
It helps you organise all the award submissions freeing up time to focus on the things that really matter for the awards. It is much easier to explain the process and take users through it, which I believe helps increase submissions.
Once you have created your first awards 'season' than the subsequent ones become even easier as you can copy your set-up just making a few tweaks if you need it.
The Award Force support team is very responsive and you always get questions answered very quickly.
All the judges we use for our awards have also been very happy with our switch to Award Force. They can very easily navigate the submissions that we ask them to submit and the scoring and criteria is displayed for them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The last time we used it the set-up sometimes felt like it could be easier. You have to change some settings in the 'back end' and then go somewhere else to see what that change has done. It is not a big issue and I think that Award Force have actually updated this. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The configuration process for Good Grants was simple and the supporting information very clear (from point of view of a user with prior experience of setting up similar systems). The sales team were great throughout the procurement process and the support team have been excellent. They respond quickly to enquiries and turned around my request for a pre-launch test very rapidly.
Most of all I really like knowing I have a safe & reliable system for accepting, processing and reviewing applications at a very reasonable cost. I am delighted with my experience of Award Force so far. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I don't dislike anything in the application submissions set up process. I haven't set up reviewing yet but don't anticipate problems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I am a curator delivering a triennial award for artists at a national museum in the UK. Award Force enabled us to bring the process in-house - from the open call and application process, to longlisting, review and judging.
The platform was almost entirely customisable to our needs, and is very straightforward to use. We included the on-boarding process in our package, which meant we could have tutorials on the different settings and ways of working. The Help and FAQs section of the site is pretty comprehensive too, so almost everything can be answered swiftly.
And if I'm stuck, there is 24/7 support - I can send an email and get an answer within the hour if it's urgent! This was a life-saver more than once. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
There are certain elements of the interface it would be good to customise or change that are not yet possible - the dashboard layout, the order of the side bar, and so on. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
We have been organising our internal awards program for a number of years now and have always struggled managing all the submissions and organising the judging process. Deploying AwardForce solved all our challenges and we have now deployed a very professional, easy to use platform to manage our Awards program with a fraction of the time and costs involved before. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Implementing AwardForce in the organisation does take some time. However with the excellent onboarding support provided by AwardForce this is very easy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The system was so configurable that any ideas we can up with the system could cope with those variables. All users were able to use it with no in depth guidance and absolutely minimal support queries. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It did take a little getting used to and setting up however the help on hand to guide us through and check the process was correct made it much easier and gave us reassurance. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I love the service I receive from Awards Force! Seriously, I think its some of the best customer support around and I use a variety of third-party tools and portals. Love the knowledge library, the how-to dashboard set up, but more than that, I love that I can talk to you relatively quickly— in person. That's important to me because I am not the only person in my organisation who creates an award in the portal, but I am the one internal stakeholders come to when there are issues! In turn, sometimes I also need support :-) All your customer service people I have spoken with are helpful and have always fixed the problem or suggested a viable workaround. Really appreciate it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
There are no downsides that I have found. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
We are about to enter our fourth year with Award Force. I have been approached by several others to switch and I tell them why should I? The customer service is prompt and first rate and the interface is easy to use. Plus there are many FAQ's and videos to help. Looking forward to a great 2021 American Photography Open. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I still don't like the slideshows that show a thumbnail after each image Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The software is very intuitive, easy for entrants to use, judges to score and administrators to tally winners. The excellent costumer service is an amazing plus as well! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
This is our second year using the service and nothing so far. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What do I like best? Everything! From the ease for our members to submit their projects to our judges being able to log in remotely to complete the judging and the customer service.
When you get an email late on a Friday afternoon saying that someone will get back to you on Monday with an answer to your inquiry, make sure that you check back. There is going to be a reply from one of the service reps long before Monday arrives. Top notch all the way. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I currently cannot think of one thing that I dislike about Award Force or that I would change. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What your users see looks modern, clean, and professional. Award Force is highly configurable, and the more you dig the greater the possibilities. I didn't realize initially but review flow is fantastic. For our next conference we'd make greater use of that. On top of that, the support from the AF team is first class. Considered, fast, professional, and willing to help you find alternative approaches when the 'vanilla' product does not quite match your needs.
The documentation and video training is excellent. If your use case is different, then you would benefit from having systems configuration experience to be able to visualize the possibilities. However, the AF team is there to help you, so don't let that stop you committing!
After a very long career in IT, I don't hesitate to say that this relatively small company is one of the best I've encountered. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Nothing is perfect! The things that I don't like tend to be around my specific use case. Biggest takeaways:
* Not being able to configure the columns of the judges' view. That would be really helpful and the coding/technology is already there somewhere as you can configure columns in the administrator/manager view
* That the underlying model assumes a single interested party which means to have multiple people engaged in a submission (conference co-speakers) you have to jump hoops
* Related to the above point, as a co-speaker, you can't login to an account and see the submissions that you are involved in. You can make 'something' work, but not using an account based approach.
Finally, I would really have liked to have had the possibility to look at the 'back end' during assessment, but having used it now, I totally agree that I would have overlooked some key aspects of the product. So I understand that strategy even though during assessment it was a little frustrating! Award Force will spend time showing you the admin panel, it's just not a hands on experience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
As program manager of a scientific research program, Awardforce helps me to collect grant applications, invite reviews, and support decision making based on those reviews. As an online application, with role-based levels of access, there is no longer a need to shift any paper work around. Applicants and reviewers were very positive about transitioning to this software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The software is highly flexible in the definition of fields for applicants/entrants. I was a bit surprised that fewer options exist for defining fields for the judges/reviewers. Overall, it met my needs, but a minor issue was that currently all judging criteria in VIP judging mode need to be scored. Inviting comments is optional. I woud like to be able to invite one overall score, paired with detailed comments on specific review criteria. We resolved this by asking our judges to provide comments in a structured way and that worked actually quite well. Still we hope new features will be added in future releases. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Support always available from the team at a minutes notice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Honestly, nothing to complain about. Support always available when needed and guidance available on the site is always a great first response to any issues I've ever had. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Award Force serves as the ultimate HUB for management of our student competition. From User information access and data, entry submissions management and all judging! This platform has saved us in hundreds of labor hours that we used to incur from handling our competition manually! WE LOVE AWARD FORCE!! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Our list of dislikes is very minimal. The system and customer support has allowed for us to do a lot of customization of our features to match many aspects of our competition.
I do wish that the certificate customization had more options like a landscape version with full design upload vs. just a header and footer. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Award Force is easy to navigate from an administrator standpoint from setting up the entry process to judging and pulling reports. The quick response time and thorough tech support is beneficial for new users. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I wish there was an easier way to preview. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Both managers, applicants, and judges have all been extremely pleased with the product and have commented on how easy the grant process has become compared to previous years. What I like best about it is as a first time user (and not a very technically oriented first timer!) is that I was able to navigate the program and set up applications and judging parameters fairly easily thanks to the amazing online help. I often found the answers I needed with the content of the "need help?" tab but I did on occasion need more help beyond that. Responses from the technical advisers were fairly quick and thei assistance was given with great patience! I love the flexibility of the program even at the starter level we chose to purchase. I called numerous granting organizations to get suggestions for grant management programs and all of the suggestions we way out of our price bracket. It was a lucky day when I stumbled upon the Award Force website and after a live conference call with one of the AF representatives, me and my fellow staff members knew this was going to be the right program for our needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I wish the next level up wasn't so expensive, otherwise we would consider a version with more functionality. For instance it would have been nice to be able to do mass emails to applicants and judges which I thought would have been a very basic function for a program as such. Despite that, I can't complain about the entry level program since we are a small organization. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Easy to use system that looks professional and does what it's meant to do. Support staff are very easy to contact and reach and provide very useful information. Comparatively, Award Force also offers more functionalities than other award management platforms for similar or less costs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Would benefit from a few more functionalities e.g. entrant polling functions. During the application entry stage, the ability to add images or videos as the entrant applies would also help to make things more engaging and keep the applicant interested. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The set up guide makes creating a nomination form intuitive and helps ensure we do not leave out any steps. Also the support we have had throughout set up and configuration has been excellent. Anytime we reached out we would normally get a response within an hour, with a resolution. Very refreshing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
We struggled with the flexibility around certificates. There are minimal editing capabilities, and formatting options. But the other capabilities are excellent. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
We are currently using Award Force for an upcoming awards program with over 360 entries and multiple rounds of judging. Award Force helped to make the submission process easy and their support team walked me through everything I needed to start the judging process. They empowered me to be able to complete the process on my own. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
There are almost too many features and abilities that I find myself learning something new every time I contact the support team. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I like how quickly the team respond to your queries. They are understanding, clear with their responses and offer 'easy-to-follow' advice. They're very supportive and if your query can't be fulfilled, they are always eager to improve their platform. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I don't like how you have to link everything up to get things to work on the platform as this can take quite a while to do, to ensure everything is linked up properly. Ie: fields, tabs, ensure things are displayed, field order, etc. It can be very time consuming and frustrating when things don't go your way!
Although I understand that it allows you to have full control of the platform and arrange exactly how you want the entry platform to be, those who don't understand technology might struggle to understand and use this. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Works great and is very user friendly. It is an affordable price and meets all of our needs. It has a fair amount of customization allowed. Our submitters had a pretty easy time submitting the material and our judges were able to review very easily. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I wish their was a little more robust ability to email from the software. Also, we used it for a call for presentations which worked mostly well but some things weren't ask great. I wish the software could communicate with all presenters not just the submitter. Sometimes the software also got a little buggy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The app is very flexible in how it can be setup and the tech support is the best I have experienced. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
There can be a great deal of setting up for sophisticated configurations but that is to be expected and the support team went above and beyond in helping set it up Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The assistance and expertise from the staff is unparalleled. I honestly could not believe how patient everyone was. They always responded very quickly and always explained things perfectly. The software itself is working beautifully for us and I am so happy we were able to work with Award Force. It makes us more professional and better able to engage with people who are entering our awards. I absolutely love Award Force. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Nothing. It is amazing. Price, support and everything is spot on. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The team was super helpful
it was easy to load content
Platform is widely used so industry is familiar Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Some of the functionality about how the awards moved through the stages and how the results displayed were not to my preference (would have like to see a score card for each judge without opening individual entries) (had to reject all the entries that didn't pass to the next round - would have like another mechanism to do this since it took AGES to reject all the entries in some categories and the system doesn't like to display more thank 10 entries at a time without timing out!) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.