Winners

Track every winner from the moment they're drawn to the moment their prize is in their hands: chase up prize choices (cash alternative, site credit), update fulfilment and delivery status, post tracking updates the winner can read, keep staff-only notes they cannot, and clear your backlog with batch actions. Instant win claims and main prize winners are managed side by side in one place.

Where to find it: Admin → Winners (/admin/winners). The sidebar badge next to Winners shows how many prizes are awaiting fulfilment.

Draws themselves — picking the winning ticket — happen on the dedicated Winner Draws page. Publishing winner photos and stories to your public site happens in the Winner Gallery. This page is where you manage everything in between.

Understand the winner lifecycle

Every winner (main prize or instant win) carries a fulfilment status. The typical journey is:

1. Winner drawn — a record appears in the Winners Requiring Action tab as soon as a draw completes or an instant win is claimed.
2. Pending Choice (only if the prize has alternatives) — the winner has been offered a choice (for example, the prize or a cash/credit alternative) and hasn't decided yet. This status is set by the system and clears automatically when they choose — you cannot select it yourself.
3. Pending — the prize is confirmed but fulfilment hasn't started. Use this stage for winners you still need to contact.
4. Processing — you're actively fulfilling: the winner has been contacted and delivery, payout or credit is being arranged.
5. Completed — the prize has been delivered or paid out. The record moves to the Completed Winners tab.
6. Cancelled — the win was voided or won't be fulfilled. Also shown on the Completed Winners tab.

You set Pending, Processing, Completed and Cancelled yourself from the fulfilment panel (see Update a winner's fulfilment). Status changes here are record-keeping only — they never move money. Cash and credit are only ever paid out by the winner making their choice, or by you adjusting their balance from their customer profile.

Check what needs your attention

The top of the page gives you three numbers:

• Pending Draws — competitions that have ended (or sold out) and still need a winner. If this is above zero, a Ready for Draw banner also appears; clicking it takes you to Winner Draws.
• Pending Fulfillments — prizes awaiting delivery. This is the same count shown on the Winners Requiring Action tab and the sidebar badge.
• Total Winners — your all-time winner count.

Below the stats, the Upcoming Draws list shows each competition awaiting a draw with its end date (or a SOLD OUT badge if it filled early), tickets sold, and a mode badge:

• AUTO — the competition draws itself automatically about five minutes after it ends. You don't need to do anything; the winner will appear in the Winners Requiring Action tab.
• MANUAL — you must run the draw yourself on the Winner Draws page.

Every row has a Select Winner button that takes you to Winner Draws. It appears on AUTO rows too, but you only need to use it for MANUAL competitions.

If you can't see the banner or the Select Winner buttons, your role doesn't allow running draws — a Shop Manager can view and update winners but not draw them (see the roles table in Users & Customers). If you need to run draws, ask the site owner to change your role to Admin. You can still manage fulfilment without it.

Work through winners requiring action

The Winners Requiring Action tab lists every prize that isn't finished yet — Pending Choice, Pending and Processing, across both main prize winners and instant win claims. To work the backlog:

1. Leave the Sort Order on Oldest First (Process Backlog) so the longest-waiting winners surface first.
   • Switch it to Winner Name (A-Z) when you are packing parcels. One customer's prizes then sit together in the list, so you can see at a glance that they have more than one thing owed and send it all in a single parcel.
   • Competition (A-Z) groups the list by competition instead, which suits working through one draw's prizes in a batch.
2. Narrow the list with the filters:
   • Search — winner name, email or competition title.
   • Winner Type — Main Prize or Instant Win.
   • Status — Pending Choice, Pending or Processing.
3. Work each row using the links built into the table:
   • Competition — for main prizes the competition title comes first (click it for a competition summary), with an Auto/Manual chip showing how the winner was selected and a prize-type badge. For instant wins the prize title comes first with a green Instant chip, and the competition beneath. Beside the badges is what the prize cost you: the cost entered on the instant win, or the competition's main prize cost. Cash and site credit prizes show the amount awarded instead, and a winner who took a cash or credit alternative shows that. A physical prize with no cost entered shows No cost set.
   • Winner — click the name or email to open the customer's profile panel, where you can check and update their contact and delivery details before dispatching a prize.
   • Order — click the order number to open the winning order (see Orders); the win date is shown underneath.
   • Internal notes — a staff-only box the winner never sees (see Add notes to a winner).
   • Update for the winner — an inline box the winner reads on their own account (see Add notes to a winner).
   • Status — the current fulfilment status.
   • Actions — the truck icon opens the fulfilment panel.

The line above the table shows how many prizes are waiting and what they cost you in total, for whatever the filters currently show. Cash and site credit prizes, and alternatives winners took, add nothing to that total, matching your P&L report. Prizes with no cost entered are left out too, and the line tells you how many.

Update a winner's fulfilment

Use this whenever you contact a winner, dispatch a prize, or complete a payout:

1. Find the winner and click the truck icon in the Actions column. The Update Fulfillment panel opens.
2. Choose the new Fulfillment Status — Pending, Processing, Completed or Cancelled.
3. Fill in either or both notes boxes. Internal notes comes first and is staff-only. Update for the winner is the one the winner reads on their own account, so keep it to tracking numbers, courier and delivery details. Both are the same fields shown on the winner's row in the table (see Add notes to a winner).
4. If you chose Completed, a Fulfilled At date and time field appears — set it to when the prize was actually handed over (useful when you're logging it after the event). The date is only stored for main prize winners: on an instant win claim the field shows but the date isn't saved, so record the handover date in Update for the winner instead.
5. Click Update.

Completed and Cancelled winners move to the Completed Winners tab; everything else stays in Winners Requiring Action.

If the winner is currently in Pending Choice, the panel shows a reminder: they haven't picked between their prize and its alternatives yet, and changing the status here will not credit any cash to their wallet. To pay cash, adjust their balance from their customer profile instead — see Wallets & Withdrawals.

Mark several winners as processing or completed at once

When you've started on a batch of prizes, or finished one (for example, a stack of site-credit instant wins):

1. On the Winners Requiring Action tab, tick the checkbox on each row.
2. Click Mark N as Processing or Mark N as Completed above the table.
3. Confirm the prompt.

The selected winners move to that status and the list refreshes. Mark as Processing leaves out winners who are already Processing and winners in Pending Choice, because they haven't picked their prize yet. Its count shows how many will actually change, and the prompt tells you how many are left out. If every ticked row is left out, the button is greyed out.

Both actions check each winner again just before changing it. If a colleague has moved one since you ticked it (for example, they completed or cancelled it), it's skipped and the message afterwards tells you how many.

The batch actions only set the status. They don't write to either notes box or set a fulfilled date, so use the individual panel when you need a tracking record.

Export winners to a spreadsheet

Use this when you need the prizes in a spreadsheet, for example to order or pack a batch of physical prizes. It works on both tabs.

1. Set the filters and Sort Order to show the prizes you want. Sorting by Winner Name (A-Z) keeps one customer's prizes together in the file.
2. To export only some rows, tick them. Ticks carry across pages, and the header checkbox ticks or unticks just the page you're on. Changing a filter, the sort or the search clears your ticks, and Clear selection beside the count does the same.
3. Click the export button above the table:
   • With nothing ticked, it reads Export all matching filters (on Completed Winners, Export all N matching filters). It downloads every prize the filters show, on every page, grouped the same way as the table.
   • With rows ticked, it reads Export N selected and downloads only those rows.

The line beside the button always tells you which rows the file will contain. Once the file downloads, a message says how many prizes it holds.

On Winners Requiring Action, winners in Pending Choice are never exported, because they haven't decided between the prize and its alternative yet. If you tick some, they are left out and the line tells you how many. If the Status filter is set to Pending Choice and nothing is ticked, the button is disabled. A ticked row whose status has changed since you ticked it (for example, a colleague completed it) is also left out, and the message after the download says so.

Each row in the file is one prize, with these columns:

• Prize: the instant win prize, or the competition name for a main prize.
• Prize value (£): for a physical prize, the cost you entered (blank if you haven't entered one). For cash and site credit prizes, the amount awarded. For ticket prizes, the face value of the tickets. If the winner took a cash or credit alternative, it's the alternative instead.
• Order number: the order the winning ticket came from.
• Winner name, Email and Phone.
• Address line 1, Address line 2, City, County, Postcode and Country.

The winner's details come from their profile as it is now, not as it was when they won.

If a winner has no name, phone, address line 1, city, postcode or country on their profile, that cell reads missing. Fix it from their profile panel before you dispatch.

Exporting doesn't change anything: statuses stay as they are, so mark rows as Processing or Completed yourself once you've acted on them. The file contains customers' addresses and phone numbers, so only Admins and Shop Managers can export, and every export is logged. Keep the file within your team.

A single export can hold up to 10,000 prizes. If more than that match on Completed Winners, the button is disabled and the line beside it asks you to narrow the list with Date From and Date To.

Handle prize choices (cash and credit alternatives)

When you configure a prize with alternatives on the competition (see Competitions), the winner gets to choose. While they decide, the winner sits in Pending Choice on your side.

What the winner sees: a Pending Decisions section on the My Prizes page of their account, showing the prize with buttons for each option — Claim Prize (or Take £X Cash for a cash prize), Take £X Cash for a cash alternative, and Take £X Credit for a credit alternative (with the bonus percentage shown when the credit offer is higher). They confirm their choice before it's applied.

What happens next:

• They keep the prize — the status moves to Pending and it's over to you to arrange delivery or payout.
• They take the cash alternative — the amount is added to their cash wallet immediately.
• They take the credit alternative — the amount is added to their site credit immediately.

On the Completed Winners tab, winners who took an alternative carry a chip on the row — Cash alt £X or Credit alt £X — with the choice date in the tooltip. Use the Alternative filter (Took original prize, Took any alternative, Took cash alt, Took credit alt) to report on how often alternatives are taken.

If you've enabled the ID verification prize-claim gate in Settings, winners must verify their identity before they can make a choice — see ID Verification.

What a winner sees in their own account

Below Pending Decisions, the My Prizes page lists a customer's wins under Recent Wins, newest first, 20 to a page with Previous and Next beneath. Every win they've ever had is reachable, so a long-standing customer can page back through their history.

When someone has won more than one kind of prize, category buttons appear above the list — Prizes, Cash, Credit and Tickets, each with a count, plus All. The counts cover their whole history, not just the page on screen, and clicking one filters the list. A customer whose wins are all the same kind doesn't see the buttons at all.

Each row carries a chip naming its category. A prize is filed under what was won, not what was taken: someone who won a physical prize and took the cash alternative still finds it under Prizes, with its Took £X chip alongside. Worth knowing when a customer says a win is "in the wrong place" — point them at the original prize and the chip.

Expanding a win shows its description and whatever you last wrote in Update for the winner — this is the page that field is published to. Internal notes never appears here.

Add notes to a winner

Every row has two inline notes boxes in the table — no panel needed. They look the same and sit side by side, so check which one you are typing into. Each box says underneath it who can read it.

Internal notes (the first box) is staff-only. The winner never sees it. Use it for verification chases, ID checks, redraw reasons, "couldn't reach them", anything you'd say to a colleague rather than to the customer.

Update for the winner (the second box) is published to the winner. They read it on the My Prizes page of their account, under their win. Use it for tracking numbers, courier references and delivery arrangements, and write it as though you were messaging them, because you are.

To add either:

1. Click into the box on the winner's row and type.
2. Click away — the note saves automatically and a green Saved tick appears.
3. Your name and how long ago you wrote it are shown beneath the box, so colleagues can see who wrote what. The two boxes track this separately.

If you have been keeping internal remarks in the old single Notes box, they are still there and still visible to the winner — they were not moved for you. Older notes are worth a read-through: anything that was meant for colleagues should be cut and pasted into Internal notes.

Edit a winner's contact or delivery details

Before dispatching a physical prize, confirm the address:

1. Click the winner's name or email in the table. Their customer profile panel slides open.
2. Review and edit their contact details and address as needed.
3. Save, then return to the winner row to carry on with fulfilment.

See Users & Customers for everything else you can do from the profile panel, including balance adjustments.

Review completed and cancelled winners

The Completed Winners tab is your archive and reporting view. It has a fuller filter set:

• Search, Winner Type and Sort Order (defaults to newest first, with the same winner name and competition options) as on the other tab.
• Competition — limit to one competition.
• Prize Type — Physical, Site Credit, Cash or Comp Tickets.
• Alternative — whether the winner took the original prize or a cash/credit alternative.
• Status — Completed or Cancelled.
• Date From / Date To — filter by win date.

Click the eye icon on any row to reopen the fulfilment panel. If a winner was completed by mistake, set the status back to Pending or Processing and it returns to the Winners Requiring Action tab.

Cancel a winner

To record that a win won't be fulfilled (for example, a disqualified entry after a redraw):

1. Open the winner's fulfilment panel (truck icon).
2. Set the status to Cancelled and add a note explaining why.
3. Click Update.

Cancelling a main prize winner frees their winner slot, so the competition returns to the Winner Draws queue with a Redraw badge. On automatic competitions the replacement winner is drawn within a minute or so; on manual competitions it waits in the queue for you to draw. The cancelled winner's ticket can't win again, and setting them back from Cancelled restores their win, as long as the replacement hasn't been drawn yet (once it has, you'd need to cancel the replacement instead).

Cancelling doesn't reverse any cash or credit the winner has already taken. To claw back a balance, adjust it from the customer's profile (Wallets & Withdrawals). Cancelling an instant win is record-keeping only; it doesn't return the prize to the pool.

Control how winner names appear publicly

Winner names shown on your public site (the winners page and the winners gallery) follow the Public name display setting: full name, first name and initial, or first name only. It applies to past winners as well as new ones, and you always see full names in the admin area. Two places never show more than a first name and initial whichever format you pick — the scrolling winners ticker, so more wins fit across the banner, and the claimed-prize lists on competition pages. Picking a shorter format still tightens both further. See Choose how customer names appear publicly.

There is no per-winner "hide from the public" switch. A winner drops off the public pages only when their customer data is erased from their profile, which also blanks the stored name on the win. To keep a single photo off the gallery, untick Publish to gallery on that item instead — see Winner Gallery.

Troubleshooting

A winner says they never received their notification email

There's no resend button on the winner record. Check the email logs to see whether the notification was sent, bounced or suppressed — see Logs. If the address is dead, click the winner's name to open their profile, confirm a working phone number or correct the email, and contact them directly. Log the outcome in the winner's Internal notes — that box is staff-only, so a note about a dead address or a failed contact attempt stays between you and your colleagues.

A winner is stuck in Pending Choice

They simply haven't chosen yet — the status clears itself the moment they pick an option on the My Prizes page of their account. You can't set or skip Pending Choice from the fulfilment panel. Chase the winner and point them at their account. If you agree an outcome with them directly (for example, cash over the phone), remember the fulfilment panel never moves money: credit the amount from their customer profile (Wallets & Withdrawals), then set the winner's status and add a note recording the agreement.

A winner says they can't make their prize choice

If the ID verification prize-claim gate is switched on in Settings, the choice buttons are disabled until the winner verifies their identity. Check their verification status — see ID Verification — and help them complete it.

A competition has ended but no winner has appeared

The draw hasn't run yet. Check the Upcoming Draws list: MANUAL competitions wait for you to run the draw on Winner Draws; AUTO competitions draw themselves around five minutes after ending, so a just-ended competition may still be inside that window.

I can't see the Select Winner button or the Draws page

Running draws is limited by role — a Shop Manager can view and update winners but not draw them. Ask the site owner to change your role to Admin in Users & Customers if you need to run draws. Fulfilment, notes and the winner tables don't require it.

I can't find a winner I know exists

Check both tabs — Completed and Cancelled winners live on Completed Winners, everything else on Winners Requiring Action. Clear the filters (Winner Type, Status, Prize Type, date range) and search by the winner's email, which is more precise than their name.

Opening a prize’s product listing

If a physical prize has a Product link, View product appears beside the prize in both winners tabs and in its fulfilment panel. It opens the retailer listing in a new tab to help you purchase the prize. Opening it does not change fulfilment status or the winner’s alternative choice.

Set or correct the link in the competition’s main prize settings or the instant win’s edit panel. Winners always show the current link, so unavailable listings can be replaced after a win. These links are only visible to staff.