Award Force allows judges to leave comments on entries during entry evaluation. Comments can provide additional context for scores or highlight important feedback. Commenting is supported across all judging modes.
Types of judging comments
Judges can leave comments in two ways:
- Overall entry comment
- Available in all judging modes
- Appears as a comment box at the bottom of the entry
- Comments on individual scoring criteria
- Available in VIP judging only
- Allows judges to comment on specific scoring criteria
Enable overall entry comments
- In the Manage workspace, go to Judging > Settings > Score sets
- Click the name of the score set
- Open the 'Display' tab
- Under 'Commenting', select Comment on entry invited
- Click Save
You can also enable Comment on entry required to make comments mandatory before judging is complete. Judges can optionally attach files when leaving comments using the file upload icon.
Enable comments on scoring criteria
To allow judges to comment on each scoring criterion:
- In the Manage workspace, go to Judging > Settings > Score sets
- Click the name of the score set
- Open the 'Display' tab
- Under 'Commenting', select Comments on every score invited
- Click Save
You can also select Comment on every score required to make comments mandatory for each criterion.
Share comments between judges
Programs on Pro plans and above can allow judges to view each other’s comments.
- In the Manage workspace, go to Judging > Settings > Score sets
- Select the score set
- Open the 'Display' tab
- Under 'Commenting', enable Users can see each others’ comments on this score set
- Click Save
Next update the judge role permissions:
- Go to Settings > Users > Roles
- Select the judge role used in the panel
- Click Advanced
- Set Scores (others) View to Allow
- Click Save
Share comments with entrants
Judging comments can be shared with entrants through a feedback round.
- In the Manage workspace, go to Judging > Settings > Score sets
- Select the score set
- Open the 'Display' tab
- Under 'Commenting', enable Display comments on feedback view
- Click Save
Configure a feedback round to make these comments visible to entrants. Learn more in Feedback: sharing judge scores and comments with entrants.
Export judging comments
Program managers can export judges’ scores and comments from the leaderboard.
- In the Manage workspace, go to Judging > Leaderboard
- Open the Export drop-down
- Select Scores + comments
- Choose Excel or CSV
A download link will be sent to your email once the export is ready. Learn more in Ultimate guide to exports.
Good to know
- Comments are not shown to entrants by default. Entrants can see comments only when a feedback round is configured.
- Internal comments are never shared with entrants.
- Internal comments can be disabled by turning off Enable internal comments in the score set.
- Judges can upload files with comments (supported formats include .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .doc, .docx, .pdf, .xls, .xlsx).
- Judging fields autosave every 2–3 seconds during scoring.
- If required comments are missing, judges can still move to another entry but their assignment will not be marked complete.
Video overview