Recognition

Recognition is a wall of praise between colleagues, in front of the whole team: a member publicly thanks one or more people for what they did, and whoever sees the space reads, reacts and comments. The team can tie the praise to the community values and give engagement points to whoever recognizes and whoever is recognized.

It is a space module in the Planning & HR tab of Add Space. A community can have several Recognition spaces, for example a wall per team or per area, each with its own audience; the values belong to the whole community and apply in all of them.

#What it is for

#How it works

#Who does what

Whoever has no access to the space doesn't see the recognitions, neither in the Feed nor through the API. With several spaces, each recognition stays in the space where it was made and only shows to whoever has access to that space.

#Recognizing someone

In Recognize, the "Recognize someone" window asks for:

• Who you want to recognize: 1 to 20 people of the community with access to the space. Nobody recognizes themself.
• Community value (optional): shows only when there are active values.
• Message: up to 500 characters.

The recognition shows on the wall and in the section's Feed, for whoever sees the space; in the Feed, the Recognitions filter shows only them. Each card has reactions (one per person) and comments, with replies, as in a post.

#Types and art

Every recognition has a type, and every type has an art and a phrase:

In Recognize, the Type field shows a thumbnail of the art of each type that is on, with Appreciation already selected. Recognitions made before types existed show as Appreciation.

The card opens with the art. On the wall and in the Feed, the card starts with the type's art, a wide banner at 3:1. On the left half of the art sit the type's phrase and the photos and names of whoever was recognized, one name per line (with three people or more, "Ana Prado" and "Carla Nunes and 3 more"); the photo of whoever recognized shows small, as a badge on the recipient's photo. On a narrow card (on a phone), the phrase and the names go right under the art. In the Feed, the art has a capped height.

Under the art comes a sentence: "David recognized Ana Prado for Collaboration" (without a value, no "for…"), with the sender's name leading to their page. On the next line, how long ago and in which space. The message comes as a quote, with a bar in the community's color. Last, the reactions, Comment, Card and, for whoever may, Post on LinkedIn.

The wall has two columns when there is room (on a 1280 px computer screen, for example) and one column on a phone. Cards in the same row have the same height, with the actions at the bottom, and the message shows up to 4 lines, with See more to read the rest (and See less to fold it back).

The default art is Memberfy's 3D images, one per type, the same in every community: it does not change with the community's colors.

Setting up the types. Role: owner or admin. In the side menu, open the space's …, Edit space, and scroll to Types and art. The setting "Applies to every Recognition space in the community." Each type shows its current art, its phrase and a switch to turn it on or off; every change is saved right away.

• On and off: a type that is off leaves Recognize; its older recognitions keep their art. At least one type stays on ("At least one recognition type must stay on.").
• Upload own art: PNG, JPG or WebP, up to 5 MB, at least 1200 px wide. 1800×600 (3:1) is recommended, with the motif on the right and the left half free: the phrase and the name go there. The image is cropped to the center at 3:1; the Preview shows the art pinned to the right, with the phrase and an example name on the left, before Save art. On own art, the text area gets a light shade (and a light veil when the art is too dark for the text to be read). Own art also applies to that type's older recognitions. Replace art swaps the current one.
• Back to default: deletes the own art, and the type goes back to the default art on every recognition, older ones included.

On the Card and in the e-mail. The Card is a 1200 px wide PNG that mirrors the app's card: on top, the 3:1 art with the phrase, the photos and the names (one per line) on the left; below, "X recognized Y for {value}", the day, the message as a quote and the community's logo. The height follows the content, between 1.91:1 and 1:1.25: a one-line message gives 1200×764, and a long message goes up to 8 lines, ending in "…". The you were recognized e-mail shows the type's art and phrase at the top.

In workflows. The recognition received trigger (recognition.received) carries the recognition's type in the optional type field (APPRECIATION, WELCOME, MILESTONE, AWARD, EVENT, GRADUATION or WORK_ANNIVERSARY). See Workflows.

#The e-mail to whoever was recognized

Each person recognized gets an e-mail with the author, the message and the button to open the recognition, in their language and with the community's color. The e-mail is in the Recognitions category, on by default; whoever turned it off in E-mails from this community doesn't get it, and the footer turns off only that category in one click. The notice goes out 10 minutes later and counts toward the limit of 3 notices per person per day. There is no e-mail to the rest of the community.

#The community values

The values (for example Collaboration, Ownership, Customer first) are optional. The owner and the admin set them up when creating the space or later, in Manage recognitions › Community values: name (up to 80 characters), optional description (up to 300), the order and whether it is active. Up to 30. A saved value can't be deleted: deactivate it to take it out of the choice; recognitions that already use it keep showing it. With no active values, the field doesn't show when recognizing.

The values belong to the community: the same list applies in every Recognition space, and a change made in one applies to all. The values window says so: "Values belong to the community: the same list applies in every Recognition space."

#The dashboard

The Manage recognitions bar, for the owner and the admin, shows the recognitions of the last 30 days and opens the Dashboard: for the chosen period (up to 366 days, counted in the community's time zone), Recognitions made, People who recognized and People recognized. With several spaces, the bar and the dashboard show the open space.

#engagement points

In Members › Gamification, two new actions: Recognize a colleague (for the author) and Be recognized (for each person recognized). Both start at 0: they only count if the owner gives them points. So nobody climbs engagement by volume or by collusion:

• whoever recognizes earns the Recognize a colleague points for up to 3 recognitions a day;
• whoever is recognized earns the Be recognized points once a week per author (the same colleague recognizing the same person again within 7 days doesn't count again).

Past the limit, the recognition is published normally, just without the points. Deleting a recognition takes back exactly the points it gave. Days follow the community's time zone. See Engagement and Gamification. The limits count the recognitions of all spaces together.

#Filter and count by value

On the wall, Filter by value shows only the recognitions of one community value, or those with No value; See all goes back to the whole wall. Anyone with access to the space uses the filter.

On the Dashboard, the By value block shows how many recognitions each value got in the period (and those without a value) and the 5 most recognized people in each. A turned-off value with recognitions in the period still shows, marked inactive.

#The card to share

On the recognition's card, Card downloads a PNG image with the community's colors and logo, who recognized, who was recognized, the value and the message, to share outside the community. The card has no e-mail and nothing beyond what the wall already shows.

The button shows for whoever gave the recognition, whoever was recognized and the team (owner, admin, moderator and finance). A deleted recognition makes no card ("This recognition is no longer available.").

#Post on LinkedIn

The LinkedIn button, next to Card, shows only for whoever gave the recognition and whoever was recognized. The team still downloads other people's cards, but does not post someone else's recognition.

• On a phone, it opens the system share sheet with the card image and the text ready; just pick LinkedIn.
• On a computer, it downloads the card, copies the text and opens LinkedIn in a new tab: "Card downloaded and text copied. On LinkedIn, paste the text and attach the image." If the browser blocks the tab, the notice brings the Open LinkedIn link.

The text depends on who posts. A recipient: "I received a recognition from {sender} in the {community} community: “{phrase}”". The sender: "I recognized {names} in the {community} community: “{phrase}”".

#Step by step

#Create the space

1. In the menu, open Add Space and pick the Planning & HR tab.
2. Pick Recognition and click Next. There is no "one or several" question.
3. Give it a name, an icon and who has access, as in any space. If you want, set up the community values right away.
4. For a wall per team or per area, create another Recognition space and give it the right audience. The community values already set up apply there too.

#Recognize a colleague

1. Open the space and click Recognize.
2. Type the name of one or more colleagues, pick a value (if any) and write the message.
3. Click Recognize. The card shows at the top of the wall.

#Example

The support lead recognizes Ana and Bruno with the value Customer first: "They solved the integration problem on a Saturday, without anyone asking." The team reacts with 👏 and comments. With 5 points on Recognize a colleague and 10 on Be recognized, the lead earns 5 and each of the two earns 10. Ana and Bruno get the e-mail.

#Through the assistant (MCP)

There are 14 tools: list the wall (list_recognitions, with a filter by person), open a recognition with its comments, search who can be recognized, recognize (create_recognition, with dry_run to see first who gets the e-mail), react, comment, see the values, and delete a recognition or a comment, with confirmation. The owner and the admin also add, edit, reorder and deactivate values and see the dashboard. See Tools · Members › Recognition. With more than one Recognition space, the assistant asks which one (space_id) when recognizing and searching people; the list without space_id gathers the spaces the person opens, and the dashboard without space_id adds them all up.

list_recognitions filters by value (value: name, id or none for those without one), get_recognition_dashboard brings the by-value block and get_recognition_card returns the card as an image for whoever may download it. Every recognition brings hasCustomArt, canShare (may get the card) and canPostToLinkedIn (only the author and whoever was recognized): the assistant only suggests posting on LinkedIn when it is true.

Types and art. list_recognition_types, for whoever opens the space, lists the seven types with label, phrase, art and whether each is on. create_recognition takes type (appreciation, welcome, milestone, award, event, graduation or work_anniversary; without it, Appreciation), and the dry_run shows the type, the phrase and the art; list_recognitions filters by type; get_recognition brings the type and the art. The owner and the admin turn types on and off with update_recognition_type (turning off asks for confirmation), upload own art with upload_recognition_type_art (from a URL or an image; a type's first own art goes straight up, and replacing own art that already exists asks for confirmation) and go back to the default with remove_recognition_type_art (asks for confirmation). Own art is 3:1, at least 1200 px wide; without it, artUrl is the type's default art, the same in every community.

#Common errors and how to fix them

#In the API

The space is module: "recognition", and the community can have several. The routes live under /api/recognitions, with X-CommunityId: GET and POST /api/recognitions, GET /api/recognitions/{id}, DELETE /api/recognitions/{id}, PUT and DELETE /api/recognitions/{id}/reaction, GET and POST /api/recognitions/{id}/comments, DELETE /api/recognitions/{id}/comments/{commentId}, GET /api/recognitions/people, GET /api/recognitions/dashboard (from, to, spaceId) and the values at GET and POST /api/recognitions/values, PUT /api/recognitions/values/{valueId} and PUT /api/recognitions/values/order. In the Feed, the type is recognition; in engagement, the actions are GIVE_RECOGNITION and RECEIVE_RECOGNITION.

Several spaces: GET and POST /api/recognitions, /people, /values and /dashboard accept spaceId. With a single space it is optional and nothing changes; with several, creating and searching people without it returns 422 (spaceRequired). Lists without spaceId gather the spaces the person opens, and each recognition carries its spaceId; the dashboard without spaceId adds them all up and returns spaceId: null. The by-id routes check the recognition's own space. The values are the same in any space.

By value and card: GET /api/recognitions takes valueId (an id or none); GET /api/recognitions/dashboard brings byValue (each value with recognitions and topPeople); GET /api/recognitions/{id}/card returns the PNG, with 403 (cardDenied) for someone who didn't give it, wasn't recognized and isn't on the team, and 404 for a deleted recognition. Each recognition brings canDownloadCard, canShare (the card's rule), canPostToLinkedIn (canShare and the caller is the author or one of the recipients) and hasCustomArt (the art is the community's own). The card is 1200 px wide and as tall as its content (from 1200×629 to 1200×1500).

Types and art: POST /api/recognitions takes type (APPRECIATION, the default, WELCOME, MILESTONE, AWARD, EVENT, GRADUATION or WORK_ANNIVERSARY), and GET /api/recognitions filters by type. Every recognition, on the wall and in the Feed, carries recognitionType, typeLabel, typePhrase and artUrl (the own or the default art, already resolved). GET /api/recognitions/types lists the types for whoever opens the space; PUT /api/recognitions/types/{type} turns one on or off, POST /api/recognitions/types/{type}/art uploads the art (field art; the image is re-encoded to 1800×600 without metadata) and DELETE /api/recognitions/types/{type}/art goes back to the default, owner and admin only (anyone else: 403). An unknown or disabled type when recognizing, turning off the last type that is on, or art in another format, over 5 MB or under 1200 px wide: 400, with the translated message.

#Related

• Feedback
• Engagement
• Gamification
• Modules
• E-mails from this community