Nominating a colleague or organization for an award takes a few steps. You choose a nomination option, confirm your details, name the nominee, and answer the award’s nomination questions.
When to Use This
Use this when you want to put forward a colleague or organization for an award. The options you see depend on the award and the nomination process available to you. Not every award accepts nominations, and each process controls whether you can nominate people, organizations, or both.
Prerequisites
- You are signed in to the Portal with a linked contact. Nominating without signing in is not available by default; opening nominations to the public instead of signed-in members would require a product change, not just a setting.
- The award you want to nominate for offers a Submit Nomination option; see View an Award and What You Can Do in the Portal if you're not sure.
Submit a Nomination
- Open the award's page and select Submit Nomination.
- If the award offers more than one way to nominate, choose the nomination process you want to use, then continue.
- Confirm or update your own contact details on the form, and your organization's details if the process asks for them.
- Name the nominee by choosing an existing nominee from the award's list or entering a new one.
- Choose the recipient categories for the nomination, if the award uses categories.
- Answer the remaining questions on the nomination form.
- Submit the form.
Result
Rhythm records your nomination and returns you to the award's page, where it now appears in your nominations for that award.
Tip
If you can't finish the form in one sitting, you can save your progress and return later. Treat a saved draft as a convenience, not a guarantee. If a saved nomination does not reopen the way you left it, complete the form in one session next time instead of relying on the saved version.
Tip
Some questions accept large file uploads, but very large files take time and are more likely to fail. In testing, a 500 MB file uploaded in about a minute, and a 1 GB file uploaded in about two minutes. A 5 GB file uploaded but failed when the nomination was submitted, so treat files near that size as unreliable. You can upload several large files in the same nomination, but each additional large file will add substantially to the wait.
A nomination form can also be set up so you only need to complete one of two related questions, such as a file upload or a written response. If a question you expected to be required does not stop you from continuing, that setup is likely why.
Choosing or Entering a Nominee
The nomination process controls how you name the nominee. Depending on the process, you may be able to choose someone already recorded for the award, enter a new nominee, or do either.
- Picking an existing nominee. Select the nominee from the list of everyone already nominated for the award.
- Typing in a new person. Enter at least the nominee's first name, last name, and email address. Rhythm needs those three fields before you can continue to the next page of the form, even if the process asks for more information afterward.
- Typing in a new organization. Enter the organization's name. A new organization must have a name.
Before you submit, the form shows a summary headed Nominee: so you can confirm who you are nominating.
Tip
The process determines whether you can nominate people, organizations, or both. If the process only accepts organizations, you cannot type in or choose a person; if it only accepts people, you cannot type in or choose an organization.
Can I Nominate Myself, or Nominate an Organization Instead of a Person?
Some nomination processes allow you to nominate yourself, while others do not. If you name yourself and the process does not allow self-nominations, Rhythm refuses the submission. Whether you can nominate an organization instead of an individual also depends on the process. If both options are offered, choose the one you are submitting, because a single nomination is for either a person or an organization, not both at once.
If Your Submission Is Refused
Warning
Rhythm refuses a nomination if you are listed as the nominator for someone else's contact, because you can only submit a nomination as yourself. Rhythm also refuses the submission and shows an error if you named the wrong kind of nominee for the process, such as entering a person for a process that only accepts organizations, or if you named yourself when self-nomination is not allowed. Correct the nominee and try again.
If a submission fails without a clear reason, rule out your connection before assuming the form is the problem. Retry while disconnected from any VPN, try a different internet connection if you have one, and try a private or incognito browser window before concluding something is wrong with the nomination itself.
If nominators see a generic error about a required "name" with no clear cause, check the nomination process's form. The form needs the Select Nominee component so nominators have a way to name a nominee. Without that component, submission always fails this way.
Related Reading
Check whether an award currently offers you a way to nominate in View an Award and What You Can Do in the Portal. See the nominations you've already made for an award in View Your Own Nominations. If the person you want to nominate is not already a contact your association knows, your association's contact record is created for you automatically when you enter their details.