I. Enabling Public Voting
Public voting is turned on per round:
Open round settings: open your program → select the round tab → Settings → Evaluation Settings.
Turn it on: tick Enable public voting and click Save Settings.
A Voting tab now appears for the round. Its left sidebar has these sections: Settings, Phases, Featured, Winners, Messages, Listing View, Votes and Comments.
II. Voting Settings
Voting Experience
Default layout (for example Comfortable grid).
"Closing soon" window (hours): how long before the end the page shows "closing soon".
Ballot tray, Ranked results and Confirm before voting.
Basics
Voting Start / Voting End: when voting opens and closes. These are separate from the evaluators' evaluation dates.
Voting Method: for example Yes/No.
Voting Type: Public Voting (anyone with the link) or Private Voting (logged-in users only).
Votes Limit / IP Votes Limit: caps on votes per user and per IP address.
Advanced
Enable single view; enable submission tracks view; shuffle submissions randomly
Enable voting questions (collect extra information from voters)
Require users to log in to vote
Enable manual approval of votes
Show total vote count
Enable social sharing options
Settings save automatically. Click Publish to make the voting page available.
III. Voting Phases
Open Phases to control where voting is in its life cycle:
Draft: not visible.
Open: public voting is live.
Closing soon: the final hours.
Closed: voting has ended.
Results: winners are published.
Click Advance to Open to move on, or set Auto-open at and Auto-close at, then Save phase. Use Preview public page to see what voters see. The program itself must be published for the voting page to be visible.
IV. Messages and Display
1. Voter Messages (Messages)
Confirmation email: edit the email voters receive after voting.
Personalisation: use Short Codes (for example the submission title).
Auto Send: send the confirmation automatically.
2. How Submissions Look (Listing View, Featured)
Listing View: choose a model (template), then which submission form fields appear for Image or Video, Submission Title and Submission Description, and whether to display the username. Click View to preview.
Single view: if enabled in Settings, arrange the detailed page for each submission.
Featured: highlight selected submissions.
V. Managing Votes
Open Votes to see Total votes, Accepted, Pending and Canceled, and a table with each vote's submission, voter name, email, IP address, date, time, status and type.
Select votes and use the toolbar to Approve Vote, Cancel Vote, set back to Pending, Export, IP Block or Remove.
Search and filter by submission, voter, email, status and more.
If manual approval is on, only approved votes count.
VI. Announcing Winners
Open Winners.
Click Auto-fill from standings, or choose the Grand winner, Runner-ups and Community favorite yourself (only qualified submissions are eligible). Add custom awards if you need them.
Decide whether to Show vote counts on the public results page.
Click Save draft, then Publish results. A grand winner and runner-ups are required to publish.
VII. Totals in Round Scores
In the round's Submissions tab, switch the view selector to Round Scores and show the Total Votes and Voting Score columns with Table settings. Filter as needed and export.
Best Practices for Public Voting
Audience control: use Private Voting for closed audiences, and Public when promoting widely.
Preventing fraud: combine Votes Limit and IP Votes Limit with Require users to log in to vote, and consider manual approval.
Minimise bias: turn on random shuffling so the first submissions don't get an advantage.
Comments: moderate them in Comments, or platform-wide in Gear icon → Comments.
Troubleshooting Public Voting
Problem | Solution |
Voting tab missing? | Check Enable public voting is on in Evaluation Settings and that you saved. |
Voting page not visible? | Publish the program, click Publish in voting Settings, and move the phase to Open. |
Votes not counting? | If manual approval is on, approve pending votes in Votes. |
Public users can't vote? | Check the Voting Type is Public and whether Require users to log in to vote is on. |
Can't choose a winner? | Only qualified submissions are eligible. Qualify the finalists first. |
What's Next?
Next, explore initial filtration of entries.