SIA Project Voting runs the community vote held during each Social Impact Award competition cycle. Registered users cast votes for their favourite projects within a defined window, and the plugin handles everything from opening and closing the vote to producing results and forwarding them to external reporting systems.
Voting is intentionally constrained: each user is limited to a set number of votes, the window is time-bounded, and the system includes safeguards against abuse. Test mode allows the team to verify the setup before going live without affecting real results.
Votes are stored in a dedicated database table and tied to the logged-in user. The plugin enforces a configurable maximum number of votes per person and rejects votes outside the active voting window. An IP blocklist is available to exclude known bad actors.
A settings panel lets the team define the voting window, set the per-person vote limit, and control the readiness deadline. The admin area also provides a real-time view of vote counts and can export results.
When the voting window closes, results are compiled and sent to the competition’s Airtable base. Daily summaries of vote activity are also forwarded automatically during the voting period. Archived results remain accessible after each cycle.
Command-line tools allow the team to run batch operations: pushing all results to Airtable, reviewing vote totals, and managing the vote database outside the admin UI.