Recognition FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Recognition.
For what the app is and how to stand it up, see the
Recognition Overview.
Allowances and points
Why does someone have a 5,000-point giving allowance?
Monthly giving allowances are set by role tier, not by seniority. The defaults are
1,000 for an individual contributor, 2,000 for a manager, and 5,000 for
leadership. A 5,000-point balance means that person resolves to the leadership
tier — which is a permission, so an admin or owner lands there regardless of
their place on the org chart.
What’s the difference between giving points and a Boost?
Giving points happens when you create a recognition. A Boost adds points to
a recognition that already exists — a one-tap “me too” — and it spends from the
booster’s own monthly giving allowance.
Boosts are fixed at 5, 10, or 25 points, and the feed only offers amounts the
booster can still afford; if their remaining allowance is under 5, no Boost buttons
appear. Each person can boost a given recognition once.
Can someone boost a recognition they were involved in?
They can’t boost one where they are the recipient. Boosting a recognition you
gave to someone else is allowed — the restriction is on receiving, not authoring.
Why can’t I attach a group budget to my Peer-to-Peer program?
Peer-to-Peer recognition is funded entirely by each employee’s monthly Peer Giving
Allowance rather than a pooled pot, so the system rejects a group budget on that
program type with an explicit error. Use group budgets on Manager,
Achievement, or Milestone programs instead.
Governance and anti-gaming
How do I stop people from gaming recognition?
Two admin-configured controls, both off by default (set to 0):
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Monthly cap per giver | Limits how many recognitions one person can give in a calendar month |
| Duplicate cooldown | Blocks recognizing the same person again within N days |
Both count awards and recognition posts together, since to the recipient they’re
the same act. Because they default to off, a tenant that never opens these
settings is unaffected.
Do these limits also block awards the system generates?
No. Award cycles, approved nominations, and lifecycle or certification milestones
are not routed through the anti-gaming guard — it governs the open, user-initiated
surface only. A cap you set for peer spam will not quietly suppress a service
anniversary.
Visibility and access
Who can see a recognition once it’s posted?
Every recognition carries one of four visibility scopes — public,
department, team, or private. Public posts are the ones that flow into
the company News Feed (when the Communications app is enabled); the other three
narrow the audience. Scope is set per
recognition, so “is recognition visible to everyone?” depends on what the author
chose, not on a single tenant-wide switch.
Can I take back a recognition I gave?
Yes, for a shout-out. Open the recognition’s ⋮ (More actions) menu on the feed and
choose Delete — on a phone, open the recognition and tap Delete. It leaves the
feed, any points it carried are reversed, and your giving allowance is refunded.
Recognitions moderators — business admins and Recognition app admins — can delete
anyone’s shout-out the same way.
An award (from a program, an award cycle or an automatic milestone) is different:
the person who gave it can’t delete it. A Recognition admin revokes it while it is
still active — on the web with Revoke on Admin → Point Ledger, on the person’s
page under Team, or on the award cycle’s page; in the mobile app from the award’s
⋯ menu (Delete). Revoking returns its cost to the budget, takes back the
recipient’s store points and tells them.
Ask AI can find the recognition for you, but it does not delete or revoke one — use the
steps above.
Can frontline employees without a computer or company email participate?
Yes, through kiosk mode. A shared device runs a kiosk session for a location,
and employees identify with their employee ID and PIN — no corporate login — then
recognize a colleague and the screen resets for the next person.
A kiosk session can carry a timeout in minutes, after which it expires and has to
be re-established. Leaving the timeout blank means the session runs until someone
deactivates it, which is usually what you want for a permanently mounted device.
What your users will report
“I can’t see the Boost button on anyone’s recognition.”
Most often their remaining monthly allowance has dropped below 5 points, so no
Boost amount is affordable and the buttons are hidden rather than shown-and-
rejected. Check their allowance for the current month. Boosting also requires that
giving allowances are enabled for the business and that the person is permitted to
give recognition at all.
“I’m not notified when a recognition needs my approval, or when my team is recognized.”
A recognition held for approval goes to the recipient’s manager, or to the default
reviewer, as an Inbox item, an email and a phone push. If one of those is missing,
check the person’s own notification preferences first — Recognition · Approval
Requests — because a choice saved there wins over the defaults. The tenant-wide
switch is Pending Approvals under Recognition settings → Notifications.
Managers hear about their team under Team Member Recognized in the same
settings section: when a colleague recognizes one of their people, and by email
too for work anniversaries and milestones. A manager isn’t told about a
recognition they gave, one they approved, or one they can’t see.
Each person controls these in their notification preferences, and both arrive in
the app, by email and as a phone push unless they turn a channel off:
- Recognition · For You — you were recognized, an award or milestone, a
nomination, and the giver’s side: the recipient tapping Say thanks (or
replying), and a once-a-day “N people celebrated your recognition”. - Recognition · Your Team — a manager’s team recognitions and milestones, the
monthly nudge about teammates who haven’t been recognized, and the weekly
leader digest.
Mentions, comments, shares and the weekly digest stay under Recognition, which
doesn’t push unless the person turns push on for it.
Points about to run out get their own reminders, in the app, by email and as a
phone push: unspent giving points in the last five days of the month
(Recognition · Giving Points Expiring), and earned Company Store points
14 days before your company’s expiry policy removes them
(Company Store · Points Expiring).
“I recognized my teammate but they got no points.”
Check the recipient’s worker classification. If their classification sits on the
reward-points-excluded list, the recognition still posts and still appears in the
feed, but the monetary points credit is skipped by design.
More help
- Recognition Overview
- Company Store Overview — where earned points are redeemed
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Recognition questions from these articles.