set to everyone. When you select multiple groups within a category, anyone in any of those groups will receive the celebration.
Do celebrations use my recognition allowance? No. Celebration points come directly from the company. They don't affect anyone's monthly allowance.
Can I preview a celebration before it goes live? Yes. Use the preview button on the celebration edit page to see how the post will look, including resolved placeholders like ordinals and dates.
What's the difference between New Hire and Welcome celebrations? The New Hire celebration is based on the user's hire date. The Welcome celebration is based on when their Bonusly account was created. Depending on your onboarding flow, these might be the same day or different days.
What plan do I need for celebrations? Celebrations are available on all Bonusly plans -- Free, Team, and Organization.
How do I deactivate a celebration? Toggle it off from the celebrations page, or use the action menu (three dots) next to the celebration to deactivate it.