Giving Guide

The Giving Guide is a powerful tool designed to help your organization standardize and ensure equitable point distribution across all recognition programs. It integrates your custom award rubric directly into the recognition flow, eliminating the need for external documentation and providing clear, in-platform guidance to every user. This article will walk you through setting up and managing the Giving Guide, from prerequisite steps to advanced configuration. Please follow the steps in this article sequentially for a smooth setup.

1. Giving Guide Value
2. Giving Guide End-User Experience
3. Creating Award Presets (Prerequisite Step)
4. Enabling the Giving Guide
   • Giving Guide Settings
   • Creating the Giving Guide Rubric
   • Editing a Giving Guide
   • Editing Preset Values
5. Giving Guide Metric Ideas
6. FAQ

Giving Guide Value

The Giving Guide provides significant value by addressing common challenges in large-scale recognition programs, transforming your manual guidelines into an interactive, in-platform experience.

Why You Should Create a Giving Guide

• Standardize Point Distribution: You can operationalize your existing rubrics and point guidelines, ensuring that awards are given equitably and consistently across all departments, locations, and user levels. This consistency reinforces the integrity of your recognition program.
• Improve User Experience (UX): The guide removes the guesswork for givers—especially new users or managers—who may be unsure of the appropriate point amount. By providing an immediate, recommended award based on their inputs, it speeds up the recognition process and reduces friction.
• Reduce Resource Drain: Eliminate the need to constantly create, update, and disseminate separate external documents (like PDFs or internal wiki pages) that often go unused. The entire guidance process is integrated directly into the Awardco platform.
• Increase ROI and Program Effectiveness: When point distribution is fair and aligns with predetermined company values and impact levels, employees perceive the program as more meaningful and valuable. This leads to higher engagement, better adoption rates, and a clearer demonstration of your program's impact.

Giving Guide End-User Experience

When a user initiates the recognition process and selects a program with the Giving Guide enabled, they'll encounter a streamlined experience designed to quickly recommend an appropriate award amount.

If the guide is set to Optional, the user will see a Giving Guide button in the recognition form. The guide's prompts will only appear if the user clicks this button. If the guide is set to Required, the guide's prompts will appear automatically upon selecting the program.

The user first answers a series of prompts (metrics) based on specific scales you define (e.g., Low impact, Moderate impact, High impact). These questions are designed to help the giver evaluate the receiver's action against company-defined values or impact levels.




 

Based on the answers provided, the Giving Guide uses a weighted average algorithm to generate a suggested award amount.

 

The user can then accept this recommended amount or select any other available preset or custom amount (if custom amounts are enabled for the program). The recommendation acts as a strong starting point, but the giver retains the final decision. 

Creating Award Presets (Prerequisite Step)

The Giving Guide requires your recognition program to have pre-configured Award Presets to function, as the guide's questions map directly to these values. It is required to have at least two or more active award presets to enable the Giving Guide.

To create or manage Award Presets:

1. Select the “Admin” button at the bottom of the left navigation menu.
2. From the left navigation menu, select “Recognition,” "Programs," then "Recognition Programs.”
3. Select the desired program.
4. Click the “Points” tab.
5. Under the “Display Award Preset As” section, mark the following checkboxes (recommended but optional):
   • Preset label (required)
   • Award Value in Points
   • Award Value in local currency
6. In the newly appeared “Presets” section, enter a descriptive preset label (e.g., Small Thanks) on the left and the equivalent point value in the field on the right.
7. Repeat this process for every award preset. Important: Two or more award presets must be active to enable the Giving Guide.
   
   
   
    
8. Once finished, click “Save Changes.” Proceed to the next section.

Enabling the Giving Guide

Once your Award Presets are configured, you can enable the Giving Guide for the specific recognition program.

1. Scroll down to the bottom of the “Points” tab page in the desired recognition program.
2. Toggle the Giving Guide switch 'on'.
   
    

You must create at least one metric in the Giving Guide rubric before you can save this change. If you try to save without a metric, an error will be thrown. Proceed to the next section. 

Giving Guide Settings

After enabling the guide, configure its front-end appearance and flow requirement:

1. Title: This name will display on the recognition form.
2. Description: Provide an overview of the guide and light instructions for the givers.
3. Is this Giving Guide required or optional for this program?
   • Optional: Users can manually choose their point amount or click the guide for a recommendation.
   • Required: The Giving Guide rubric will appear automatically upon selecting the program. The user must complete the guide, though they can still select an amount other than the recommendation.

You must create at least one metric in the Giving Guide rubric before you can save this change. If you try to save without a metric, an error will be thrown. Proceed to the next section to create a rubric.

Creating the Giving Guide Rubric

The rubric is the core of the Giving Guide, defining the metrics and criteria that lead to a point recommendation.

1. Begin by selecting “Create Giving Guide.”
2. A pop-up window will display a blank guide. You will configure your first Metric.
   • Metric Title: Input a metric to measure (e.g., Impact, Effort, Initiative).
   • Metric Description: It's highly recommended to input a question here to guide the recognizer (e.g., What level of impact did this action have on the organization?).
   • Answer Fields: In the fields to the right, input a description/answer that corresponds to the possible award levels (e.g., Low impact, Moderate impact, High impact). The number of answers should correspond to the number of award presets you have created.
     
     
     
      
3. Click the + button below the metric to add more metrics. It's recommended to keep the guide to no more than 4 metrics for the best user experience.
4. To duplicate or delete a metric, click the three dots to the right of the metric title.
   
   
   
    
5. Once finished configuring all metrics, click 'Done' on the pop-up window.
6. Finally, click “Save Changes” on the main Program settings page.

Test the User Experience

• Ensure the program is in “Active Status.”
• Click “Leave Admin” in the upper right-hand corner.
• Begin the recognition process by selecting the program for which you created the Giving Guide.

Editing a Giving Guide

If you need to make adjustments to your Giving Guide:

1. Select the Admin button at the bottom of the left navigation menu.
2. From the left navigation menu, select “Recognition,” "Programs," then "Recognition Programs.”
3. Select the desired program and click the “Points” tab.
4. Scroll down to the Giving Guide section. You can directly adjust the Title, Description, and Required/Optional setting here.
5. To edit the rubric itself (metrics, descriptions, or answers), click ‘Edit Giving Guide’. You can change the order of metrics, delete, and/or add new ones.
   
   

Editing Preset Values

If you change the point values of your Award Presets, you will need to review and update your Giving Guide rubric to ensure the descriptions still align with the new amounts.

1. Access the “Points” tab in the recognition program.
2. Add, delete, and/or modify your preset labels and values.
3. Click “Save Changes.”
   • If you modify an existing preset label or point amount: The change will save without an error.
   • If you remove an existing preset: A notice will appear informing you that the preset was removed and the Giving Guide needs an update. Click “Save” again.
   • If you add a new preset: A notice will appear that says, "Update Needed to Giving Guide: You've changed your award presets. To prevent errors, the Giving Guide needs to be updated to match the updated award presets before the page can be successfully saved." Click “Save” again.
     
     
     
      
4. Scroll down to the Giving Guide section and click “Edit Giving Guide.”
5. Update the preset descriptions within the rubric to accurately reflect your new point values, click “Done,” and then “Save Changes” on the main program page.

Giving Guide Metric Ideas 

FAQ

• Q: Can I opt out of the Giving Guide feature? 
  • A: Yes. The Giving Guide settings block will be available for your monetary programs, but you are not required to toggle the feature on.
• Q: Does the Giving Guide work with programs that only use Custom Amounts? 
  • A: No. The program must have preset award values configured because the guide's algorithm relies on these predefined levels. You may still enable custom amounts alongside presets, but presets are mandatory for the guide to function.
• Q: How many metrics and preset options should I add to the Giving Guide?
  • A: Best Practice: It is recommended to use 3 or 4 metrics to ensure the best user experience and avoid decision fatigue. The number of preset options (answers) per metric must match the total number of active Award Presets configured for the program. Most organizations find that 4 to 5 award presets offer the best balance of simplicity and distinction between award levels.
• Q: Can I make the Giving Guide mandatory for only certain users or metadata? 
  • A: No, the Required/Optional setting is currently program-wide. However, if a program is configured to only allow certain users to give, the guide will only be visible to those users.
• Q: Is the recommended amount final, or can the user still choose a different value?
  • A: The user can always choose a different value. The Giving Guide is an advisement tool that recommends an award; it does not force the user to select that specific amount.
• Q: How does the Giving Guide determine the recommended amount?
  • A: The guide uses a simple, average-based algorithm that calculates the score from the giver's selections against the configured metrics and award levels. It is not an AI feature and does not perform sentiment analysis on the recognition reason text.
• Q: Will the Giving Guide information be included in my reports?
  • A: Yes. Additional columns will be added to the Recognition Details report to include the metric names, the selected answers, and the recommended amount from the Giving Guide. This data is also included in the Approvals Flow.
    
    
    
    
     

If you have any questions, please contact Awardco Admin Support.