Pick and announce winners

You pick the winners from the scores. Nothing is sent until you announce.

Why use it

Sessionboard Awards lets you run the full awards lifecycle — nominations, blind review, scoring and winner announcement — in one place. People’s Choice adds a public voting layer so your audience can participate alongside your expert reviewers, driving engagement and awareness for your program. You control how many votes each visitor can cast, keeping the results meaningful.

Pick the winners

Open Winners

Go to Winners and choose the program.

Set each recognition

For each nominee, set Recognition to Winner, Finalist or None. The table shows each nomination’s category and average score.

Save

Select Save. You can save once every submitted nomination has a complete scorecard. Until then, Sessionboard tells you how many still need one.

Ask can show you the scores, but it never picks winners. Only a person does.

Announce the winners

During a trial with more than 50 nominations across your programs, winners are announced once you choose a plan. See Plan and billing.

Add a note

In the Announce card, add A line from you (optional).

Choose who hears

Leave Thank everyone else who was nominated on to also thank the people whose nominees weren’t picked.

Send

Select Announce the winners. The card counts the emails as they go out (Sending… 12 of 40 sent) and ends with Announced. 40 of 40 emails sent.

The emails go to the people who submitted each nomination. A winner’s nominator hears “Congratulations. Nominee is a Winner in Program.” The others get a thank-you for their nomination.

Winners and finalists also hear it themselves when the nomination gave their email: “Congratulations, Nominee. You are a Winner in Program.” Nominees who weren’t picked are not emailed. When someone nominated themselves, they get one email.

Caution

The announcement is sent once and can’t be unsent. If some emails don’t go through, the card says how many, and the button retries only those: nobody gets a second copy. In a test workspace, only Sessionboard addresses get email, and the card says how many were skipped.

Let the public vote: People’s Choice

On Winners, People’s Choice opens a public vote on your awards page. Anyone who signs in with their email can vote once in each category.

Choose the ballot

Pick Every nomination, or Finalists only once you’ve marked finalists above.

Set the closing date

Voting runs until the end of that day.

Open the vote

Select Open the public vote. Copy The ballot link to share it.

Public votes then shows beside each nomination’s average score, with how many people have voted. Select Close the vote now to end it early.

• Voters see the nominee and the nomination. They never see who nominated whom, or any email address or phone number.
• Votes never change reviewers’ scores. Pick the People’s Choice winner on Winners like any other.
• People’s Choice is included in the Growth plan and during a trial. Weighted voter groups and voter lists are part of Enterprise Awards.

Help finalists share the news

Select Give every finalist a share kit with Marketing to open Sessionboard Marketing, which makes share kits for each finalist.