Programs & categories

When to create a new program

Create a new program for each cycle. Past programs stay around as a permanent record. You can archive them once you are done.

Examples of what a program might be:

• 2026 Annual Awards (a yearly Chamber award)
• Spring 2026 Scholarship Round (semester based)
• Community Impact Grants, 2026 cycle

Categories

Categories let one program have multiple award types. For example, your 2026 Annual Awards program might have four categories.

• Small Business of the Year
• Best Marketing Campaign
• Volunteer of the Year
• Innovator of the Year

Each category can have:

• Its own description and eligibility criteria
• Its own sponsor (optional)
• Per-category form sections or fields if you need different questions for different award types
• A nominee type, which is individual, business, or either

Sponsor recognition

Each category can have a sponsor name, logo, and link. The sponsor info shows up on the public application page when an applicant picks that category. Useful for “sponsored by Local Bank” type programs.

Program status workflow

A program moves through statuses as you work through it.

• Draft. Setup phase, not visible to applicants.
• Open. Accepting submissions. The public application URL is live.
• Closed. No new submissions, but you can still triage and score what you have.
• In review. Optional flag if you want to mark the program as actively being judged.
• Complete. Winners selected, program done.
• Archived. Hidden from active views.

You change the status from the program's Settings tab.

Review workflow

Each program also has a review workflow. Most teams can use a single review round, but programs that need a short list can turn on Initial + finalist review from the Settings tab.

• Single review round. Reviewers score once, then you choose finalists and winners from that result.
• Initial + finalist review. Reviewers score an initial round, admins advance selected entries, then finalist assignments and scores are tracked separately.

The Scores tab shows the active round, review completion, pending assignments, unassigned entries, and ranked entries for that stage. This keeps early screening scores from getting mixed into final decision scores.