4 Automation hacks for awards managers

Running an awards program is, undoubtedly, the most effective way to recognise excellence in your relevant field or industry. But awards management involves multiple nuts and bolts, along with a variety of recurring tasks. These repetitive manual tasks can take a huge bite out of the time and dedication necessary for other tasks.

Thankfully, there are very effective tools we can use to save time and do more with less—automation! By creating automated tasks, we can cut down on those time-consuming manual chores—all to give you time back to focus on more important things. 

Here are four automation hacks awards managers can execute to save time and do more, with less! 

1. Use an automation tool to make it easy 

First things first—if you are not a coder or engineer, connecting your applications to work together or “talk to each other” can get complicated. But, with an automation tool like Zapier or Make, you can automate a nearly endless variety of actions by connecting your applications to work together. 

Automation tools can be easily integrated without any coding, saving hours of manual entry. By sending information from one software to the other, these automation tools help awards managers save time by automatically carrying out necessary actions with the other applications.    

For example, Award Force offers a native integration with Zapier where users can set up automations to import and update entrants and entries, create deals in a CRM, add subscribers to a blog or newsletter and so much more. The options are endless.

2. Set up automatic communications when appropriate 

The role of an award manager demands constant communication with a variety of people, including judges, entrants and the rest of the administration team. Messaging and following up can certainly be time-consuming. Awards managers can communicate faster by implementing automation communication, where applicable. 

Automated communication systems such as email automation tools help businesses efficiently deal with their communication concerns. However, award management software takes it a step forward by eliminating the need for 3rd party communication automation systems. 

Award Force allows for awards managers to schedule and send “broadcast” emails directly from the platform to specific entrants or program participants. This is ideal for planning communications with judges or entrants at a specific point in the awards program and works to guarantee structure, reduced errors and greater productivity. 

Automatic notifications are another effective tool awards managers can use to streamline the communication process. Automatic emails and text message notifications can be sent based on various triggers, such as entry submitted or entry judged, and keeps everyone in the loop!  This relieves awards managers of the task of manually communicating with others at every turn.         

3. Create automated workflows

Awards management normally involves various repetitive tasks. Automated workflows replace these manual operations with process automation tools that execute all or some aspects of the operations. It allows awards managers to systematise these tasks, according to their peculiar needs, within the relevant software.

Automated workflows have proven to be remarkably beneficial. They reduce data errors from manual operations, streamline task management and save resources. 

Awards managers can power through regular operations when using Award Force. Using our review flow feature, awards managers can create automated processes to move an entry through the qualification or review process. 

For example, when an entry is submitted it can be sent to any individual for review. The individual can make changes to the entry (depending on what has been configured) and approve or reject the entry. Based on the outcome, the entry can be sent to another individual for review, and so on. All this can be done automatically, without manually sending communications or making assignments, saving hours of time.

Among other functions, review workflows help notify awards managers of each submission, prompting them to review them and add any relevant information prior to approving the entry.     

Learn more about how review flow works in Award Force.    

4. Automate judging assignments 

Assessing entries is a crucial aspect of award management, and judging automation is a handy technique that helps award managers streamline the judging process. 

In Award Force, for example, awards managers can automatically create random judging assignments. This automation ensures that entries are sporadically assigned to different judges. Without any human interference, each judge can have a particular number of entries designated to them for evaluation. Likewise, a certain number of judges can be assigned to a particular entry. 

While this automation functionality makes the evaluation process more efficient, it also guarantees impartiality and candour – elements that build integrity into your awards program.

Through the review flow feature we mentioned above, it’s also possible to automate multi-stage reviewing, perfect for awards programs that require entries to go through multiple rounds of review. 

And, when awards managers need to keep abreast of the judges’ activities and the entire assessment process, they can create automatic notifications to be alerted of when an entry has been judged. 

In closing, automation can help you efficiently deal with the repetitive, manual aspects of awards management. Automating such responsibilities can save hours and hours of work and help organise and streamline your overall process.