Contests FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Contests.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Contests Overview.
Setup
What do I need to configure before launching the first contest?
Enable the app from Admin → Apps → All Apps, then open Settings in the Contests sidebar. The most important setting is Who can create contests — it defaults to Admins only, so managers and employees cannot create contests until you change it. Review the other defaults: real-time rank nudges are on, the weekly digest email is off, organizers may announce a contest to its whole audience, This or that organizers may share a public results link, contest entries and names are screened for offensive content, contest leaderboards on digital signage are on, and the Contests Agent in Ask AI is on. None of these block launching a contest, but they shape the experience employees get from the start.
Who can create contests, and can I let managers or employees do it?
The Who can create contests setting in Contests Settings has three options: Admins only (the default), Managers and above, and Everyone. Each tier adds constraints:
- Admins can target any audience, award any prize type, and their contests go live without approval.
- Managers can target only locations or departments they belong to, choose any prize type (points require a prize budget you granted them), and their contests require approval before going live.
- Employees can target only locations or departments they belong to, can only offer bragging-rights prizes, and their contests also require approval.
Permissions and access
Why can’t some managers see the Templates tab or the Create button?
The Templates tab appears only for users who can create contests. If the Who can create contests setting is still at the default Admins only, managers and employees see the Contests, Programs (once your organization has a program or season), Duels (while 1-on-1 challenges are allowed) and My wins tabs but not Templates. Change the setting to Managers and above or Everyone to open creation to those tiers.
What does “Restrict to team contests” do?
This is the works-council mode: nobody is individually ranked. When enabled, every contest in the business must be a photo contest between teams, a site-metric race between locations, or a team contest with a cooperative goal (Everyone who reaches the target wins, or A share of the team reaches the target). Individual contests, 1-on-1 challenges, and other team contests with a competitive goal are refused when a contest is created, edited or started, including through the AI agent. You can also restrict specific locations instead of the whole business with Or restrict specific locations only: a contest whose audience includes anyone who works at a restricted location is held to the same rule, and so is a 1-on-1 challenge with them.
Day-to-day
How are standings calculated — can people game the scores?
Metric contests score automatically from the same verified activity ledger that powers Levels & Badges. The platform records the underlying action (a shift completed, an inspection done, a course finished), and the standings job recomputes every active contest’s leaderboard every five minutes from that ledger. Nobody can type in a metric score; the only manual change is an admin’s audited score adjustment (below), which shows on the audit trail with its reason. Manual contests score from figures the contest’s creator, or a Contests admin who isn’t competing in it, posts — one participant at a time or by CSV import. Submission contests are decided by community votes, a judge panel, or This or that.
How does This or that voting work, and why can’t anyone see the standings?
Each voter is shown two entries and picks the one they like more, or skips the pair. They are asked for a set number of picks (10 unless you change it) and can keep going in a bonus round. The pairs are chosen for them — the least-seen entries first, never their own entry or their team’s (someone on the contest who works at several of its stores or departments counts each one’s entry as their team’s), never the same pair twice — so every entry gets a fair number of matchups. The order is fitted from every pick, counted the same whenever it was made, and a voter with more than 50 picks has all of them count together as 50, so one enthusiast cannot swing it. While voting runs, only the organizer and Contests admins who aren’t competing in it see the order, on the contest page, with each entry’s record and a confidence label (Clear finish, Strong finish or Close call) from Check now. Everyone else sees it when voting closes. Hiding it keeps people from voting for whoever is ahead.
How are the places decided, and what do Clear finish, Strong finish and Close call mean?
Places come from who beat whom, not from a count of wins: every entry gets a strength fitted from all the picks, so beating a strong entry counts for more than beating a weak one. A confidence label says how sure a place is to stay ahead of the next place down. The check recounts the picks many times, each time from voters drawn at random, and counts how often the entry stays above the one below it: Clear finish means it stays above in 95% of the recounts or more, Strong finish in 80% or more, and Close call in fewer. The last place has no label. A close call still gets its own place — places are never shared — so prizes are paid by place as usual.
Can I reveal the winner myself, or show the results outside the app?
Yes, on a This or that contest. Turn on Hold the results until they’re published when you set it up: when voting closes only you and Contests admins who aren’t competing see the results — nobody else sees them, nobody is told who won and no prize is paid until one of you presses Publish results. That’s useful for announcing the winner at an event. On the contest page you can also turn on a results link that anyone can open without signing in, for a screen at an event or a newsletter. It shows the results once they’re out and names entries and teams, but never the people who entered. Turn off or New link stops the old link for good: turning the link on again makes a new one, so share the new link. A Contests admin can switch these links off for the whole company in Contests settings — that turns every contest’s link off, and switching it back on doesn’t bring them back: each organizer turns theirs on again, which makes a new link.
Do voters get anything for voting, and are they reminded?
Voting in any contest earns Levels & Badges points (a few points a vote, up to ten votes a day count); a community vote counts once per entry, however often it is taken back and cast again. In the last hour of This or that voting, everyone who started voting but made fewer picks than the contest asks gets one reminder with a link back to the vote page. When a This or that contest is open to the whole company, Digital Signage screens show it with a “Scan to vote” code while its voting is open.
How do people find out voting has opened?
When entries close, the contest’s organizer is told how many entries are in the vote and which were left out for having no photo. Nobody else is told until you choose: in the contest’s More actions menu, pick Announce voting to the audience, or share the voter link with Copy voter link or a printed Print QR poster — a scan signs the person in and opens the vote page on their phone.
Can I run a contest on numbers the platform doesn’t track, like sales or steps?
Yes. When you create a contest, choose the Manual scoring mode. While the contest is live, the contest’s creator, or a Contests admin who isn’t competing in it, can post scores for enrolled participants — one at a time or by uploading a CSV of participant and value. Scores are additive: each entry adds to the participant’s running total, so you can post daily or weekly numbers and let the total accumulate. You can also set a display unit (for example “$” or “steps”) so the leaderboard labels the numbers correctly.
What happens when a contest ends — how are winners determined and paid?
When the contest window closes, the final standings snapshot freezes and the payout runs automatically. For points prizes, the prize table pays out by rank and the points land in each winner’s Company Store balance. For badge prizes, the winner’s badge is minted onto their Levels & Badges wall. Winners receive an in-app notification and an email with a shareable win card. Non-winners receive a “results are in” notification with their final rank.
For cooperative goals (everyone who reaches the target wins), every entrant who cleared the bar wins the same prize rather than being ranked. For raffles, winners are drawn from the ticket pool at the end, weighted by participation.
Can a winner post their win in a team chat?
Yes. A winner, or anyone who can open the contest, can press Share inside the company
on the win and send it to a OneMango chat room, a Teams or Slack channel or
MangoApps Hub group your company connected, or to a colleague by email, text or
chat. It goes out as the win’s card picture, an optional line and a link back to
the contest. While your company keeps Contests to some people and does not let
moments be shared outside, it goes without its words or picture — only your line
and the link. A 1-on-1 challenge’s win cannot be posted, and while the works-council
policy keeps the ranking private only the winner may post their own win. See the
Share FAQ for more.
How do I correct a score or disqualify someone from a live contest?
Open the contest, then use the admin overrides in its More actions (⋮) menu. You can adjust a score (append-only — the original is never changed; not on a This or that contest, whose order comes only from the picks), disqualify an entrant — or, on a photo contest between teams, a team’s whole entry — or reinstate a previously disqualified one, and while voting is open you can extend it. An admin who is competing in a contest someone else created can’t adjust a score, disqualify an entrant, extend voting, end it early or enter manual scores — another Contests admin who isn’t competing has to (the contest’s creator can enter manual scores too). Every override requires a written reason and creates an audit entry. Score adjustments are folded into standings on the next five-minute refresh. Adjustments are only available while the contest is live — after completion, the payout has already ranked and paid the frozen board.
How do prize budgets control what managers can spend?
A prize budget is a points allowance an admin grants to a specific manager. That manager can then fund contest prizes from what you granted. When the contest is approved, the full prize table is reserved against the budget; when a team contest starts, the hold grows to cover every member of the teams that could win, as far as the budget allows. At the end, at most what is held is deducted and the rest is released. If the budget couldn’t cover a team contest’s hold, the extra is still paid and recorded on the contest’s audit trail. You can revoke a budget with a reason or set an expiration date. Budgets that pass their expiration are automatically marked expired by the contest lifecycle sweep, which runs every five minutes and judges the date on your organization’s own calendar. Admins can create and award prizes without a budget.
Can I end a contest early or cancel it?
Yes. An admin can end a live contest early or cancel it at any stage before completion, and a contest’s creator can withdraw (cancel) their own contest while it is a draft, waiting for approval, or scheduled but not started. Both require a written reason and create an audit entry. Ending early freezes the current standings, runs a final refresh, and pays out the prizes based on rankings at that moment — except a photo/story contest that is still taking entries: ending it early closes its entries and moves it on to the window after entries close, where a judge panel scores, community votes carry on and This or that voting opens, until that window ends. Ending it early during that window finishes it. Cancelling releases any reserved prize-budget hold and no prizes are awarded.
What notifications do employees and admins receive?
In-app notifications fire for: contest started, rank changes (took the lead, into/out of the prize ranks), the final hour before a contest ends, contest completed with results, and prediction-pick lock reminders. Judges get a notification when the judging window opens and a reminder 24 hours before it closes. Whoever reviews contest approvals — app admins by default, or the managers or group set under Who can review contest approvals? — gets an approval request when a non-admin submits a contest, and the creator is notified when it is approved or sent back.
Email is limited to two messages: the winner award email (with an inline win card image) and an optional weekly digest summarizing active contests and open ones you can join. The weekly digest is off by default — enable it in Settings under Send weekly contests digest email. It reaches everyone entered in a live contest and anyone who could still join an individual contest that’s live or starts within 30 days (invited to each at most 3 times), and leaves a short summary in their Inbox so members without a work email get it too.
Rank nudges (took the lead, into/out of prizes, and the final-hour notice) are on by default. You can turn them off in Settings under Send rank nudges — that also stops the final-hour notice.
When something looks wrong
“I can’t join this contest” — why would the Join button be blocked?
Several things can block joining. The contest is not in your audience (it targets a specific location or department you don’t belong to). The contest is a team contest, which enrolls everyone in the audience automatically — there is no Join button, except a Rejoin for someone who left while it is still running. The contest is a manual-scoring contest, which also auto-enrolls the audience when it starts. You are a manager and the contest has Managers can’t compete against their own reports on (the default), which prevents managers from competing against their own direct reports. You created the contest — the person who sets a contest up runs it rather than competing in it (a 1:1 challenge you sent is the exception: you are one of its two players). Or you were previously disqualified by an admin, which is not cleared by trying to rejoin.
“I didn’t get any notification about this contest” — what happened?
Contest-started notifications go only to people already enrolled at the moment the contest goes live. For individual contests (not manual), enrollment is opt-in — a new contest exists but you are not enrolled until you join. An admin or the contest creator can send a one-time “announce to audience” notification to the audience members who haven’t joined yet but still could, which surfaces the contest and a link to join. On a This or that contest, a second one-time announcement can be sent to the whole audience while voting is open. Team and manual contests auto-enroll the whole audience at activation, so those participants do get the started notification immediately.
“My score hasn’t changed even though I kept working” — why?
Standings refresh every five minutes, so there is a short delay between doing the work and seeing it on the board. If it has been longer than that, check which scoring actions the contest tracks — only the specific activity types selected when the contest was created count toward the score. Also confirm you are still in the contest (you haven’t left it and weren’t disqualified). For most-improved contests, your score is measured against your own pre-contest baseline, so improvement is relative to your starting point, not an absolute total.
The prediction contest won’t let me set points as the prize — why?
Prediction contests (pick’em pools and brackets) are restricted to badges or bragging rights prizes. Points prizes are not available on pick-the-winner formats. This is a platform-wide rule, not a per-tenant setting — it applies to every prediction contest regardless of who creates it.
The judging window closed and no one was declared a winner — what happened?
If a judge-panel contest completes with zero judge scores submitted, no prizes are awarded. The system holds the contest in judging for 48 hours past the judging deadline as a grace period for the panel to score, sending escalation notifications to the judges and the app admins. After the grace period, it completes with no winners, releases any reserved prize-budget hold, and notifies the creator and admins that the payout was blocked. Entrants still receive participation credit.
Licensing and limits
Does Contests require a licence?
Yes. Contests is a licensed marketplace app. It ships disabled by default — an admin enables it per tenant from Admin → Apps → All Apps.
What are the limits I should know about?
- Templates: 32 out-of-the-box system templates across six categories (engagement, safety, learning, culture, operations, seasonal), plus any custom templates your organization saves.
- Contest name: up to 160 characters.
- Template duration: a template suggests a length of up to 365 days. A contest’s own window is whatever start and end dates you set.
- Standings refresh: every 5 minutes for active contests.
- Window after entries close: 3 days by default, for photo/story contests. A judge panel scores in it; with community votes or This or that it is when voting runs (community voting opens with the contest and carries on through it; This or that voting opens only when entries close). Judges get a reminder 24 hours before it closes and a 48-hour grace hold if nobody scores.
- Duel duration: up to 30 days. A pending duel invite expires after 14 days if the opponent doesn’t respond.
- Raffle ticket cap: 10 entries per person by default (configurable per contest).
- Score adjustments: each adjustment must be under 10 billion.
- Prize types: Company Store points, a badge, or bragging rights. Prediction contests, raffles and the shared-goal formats (everyone or a share of the team reaches the target) are limited to badges or bragging rights.
- Scoring modes: metric (automatic from platform activity), manual (external numbers), submission (photo/story decided by community votes, a judge panel, or This or that — a gallery entry holds up to 30 photos and 2 short videos, and a This or that voter is asked for 3 to 50 picks, 10 by default), prediction (pick’em and brackets), and site-metric (location teams racing on a business number).
- Goal types: highest score, first to target, everyone reaches the target, most improved, raffle draw, and share-of-team threshold.
More help
- Contests Overview
- Ask AI — the Contests Agent answers questions about running contests, standings, and your rank from these articles.