Judge Assignment
Control how judges are assigned to entries on AwardKit. Review all, assign per judge with auto-distribution, or organize into parallel judging rooms.
AwardKit supports three strategies for assigning entries to judges. The right mode depends on your program size and number of judges. Toggle between them using the segmented control at the top of the Judge Voting section.
Switching modes shows a short toast confirming the change ("Switched to All", "Switched to Assigned", or "Switched to Rooms") and applies it immediately. Leaving a mode clears only that mode's setup (its rooms, or its per-judge assignments), so you can experiment freely before judges start.
Assignment mode is set per round. On a multi-round program, round 1 can be All judges while a smaller final round runs as Per judge or Rooms. Switching a round's mode only affects that round; the others keep their setup. Single-round programs simply set the one mode for the whole program.
All judges
Every judge reviews every entry. This is the default mode and the simplest option.
Best for:
- Small programs (under 30 entries)
- Programs with few judges (3-5)
- When you want every entry to get the same number of reviews and full panel calibration
No configuration needed. Every entry is visible to every judge.
Per judge
Each judge reviews only the entries assigned to them. This gives you fine-grained control over who reviews what.
Each judge card gains an Assignments button where you can manually pick which entries they review. This mode is useful when you want to distribute entries unevenly. For example, assigning domain experts to review category-specific entries, or routing entries with potential conflicts of interest away from judges connected to the entrant.
The picker groups entries by category. Use the Select all / Clear shortcuts in each category header to bulk assign or remove an entire category in one click. You can still toggle individual entries to add overrides on top of bulk selections.
Auto-assign
Toggle Auto-assign entries to let AwardKit distribute entries evenly across judges. When enabled:
- Existing entries are distributed so each judge gets a roughly equal share
- New entries that come in later are automatically assigned to the next judge in the rotation
- You can set the number of reviews per entry (default 2) to control how many judges see each entry
Turning auto-assign on will redistribute all current assignments. You'll see a confirmation dialog if there are existing votes or assignments at risk.
Rooms
Organize judges and entries into independent rooms for parallel judging. Each room operates separately with its own set of judges and entries.
Best for:
- Large programs (50+ entries)
- Programs with many judges (10+)
- When you need to complete judging quickly by running reviews in parallel
- When you have judges specialized in certain categories and want to group them with the relevant entries
Click Add Room to create rooms, then assign judges and entries to each one. Toggle Auto-assign to rooms to let AwardKit distribute both judges and entries evenly across rooms. You can also set up rooms manually, for example creating one room per category with the judges who have the right expertise for those entries.
For a 200-entry awards program with 10 judges, consider 2 rooms of 5 judges each, with each judge reviewing 40 entries. This halves the load per judge while maintaining multiple reviewers per entry.
Assigning judges by category
In Per judge mode, the entry picker groups entries by category, so the fastest way to route a domain expert is to Select all of their category. Each judge card then lists the categories they cover, plus a count of any individual entries you added or removed on top of those (for example "+1 entry added manually").
Because judging is per category, assignment is too: a work entered in several categories can be assigned to a judge in one category and not another. This is how you keep a conflicted judge away from a work in one category while still letting them score it in an unrelated one, short of a full recusal.
CSV Import
Bulk import judges on AwardKit from a CSV file. Map columns, preview rows, and add up to 1,000 judges at once with automatic deduplication and auto-assignment.
Judging Rounds
Run multi-round judging on AwardKit. Screen a large field down to a shortlist, then have a final jury score the finalists, each round with its own dates, panel, criteria, and assignment.