Judging Rounds

Judging rounds are a very important step in your judging process, as it is where you will determine what nominations get judged, and how they will be judged.

Creating a judging round

📺For a video tutorial on how to create a judging round, click here.

Judging can be carried out in one round or go through multiple rounds. To create your first judging round, go to Awards > Judging and select the option +New judging round.

If you already have a judging round created, select the + icon to create a subsequent round.

In the pop up, give your judging round a name, and select the dates within when judging will take place.

Then, it is required to import nominations into your judging round.

• For your first judging round, Original Categories will be the only available option to import nominations from (the submissions found in Awards > Nominations).
• During the creation of subsequent rounds, it is possible to import categories and nominations from previous judging rounds.
  • Nominations from previous judging rounds will maintain changes made in the source round, such as disabling nominations or moves to other categories.

If you would like all categories and nominations to be included in this judging round, select Use all source categories and nominations, and click Create round to complete the process.

If you would like to import select categories into your judging round, select Advanced Options.

Here, you can choose to filter by nomination, which allows you to import only validated, and/or enabled nominations. If you are collecting physical submissions as part of your nominations, you can also choose to import only received and/or processed entries.

Then, select categories that you wish to include in the round. Finally, click Create round.

Creating Scoring Criteria

📺For a video tutorial on how to create Scoring Criteria, click here.

You can create scoring criteria for your judges to follow during the judging process. You can present multiple different scoring for different categories, or simply have an overall score for all entries.

To add your scoring criteria, go to Awards > Judging, and click on the Scoring tab inside your judging round. Then, click on +Add Criteria.

In the pop up box, you can define your criteria. To start, give your criteria a name, and optionally provide instructions to explain this criteria to your judges.

Then, define the scoring type for your criteria. There are five options you can choose from:

1. Number
   1. Numbers can be presented in different ranges, to match your criteria requirements, e.g. you can choose for your scoring to be a number from 1-10, 1-25, 1-100 etc. The judge will be able to enter any number within this range.
2. Stars
   1. The star scoring criteria will present five stars to your judge, with one star equating to one point, and five stars equating to five points.
3. Thumbs
   1. There are three options within the thumbs scoring; thumbs down equates to -1 point, neutral equates to 0 points, and thumbs up equates to 1 point.
4. Smileys
   1. There are three options within the smiley scoring; the negative smiley equates to -1 point, neutral equates to 0 points, and positive smiley equates to 1 point.
5. Top X Nominations
   1. The Top X Nominations allow the judges to rank their top entries, the number based on what amount you choose. When you select this option, select how many positions you wish to assign e.g. Top 3, and how many points each position equates to.
   2. You can have 1 ranking criteria per category.

Once you have selected your scoring, choose which categories this scoring criteria is connected with.

Under Category Assignment, you can select All, and this criteria will appear to judges for all categories. If you want to assign this criteria to selected categories, select Specified. Then, click on the number indicating how many categories you have; a new window will appear to allow you to choose which categories to assign this criteria to.

Lastly, you can choose if this criteria is mandatory for judges to complete, which is done in the section 'Criteria score is required?'. If you select Yes to mark the criteria as mandatory, judges cannot set their score and feedback unless a value is provided.

Finally, click on Save.

Continue the process until you have created your desired amount of criteria. You can have as many criteria as you wish, applied to as many categories as you wish.

For each submission that the judge scores, all criteria scores are combined to give a total score from that judge. Each judges total scores are added together to give an average score for a submission from all judges (rounded to a whole number).

Assigning categories to judges

📺For a video tutorial on how to assign categories to judges, click here.

Once you have created your judges, you can assign Categories for the judges to work on within each round.

Assignments can be made in two different views of the same information:

Assignment by category

From this view, you can select one or more of your categories, and assign one or more judges to them.

To see how many judges your category has, refer to the judge column. A ⚠️ symbol indicates that a judge has yet to be assigned to this category.

To assign a judge to your category, simply check the box beside the category name, and click on Assign Selected. A new window will open, displaying the names of your judges. Select the appropriate judges, and select either Save, or Save and Notify.

If you choose to select Save and Notify, your judge will receive an email. To check the content of this email, go to Website > Email Templates, and find the email called New Roles Assigned.

Assignment by judge

From this view, you can select one or more of your judges, and assign one or more categories to them.

To see how many assignments your judge has, refer to the Assignments column.

To assign a category to your judge, simply check the box beside the judge name, and click on Assign Selected. A new window will open, displaying the names of your categories. Select the appropriate categories, and select either Save, or Save and Notify.

Moving nominations to a new category within your judging round

📺For a video tutorial on how to move nominations, click here.

Nominations can be moved to a different category, and categories can be merged within a judging round for judging purposes. You may wish to move nominations into an existing category, into a new category, or move categories into a new category group.

Creating a new category

If you plan to move your nominations to a newly created category, first you need to create this category. To do this, click +Add, and Add Category.

Create a category name and input a description. Optionally, you can add judging guidelines. When you are done, click Save.

Moving nominations to a new category

To move your nominations, click Move Nominations inside the Nominations tab of your judging round.

Select the nominations you wish to move and then select the category where it should be moved to. Click Move. Your selected nominations will now be in the newly chosen category.

Creating a new category group

If you plan to move your categories to a newly created category group, first you need to create this category group. To do this, click +Add, and Add Group. Create a group name and input a description. Optionally, you can add judging guidelines. When you are done, click Save.

Moving categories into a different category group

To move your categories, first select the category/categories you wish to move in your nomination list. Then, click Move Categories button inside the Nominations tab of your judging round.

Select the group you wish to move the category to from the drop down list and click Move.

Updating nominations in a judging round

Nominations are added to a judging round when the round is created or edited, they are not automatically added to the round.

The judging round contains only the nominations that were added at the point the round was created or edited (subject to any filters applied in the process).

Due to this, it is common for the count of nominations in Awards > Nominations to differ from the count in the judging round(s), providing flexibility to your judging process.

If you receive additional nominations after your judging round has been created, you may wish to update your judging round to include these nominations.

To do this, click the Edit round button inside the Nominations tab of your judging round.

A new window will appear, allowing you to edit the judging round (including the dates and name of the round).

Tick the box Update categories and nominations structure. Then, Import Options will appear. Select Advanced Options, and then tick all categories you wish to update.

When you are done, click Save.

Once this is saved, new nominations will be imported to your judging round.