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How do I create a Custom Award in Nectar?

Custom Awards allow admins and managers to send personalized, repeatable recognitions with set point values and messages.

Aubriela avatar
Written by Aubriela
Updated today

What is a Custom Award?

A Custom Award is a predefined recognition that can be:

  • Sent multiple times to different users

  • Customized with set point values and messages

  • Limited to specific senders (admins or managers)

Tip: Custom Awards are great for use cases like monthly MVPs, spot bonuses, or backdated recognition. Here are some other ideas for using Custom Awards!

Where do I manage Custom Awards?

Go to Workspace Settings > Awards > Custom Awards

Awards Page Overview

  1. Awards List: Displays all Custom Awards your company has created (active and inactive).

  2. Create Custom Award: Use this button to make a new award from scratch.

  3. Manage Awards (β‹―): Click the three dots next to any award to:

    1. Edit the award

    2. Duplicate (creates a copy with the same settings)

    3. Delete the award

Note: Duplicating an award does not affect previously sent versions.

Tip: We recommend deactivating awards rather than deleting them if they have ever been used. Our system will not be able to properly audit where those points came from if the award has been deleted and this might affect your reports and analytics.

How do I create a Custom Award?

Creating a Custom Award is broken into three sections:

1. Basic Information

  • Award Name

  • Point Amount

  • Point Type:

  • Post Message: This message appears on the Home Feed when the award is sent.

  • Post Preview

  • Optional settings:

    • Add an image

    • Set the award to private (hides it from other users but will remain visible to Company Admins, the sender, and the receiver)

2. Who Can Give This Award

Choose who has permission to send this award:

  • Admins: All users with admin rights can send the award

  • Managers: You must add each eligible manager by username or select Add All Managers to give full access to anyone with a Manager role in your account

Note: If someone is not assigned as a sender, they will not see the award on their dashboard.

Budgets:

  • Award Budget Period: How often would you like the budget to reset (it does not matter what this is set to if you are setting an unlimited budget)

  • Unlimited Award Budget: Approved senders can send this award as often and as many times as they wish

  • Limited Award Budget: Set the amount of times this award can be sent in the designate Award Budget Period

Tip: Limited Award Budget is recommend in order to prevent overspending your employee recognition budget. Especially in cases where you are giving multiple people approval to send the award.

3. Award Activation

At the bottom of the page, choose whether the award should be active or stay inactive until you're ready to launch it then hit Save.

Note: Inactive awards will not be visible to senders, even if they have been listed above to have access.

What happens after I create the award?

Once active, eligible senders (admins or designated managers) will be able to select and send the award from the Awards tab on the Home screen.

Check out our article on how to send a Custom Award.

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