The portal for submissions opens in December and remains open for entries until 19 February. During this time judges are contacted and briefed on the process and timing.
Once the portal is closed for submissions, the Chair of the judging panel allocates the award categories to each judge, based on their expertise and category preferences. If the allocations cause conflict of interest, appropriate changes are made. The judges have between 3 and 4 weeks to score their allocated award categories. They score the submissions on their own, with no interference or conferring. At no stage is there any contact with the Datacloud commercial teams.
Once all the scores are added up, the shortlists are created based on a minimum score that needs to be attained to qualify. The top aggregate score per category is the winner. In cases of a tiebreaker, the Chair will conduct it by scoring the tied submissions. If the Chair has a conflict of interest, another judge is selected to break the tie. On the rare occasions where the tie cannot be broken, more than one winner may be named.
If a category does not receive the required about of submissions/meet the minimum score, the category will be dropped to ensure it stays fair and consistent.
)
)
)
)