The OpenWater Blog

Improved Gallery and Public Vote Module

Our February roll-out included much requested features from OpenWater clients who use submission and winners galleries. One of these features is the Gallery / Vote module which is an add-on to help boost the stickiness factor of your awards program.

Contestants can showcase their work and link to your awards website for credibility. Imagine if an entrant just won an award for Best Architect, which is displayed on your website — now they can link their winning entry to their website or social media account. And as simple as that, this proud winner now became free advertising for your awards program for next year.

Year over year galleries provide a catalog to show submissions and winners throughout the years. This content can help boost search engine rankings for your awards website, as well as display the history of your program (boosting credibility).

How to Use the Gallery Feature

To get started with the gallery, you need to ensure this feature is enabled on your account. The Round Settings > Gallery option will be available. (If you have trouble contact your support agent)

With the gallery configuration we strived for “auto-magic” configuration. What we mean by that is you simply choose the fields from the submission form that you want displayed, and our algorithm will attempt to make a best fit gallery page for you. You can also override this with our WYSIWYG / HTML editor.

Here is an example of the configuration needed:

This will create the following gallery:

We’re really excited to have this feature rolled out to help give your program that extra edge.

Kunal Johar

Kunal Johar is the OpenWater platform evangelist. He currently manages our development teams and enjoys diving into the fray. Find him in our community chat room.

How to Make Sure Your Awards Program is Ready to Go [+Free Checklist]

The Art of the Hashtag: How and Why You Should Use One for Your Awards