Most recognition needs no oversight. A small number of transactions do: an award far above your norms, a burst of points from one sender, two people trading awards back and forth.
Review recommendations watch for those patterns and surface them for you. Nothing is blocked and nothing is changed automatically. The recognition posts, the recipient sees it, and you get a case to review with the option to revert or adjust the points.
The design principle is trust by default. Surface exceptions, don't pre-approve appreciation.
Where to find it
Recommended reviews appear at app.hithrive.com/admin/recognition.
The table has two views: All Shoutouts and Flagged. Flagged rows are highlighted in the full list too, so you can spot them in context rather than only in isolation.
You also receive a notification automatically when a shoutout meets the criteria, so you don't need to watch the dashboard.
What gets recommended for review
Seven rules. Thresholds are configurable for your organization; the values below are recommended starting points. Points convert at 100 points to $1.
Rule | What triggers it | Suggested starting point |
|---|---|---|
High-value single award | One shoutout at or above your threshold. Multi-recipient awards are evaluated on combined value | 100,000 points |
Extreme single award | One shoutout large enough to create meaningful financial exposure | 500,000 points |
Sender spend velocity | One sender distributes an unusually large amount over a rolling window | 250,000 points in 24 hours |
Rapid monetary burst | Several point awards in a short period that together represent real value | 3 or more awards in 60 minutes totaling 100,000 points |
Repeated awards to same recipient | The same sender repeatedly awards the same person | 3 or more awards in 7 days totaling 50,000 points |
Reciprocal exchange | Two people repeatedly send meaningful awards to each other | 3 or more awards in both directions over 14 days totaling 50,000 points combined |
Content does not match point tier | The shoutout message does not appear to support the point tier selected | On by default where point tiers are in use |
When more than one rule fires on the same transaction, the case is prioritized higher and every reason is listed. There is no hidden risk score attached to employees.
About the content and tier check
Six of the seven rules look only at amounts and timing. This one is different: it compares the shoutout message against the tier that was selected and surfaces cases where the two seem mismatched.
This exists because point tiers only work if the tier chosen reflects what actually happened. A two-word message attached to your top tier is the pattern this catches, not because the recognition was insincere but because the sender may not have understood what each tier is for.
Treat these as coaching moments more than misuse. Often the right response is to leave the points alone and tighten the tier descriptions so the next person picks better.
💡 If you are not using point tiers, this rule does not apply to you. See https://help.hithrive.com/help/setting-up-point-tiers-for-shoutouts.What is deliberately not surfaced
These are normal and will not generate a case on their own:
Recognizing people frequently, or sending a lot of shoutouts
Cross-team recognition
Repeated recognition with no points attached
Two coworkers simply recognizing each other
Overall company budget pace
Which company value was tagged
Manager versus individual contributor behavior
Apart from the tier check above, the rules are about monetary patterns, not about judging whether recognition was deserved.
What happens when a rule fires
The recognition publishes and the points are issued as normal. A review case is created for you.
💡 The recipient is not told their shoutout was recommended for review. This happens on the admin side.
Reviewing a case
Click any row to open the detail panel. The case opens with a Review recommended banner naming the rule and the threshold it crossed, for example that an award hit the high-value threshold of 10,000 points.
Below that you get what you need to make a call:
The shoutout itself. Full message text, point amount, tagged value, source, and whether it was public or private. The message usually settles it. A detailed writeup about rebuilding a revenue report reads very differently from three words and a large number.
The recipient's current balance. Shows what they hold now, which tells you whether the points are still recoverable or already spent.
Past transactions between the two people. Relevant when the case is about repetition or reciprocity. Two awards in a week between people who work closely together is different from the same pair trading points monthly.
Taking action
Two options on every case:
Revert removes the full point amount from the recipient.
Adjust amount lets you set a different value, for a shoutout that was legitimate but sized wrong.
You can also do nothing. Most recommended reviews turn out to be fine, and closing a case without changes is the expected outcome more often than not.
⚠️ Reverting removes points the recipient may have been counting on. If the shoutout was well-intentioned and just oversized, adjusting is usually the better call, and it is worth telling the sender what happened rather than having the balance change silently.
Tuning your thresholds
The defaults are a starting point, not a policy. Two things to watch in your first few weeks:
Too many recommendations means your thresholds sit below your normal award sizes. If your top point tier routinely trips the high-value rule, that rule is measuring your program rather than catching exceptions. Raise it above your largest routine award.
None at all is fine if your award sizes are modest. Confirm the thresholds make sense against what your team actually sends rather than assuming the feature is broken.
Thresholds should sit above your normal range, not inside it.