Client case study A cost-effective, time-saving choice The Victorian School Design Awards use Award Force to save time, store entries and stay organised Reviewer:June Graham, Awards Manager Reviewer: June Graham,Awards Manager Fast facts about Victorian School Design Awards Industry: Architecture awards Location: Melbourne, Australia Award Force client: Client since 2013 Employees: 200+ employees Background A program to recognise excellence in state school architecture 2024 Victorian School Design Awards winner: Best school project between $5 million and $15 million – Law Architects for the new multi-storey education building at St Kilda Primary School. The Victorian School Design Awards has been recognising and rewarding architects for great architectural design in Victorian state schools since 2006. The program is open to all architects who have built a state school in Victoria within the last 18 months. It culminates in an awards ceremony to celebrate innovative design with all entrants, and to further the discipline of schools architecture in the state. Architects submit high-resolution images along with written submissions for adjudication by a team of 6-8 judges. Judges score each submission individually and then meet to deliberate, debate and discuss the scores to determine the winning entry. The Victorian School Design Awards also provides principals and administrators, considering upgrades for their schools, access to the submissions. This helps them identify school designs and architects who match their construction requirements and style of building they want.. In addition to their awards program, they also offer a fellowship program to serve as a springboard for new talent covering stories globally with creativity and integrity. Selected fellows receive a £1,000 production grant, one-to-one mentoring and a year-round program of industry workshops and webinars, while they produce a non-fiction piece of media. About the program Multi-category awards program focused on design The Victorian School Design Awards aim to recognise innovative, creative and practical facilities for Victorian students. These awards recognise how architects are making Victoria a world leader in school and kindergarten design. 2025 Victorian School Design Awards categories Best new kindergarten or early learning centre Best school project – below $5 million Best school project – between $5 million and $15 million Best school project – above $15 million Best project – First Nations design Program challenges before Award Force A manual, cumbersome and time-consuming process Prior to Award Force, the Victorian School Design Awards relied on a hard-copy submission process. Awards Manager June Graham says: “It was like submitting a tender document. Architects had to physically deliver a hard copy of their written submission, hard copies of photos, as well as a CD with high-resolution images of their designs and constructed buildings”. To get the submissions in front of their judges, each submission, including the high-resolution images provided on CDs, had to be duplicated for each judge. This process was difficult to manage, as June explains: “The CDs wouldn’t always work on the judges’ end, it was hard to judge and it became a cumbersome process”. Storing the submissions also became a problem. To give principals and school administrators easy access, June catalogued each physical submission, associating a representative photo with each CD, managing and storing them at her offices. Administrators had to be physically present to view the content or rely on a copy being provided each time. Previous experience Hard-copy submission CDs didn’t always work Cumbersome for judges Physical storage Additional admin Award Force Online submission Easy online judging Protected data storage Good value for money Helpful support team The Award Force choice Easy online management with Award Force The system was good value for money and came with an enormous amount of help from a patient group of people.” June knew something had to change. She began looking for ways to help manage the submissions and make it easier on both entrants and judges. After finding Award Force online, June said, “I found out that entrants could submit and judges could assess online. We didn’t need to save the images or store them physically any more… The system was good value for money and came with an enormous amount of help from a patient group of people”. Thinking back to the implementation, where a dedicated client success manager proactively supports the program from the initial onboarding phase all the way to entries open, June relates: “I wasn’t particularly highly skilled in IT at the time, and I had a mindset that said this was going to be too difficult. But, in fact, Carl [her dedicated Client Success Manager] talked me through it really well”. Favourite features Ease of use, streamlined communications, awards galleries and support Easy submission Entrants can now log in to the Award Force platform, complete their submission and upload supporting images. “They find it easy. It’s not time-consuming. It’s not an impost on their day to day jobs”. Broadcasting If there are any entries in progress that have not yet been submitted, June makes use of the Award Force broadcast functionality to keep her program ticking along: “The Broadcasts feature is good for reminding people to finish tasks and finalise their submission”. Broadcasting If there are any entries in progress that have not yet been submitted, June makes use of the Award Force broadcast functionality to keep her program ticking along: “The Broadcasts feature is good for reminding people to finish tasks and finalise their submission”. Gallery June no longer needs to store physical copies of the submissions or CDs with high-resolution images. She uses the Award Force galleries feature as an image library, and, along with the seasonal functionality, effectively categorises the images to keep them organised. “We use the image library as an archive, and dip into that to get images for a range of programs because it has the capacity to have such high resolution and it’s not stored on our computers”. Support June appreciates the support she receives from the Award Force team. “I can send an email and get a response within an hour. The people working in that area are terrific”. Support June appreciates the support she receives from the Award Force team. “I can send an email and get a response within an hour. The people working in that area are terrific”. The Award Force results Faster submissions Easier comms More professional More cost-effective Advice for other awards managers We asked June if she had any advice for other teams, companies or organisations who are tackling problems she experienced before Award Force and she had this to say: I would advise anyone running an awards program, especially those using a paper-based system, to consider an online system like Award Force. It is more cost-effective and eases the judges’ workload.” Read more testimonials