A nomination process sets the rules members follow when they nominate someone for an award. Before members can nominate a candidate on the Portal, the award must have at least one active nomination process; without one, the Portal cannot offer nominations for that award. Nominations are separate from applications because they notify a nominee and invite them to apply, rather than sending the nomination itself through review.
Where to Find It
Go to Awards › [award name] › Setup › Nominations › Processes to view an award’s nomination processes. Select Create Nomination Process to add one, or open an existing row to edit, clone, or delete it.
Prerequisites
- At least one active nomination form must already exist before a process can use it. You design nomination forms separately in the award’s Nominations setup; see Web Forms for general form setup.
- The award must have nominations turned on before the Nominations setup group appears in the menu. The create, edit, and list pages still open if you go directly to their addresses.
Settings
An award can have any number of nomination processes, such as one for members and one for chapters. The Portal offers each member the processes they are eligible to use, and the saved settings control every nomination submitted through that process from that point forward.
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name: | Any text | Empty | Members see this name when an award offers more than one process. |
| ID: | Text, after a fixed award prefix | Suggested from the name | This becomes permanent after you save. You can edit it only while the record is new. |
| Status: | Active / Inactive | Active | An inactive process is never offered, even when today falls within its open and close dates. |
| Allow individuals to nominate themselves | On / off | Off | Lets a member nominate themselves. Rhythm checks this only for contact nominees; organization nominations are never checked for self-nomination. |
| How should people completing this process select a nominee? | Existing nominees only, allow new nominees, or both | Both | Controls whether the nominator selects one of the award’s existing nominees, enters a new nominee, or can do either. |
| Nominee Type: | Contact or Organization | The type this browser last saved, or Contact | Sets whether the process nominates people or organizations. Changing it later does not update nominations already recorded. |
| Contact Fields | A set of contact details | The panel’s own defaults | Controls which details a nominator enters for a brand-new person nominee. This appears only when the nominee type is Contact and the mode is not “existing nominees only.” |
| Nomination Form: | Any active nomination form | Empty | Sets the form the nominator completes. Rhythm offers only active forms built for nominations, and excludes page layouts. |
| Open this Nomination Process: | Date | Empty | Sets the first day the process can be offered. If you leave it blank, the process counts as open from the start. |
| Close this Nomination Process: | Date | Empty | Sets the last day the process can be offered. |
| Nominee Notification Email | On / off | Off | Sends an email telling the nominee they were nominated, once the switch is on and both a subject and body are entered. |
| Send the notification email for the first nomination only; do not send for subsequent nominations | On / off | On | Prevents repeat emails to a nominee who is nominated more than once for the same award. |
A shared panel on the same form lets you turn on a confirmation email for the person submitting the nomination. In that panel, you can also choose whether the nominator confirms their own contact or organization details, control whether the process appears on the Portal, and set eligibility criteria for who can use it. The exact field labels in that panel are not documented; look for the section about nominator confirmation and eligibility on the process form.
Rhythm can require every applicant nominated through a process to apply, with no staff action needed. An administrator can turn on automatic application creation for new nominees, so a candidate’s first nomination for the award creates their application. There is no Console control for this; it can be set only through the API. Later nominations of the same candidate never create a second application.
Tip
The checkbox to allow self-nomination and the nominee-selection options control what members can submit on the Portal, not just what the form looks like. Decide on these settings before you publicize the process, because a nominator learns that a self-nomination was refused only after they submit it.
Dependencies and Precedence
- The nominee type and mode decide which other settings apply. Contact Fields appears only for contact nominees when the mode is not “existing nominees only.” Switching Nominee Type does not re-check nominations already on file.
- Rhythm does not compare the opening and closing dates. You can save a process with a closing date before its opening date, but it is never offered to anyone. Check both dates together before you save.
- The form and the nomination process are separate records. Rhythm requires the selected form to be a nomination form. After you save the process, Rhythm does not re-check whether the form was built for something else, or whether it was later deleted or turned off.
- Reordering needs at least two processes. From the list, drag a row’s grip to change the order in which processes are offered.
Warning
Rhythm does not require the closing date to be after the opening date. If you swap the two by mistake, the process saves without an error and never appears to nominators. Recheck both dates if a new process does not appear where you expect it.
Warning
Nominations do not support the Awards review process. If reviewers need to evaluate and decide on a submission, configure that program as an application instead of a nomination.
Change Impact and How to Revert
You can change any setting at any time, even on a process that already has nominations. Rhythm does not limit which fields can change or when. A change affects only nominations submitted after you save it; nominations already submitted keep the form and emails that were in effect when they were submitted.
Switching a process to Inactive is the safest way to retire it without losing history. It stops the process from being offered, but past nominations and settings stay intact, and you can switch it back on later. Deleting a process is different: it removes the record outright and cannot be undone from the Console. Rhythm also refuses the delete while any nomination still names the process. A nomination recorded by hand without naming a process does not protect the process it might logically belong to.
Validation and Errors
| What you see | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| "You haven't entered a valid value for Name" (or for Nominee Type, Nominee Mode, or Nomination Form) | One of these required fields is empty | Fill in the missing field |
| A red warning that a record already exists with this name | The typed identifier matches another process’s identifier | This does not block saving, but choose a different identifier if you want a unique one |
| "Unable to save Nomination Process" | The save was refused, most often because the chosen form is not a valid nomination form | Fix the named field and save again; your entries are kept |
| "Unable to delete Nomination Process" | A nomination still names the process | Make the process inactive instead, or remove the nominations that use it first |