Award Force Features

I love that is is easy for our members and judges to use. That ease of use helps with them participating in the awards program in subsequent years.

Nothing major comes to mind, but I have a couple of minor dislikes. I wish there was better sorting capabilities on the screen views. Not all columns can be sorted. Also, some times our I need to provide reports to our board that the system doesn't provide. Luckily I can download everything into excel and create my own "ad hoc reports when needed.

I run an awards program that gets more than 4,000 entries a year, and before we found Award Force we were allowing people to submit by just sending us a PDF. It was a huge effort to collect them all, a waste of paper to make a "packet" for judges to read, and a colossal pain to notify the winners and losers using a mail merge. Award Force is like a godsend in that regard -- it allows me to keep all the entries in one place, have the judges evaluate them right with in the system, and then I can notify winners and losers right from the system as well. The software allows me to program my questionnaire so submissions are automatically separated into the appropriate category, easily assign judges, and help users from the back end.

The software can have a steep learning curve for new users (I onboard new judges all the time as we hire new people and it can be confusing at first). I wish some of the language was more intuitive. The system also sometimes can run slowly if I have a lot of tasks running at once on a big set of entries. And I think this is a problem on the end of my users (they work in places with very strong spam filters), but sometimes the notifications I send don't arrive where they're supposed to. I suspect they're getting caught in quarantine, but it causes some extra work for me on the back end having to look up individual submissions.

The structure, the analysis report, export the data I received. allow the attachment for people submission

there are some bugs happened in last couple of days when I open my nomination process to large audience.

Hi Betty, sorry for your troubles. From the support email we last exchanged, it seems the problem happened because of a setting issue. Your colleague Carl later switched it on and everything worked as expected. If there's anything else you would like to report, please let us know asap!

It's amazing! It looks great, the forward facing aspect has gotten many compliments. You can customize and tweak so much that you can make it work for almost anything! And the price is great! Customer service is very responsive and so helpful! They clearly know their stuff.

-The built-in spreadsheet function is not great. -You can't have a submission from an anonymous source or without requiring a login. -If you want to have a lot of programs/ applications open at once, that tab view can get pretty cluttered and overwhelming. It would be nice if you could hide them by category or something.

I appreciated the level of customization that was possible, which makes this product flexible for different needs and even changes mid-stream. Perhaps the most valuable was the highly responsive and friendly customer support team via email or phone, which I leaned on frequently.

The in-app reporting views are limited, so I ended up exporting data to Excel to do certain kinds of sorting, filtering, and other data analysis. Also, the process of assigning judges was cumbersome in my case (instead of set judging groups, we assigned different combinations of judges to different applications - which was a multi-step process).

The software saves us time and energy by storing the material, categorising it, and allowing entrants to manage the submission themselves until close of entries. Even then, entrants are permitted to resubmit incomplete content if necessary, which saves us a lot of filing. Centralised storage that is backed up and accessible to anyone (with permissions) is a relief. We're pleased when entrants give us feedback that they find the process simple & intuitive. It's very convenient for the administrators to be able to export customisable reports. I could go on and on...

We haven't got around to asking the helpdesk about this feature yet (perhaps it already exists), but we can see some benefit in providing the capacity for an entry to be able to be a "linked copy" of the primary entry. Rather than making a full duplicate of an entry simply to enter into a different category. It would be useful if all the common content was linked between each instance, and there was the capacity to provide additional content specific to the linked category(s) if required. I don't think this functionality exists currently, but if it doesn't I wouldn't be surprised if they are working on it already.

The program is fairly intuitive so the learning curve is not too steep. And for the times when I have needed help, the response time and quality of support is unparalleled in my experience. I send an email, within a few hours no matter what time of the day or night I send it, someone from around the globe answers me. If further assistance is needed e.g. a call with someone, it can usually be set...

Read more

I have come across some small functionality that I would like to have such as a bit more ability to "pretty up" my email broadcasts or filtering by 2 different dimensions to randomly assign entries for judging. With that said, the SW really addresses so many of our main needs that these issues are not an issue and I have been able to create workarounds if needed.

Thank you ever so much for your raving review, Gillette! We can't stop the high fives :D We will continue to improve and add time saving features so you can continue managing and growing your program year on year!

The Award Force management and support teams were incredibly helpful during our entire selection process, set up phase and implementation. There was always someone available for answers, no matter that we are located in the US and their main office is in Australia. From our initial conversations as far as what was on our "must have" list and our "nice to have" list of features, AF was able to make...

Read more

There is very little that I don't like about Award Force. But if I had to pick one: since the system is used by multiple award program clients around the world there are a few small areas that don't quite give us exactly what we need and that weren't able to be changed for us. However, these are just a few small items and through conversations with our AF implementation manager we devised ways to get...

Read more

Award Force is so easy to use, yet delivers a thoroughly comprehensive solution. The system is so clear, intuitive and logical it's an absolute pleasure to use. You can navigate your way around without ever getting lost or confused, everything is exactly where you'd expect to find it and you always feel completely in control. From the clean and clear layout you may initially be fooled into thinking...

Read more

I have to confess that I have struggled with this question, but the ability to sort by all of the fields within a view would be helpful. It would also be helpful to be able to configure bespoke reports for export, but it's not exactly a chore to have everything exported and then just choose to keep the ones you want. The things I've mentioned above may well be possible, I'm by no means an expert on every aspect of the system and I find new features and options every week!

Wow, thank you for such wonderful feedback, Ped. We'll do our best to keep helping and to keep innovating!

The software can be customised to suite various award types as a result is versatile. It's certainly great for awards programs with multiple awards under different categories. It is easy to use and modify even after set up. Good reporting capabilities and great dashboard. Many options for judging of awards and can include different rounds as well. Good branding opportunities within the system, whether it be for your own awards program or your sponsors & partners. From the research I have done this system is the best and is priced well. The level of support available is great whether and you get to speak to a real person, from initial set and an ongoing basis. Many others don't offer this level of support.

There really isn't anything I don;t like about it. It more than suits my needs.

Wow, thanks Chris! The team really appreciated your positive words. We promise to continue to deliver on the value and support you've come to expect from Award Force.

For our Biennial of Slovenian Design we needed an intuitive and adjustable system. We were hoping to make administrative processes more efficient. After a detailed e-call, we were confident that we will be working with professionals who understand their clients. They translated the system in our language: it has only 2 mill. users, and has characteristics that are hard to work into english-based interfaces....

Read more

Some specific features didn't have a lot of flexibility but we managed to go around it with their help.

Award Force easily has the best customer support I have experienced with a product. They were timely in returning my calls and emails, and were extremely helpful in helping me customise the product for my organisational needs. Having been new to the software this year, I was able to be quickly become confident in my use of the product. The platform had zero technical issues even upon launch. I had no reports of any difficulties of users logging on or submitting entries. The reports generated from the entries were very fast and provided a high level of detail which I was able to analyse for my organisational requirements.

At times it was a bit difficult to locate the appropriate field when trying to make a change/text edit to the platform. This is when I would contact support and they were able to identify where I could make the change. Other than that, the other improvements identified were less about the system itself and more about how we could customise it next year to better suit our organisational needs - e.g. extra fields.

Having previously run our annual awards program via submission of hard copy entries from entrants in 2017 we moved to use Award Force software - allowing us to build a custom online platform via which entrants could submit their entry portfolios, and we could easily manage the process from the back end/administrative end of the entry portal. A seamless operation - and very easy to use - allowing us...

Read more

No cons were added to this review

My team used Award Force for an awards program, and it was great. I found the Award Force site easy to operate once you are guided how and the support partners set up time for as many orientation sessions as I required and were timely in replying to any issues. Ease of use The ability to personalize site with our branding Prompt and professional support

I do find it frustrating that specific features are not present in the software. Like not having a report of notifications, being able to copy anyone into notifications, to contact collaborators in an application, not being able to use the fields in all areas of the application. The review flow is quite challenging to set up and impossible to visualize quickly, it would be nice to have a way of merely imagining which applications are where Also setting up judging is a bit tricky too, and it is hard to see if it has been set up accurately. I would also like to get a general update on what you have designed regarding feature updates. I have also previously sent some feature ideas to the support team. It would be nice to see some of these administered.

Thanks so much for the feedback Charles. Rest assured that we keep track of all feature requests and feedback and incorporate that into our plans. For interest, we do 5-10 deployments per week with improvements and new features - there's always lots coming through and we're about to start a regular news feed on those - coming your way soon! Please always feel free to speak with our team about any uncertainties or needs - they'll be only too happy to help.

AwardForce is very easy to use and means we can send one link out to hundreds of judges to get the best quality judging we need. The support team are super useful and always reply in good time, there have been times where we need something done urgently and they are very quick to get back to us with a solution. It's easy to download data and keep a record of how we are doing year on year.

It would be good if you could view more on the page at one time, for example filter some of the options when viewing entries like you can in excel but in the site. Other than that I have no cons! :)

Thanks for the great review, Rosie! We do have the ability to customise every view to see more on the same list view. We'll be in touch in the next 10 minutes to show you how :)

Everything

There are no cons. I like everything. Nothing to complain about whatsoever.

Wowza! We're blown-away by your words Robert. Thank you. We'll be sure to keep it up :)

The Award Force team provides basic training and awesome support that enables anyone to configure their product. The product is very flexible. We are able to create and manage application forms and judging for four separate grant funding streams, with different deadlines. It's accessible to applicants and judges anywhere, anytime, on any device.

Our organization must comply with privacy laws for the protection of personal information. The storage of data on servers outside the country could be an issue.

Thanks for your lovely review Elizabeth. For information... Data protection has always been a major focus for us¿ we are currently finalising compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the most stringent requirements globally for data protection. Our practices mean you are already in very good stead in Canada¿ the work we are currently doing will put you in an even better place! Details will be sent to all clients in the near future.

For the price, my chapter was able to purchase, set up and administer a decent awards program. It is highly customizable down to the most minute feature. It looks and feels professional and well thought out. This same platform is used throughout the US so many judges/entrants have already interfaced with it.

Because it is so customizable, it is like a maze. At times I felt like there was so much to know that there was no way I'd ever learn the platform. Luckily, customer service was ALWAYS there. When I say always, I mean morning, evening, night -- even though they were a half a world away. Super helpful, friendly, patient folks. My needs were plenty and they were always there for me. Can't say enough about them. Honestly, most of the reason I needed help was that I was busy with a new job and didn't have the time to devote to teaching myself how to use the program.

Thank you so much, Michelle! Our support team is doing (virtual) high-fives after reading your review :)

Its user friendly interface makes it very easy to set up a session and manage the entries to you awards. I like that the information from the previous years can be reused, making it even more easy to use years after years. The information displayed on the dashboard are really useful. You can keep track of how many entries you've got at the moment, how many have already been submitted and how many are still in progress. The graph displaying how many entries have been created over the last few days also helps us analyse our impact. For example we can see whether the last email we've sent to promote the awards has generated new entries. We send I also love the broadcasting feature, which makes it so easy to contact all the entrants at once. Bye bye mailmerge emails, hello simplicity!

Setting up the criteria for each categories has been my least favorite part of the set up. It's still rather user friendly, and I'm not sure whether you could make this step easier, but I found it quite tideous. The data analysis features could be better too. For example we wanted to compare the amount of entries created/submitted in the 2016-17 session and the 2017-18 session but were unable to do so.

The software is extremely well-designed. It is capable of handling multiple projects/programs at one time and it keeps all the information collected from applicants/entrants organized. The ability to export data to Excel is a great feature. The program is easy to use from all standpoints, including on the entrant side (usually students, in our case), judging side (usually faculty and administrators), and on the administrator side in setting up Award Force and manipulating it to suit our needs and events. Customer service is outstanding!! Seriously, top notch. The help videos are extremely useful, too.

Truthfully, I do not have any complaints. We have been very pleased with Award Force and I would strongly recommend it to anyone.

I like the fact that the layout of the content is organized and visually appealing. (concept tabs for example) Also, the dashboard, side panel with all the features, and checklists are helpful.

The foreign DOB text box is not conducive to many of the US teams we work with. Also, I wish the videos were more directly accessible and embedded within the software so I was more likely to use it instead of constantly asking the team for support.

Thank you for the lovely review! Perhaps you aren't aware that some months ago we introduced an option to set your preferred date format instead of the default international standard. Please reach out to our support team if you need a hand setting that. You might also just check with them about the videos - if I understand you correctly, you can reach all our support and training videos via the "Need a hand?" tab at the right of the management screens.

- Customizability - UX/UI - Support Team - Managing Features

- If you want a highly, highly complex setup, it does get complicated. However, the support team has your back and allows you to learn as you go. Eventually, you feel like an expert.

The ability of tag and sort your applications as they progress through multiple rounds of evaluation. The ability to set up multiple rounds, give needs based access based on who in the team is playing what kind of role - just to read, or evaluate or scoring by a jury member. And how that even looked differently for each user. The option to customise how our information shows up and some basic branding was also good to have.

Tagging is one feature that could use more nuancing and we shared this with the Af team. A still more intutive interface would be good. Sometimes it takes a while to understand how to navigate what content blocks show up where etc. Front-end editing of this as much as possible would be great.

I have already detailed this

I have already detailed this

Thanks for the lovely review and feedback Den. As you know, we're regularly adding improvements and features¿ we do need to get better at communicating those though! You'll be pleased to know that there are further improvements coming to broadcasts (notifications) that address some of your requests, and some other grant-specific features that I think you'll be interested in¿ an email is coming your way with details :)