When I work with clients on developing a needs list for functionality in a new AMS, one thing that often comes up is the need to track award winners. Whether it's awards for individuals or organizations, the association (rightfully) wants to track who the winners were, so that the history is captured and can be easily viewed or reported on.

Very often, the AMS in place already has the capacity to track the award winners, but the data isn't there. Why is that? Because there is no process in place to actually record that information in the database. The association might have a process for collecting awards nominations, reviewing them, notifying the winners, and presenting the award. But what they're missing is the last step, which is: "Make a note of the winner in the database!"

Too often what we perceive as a technology or software issue is really a process issue. The data isn't in the database (or may be in there incorrectly) because our process isn't clear or isn't being executed properly. Don't automatically blame the software until you've considered your process.