🔗 Looking for best practices? Check out our guide to setting up points.
📣 Ready to launch? Use this playbook to roll out Shoutouts to your team.
🛠 Want to add admins? Read our permissions guide.
🎥 Watch: How to Set Up Donut Shoutouts
Prefer a quick walkthrough? This short video covers:
How to configure your emoji, points, and channels
How to create and manage rewards
What happens when you launch
What it looks like in Slack
🛠 Step-by-Step: How to Set Up Donut Shoutouts
Step 1: Set Your Shoutouts Program Basics
Go to the Donut dashboard → Shoutouts and configure the Basics:
Emoji picker: Choose an emoji (like 🍩 or 👏) that teammates will use to give points. You can select any emoji from your Slack workspace, including custom emojis.
Slack channel: Pick where Shoutouts happen—this is where teammates will tag each other and recognize wins.
Launch: Click the purple "Try It" button to launch your program.
Want more customization? Click the purple "More Settings" link next to the "Try It" button to:
Use a custom Slack emoji:
Click Use a custom emoji from your Slack workspace.
You’ll be prompted to authorize Donut to access your workspace’s custom emoji.
Once authorized, you’ll be able to select any custom emoji or alias you’ve created in Slack.
2. Points name: Customize what your points are called (e.g. Kudos, Tokens, High-Fives).
3. Reactions: Allow teammates to give points by adding the selected emoji as a reaction when someone is tagged in a message.
4. Weekly or Monthly Points: You can set how many points each teammate can give on either a weekly or monthly cycle.
Weekly: Points reset automatically each weekend.
Monthly: Points reset on the 1st of each month.
💡 Each emoji used in a Shoutout = 1 point.
Step 2: Build Your Rewards Store (Optional)
Create rewards that reflect your culture—monetary or not. On the Rewards tab, you can:
Add custom rewards (like PTO, coffee gift cards, or team swag), or
Browse Donut’s Prebuilt Rewards Library to use templates (including gift cards).
Set a name, description, image, point value, and visibility for each reward.
💡 Rewards are hidden by default—toggle them “on” when you're ready to launch.
✨ New: Gift Cards with Automatic Fulfillment
Want to offer gift cards as part of your rewards store? Donut supports automatically fulfilled digital gift cards from 100+ global brands—like Amazon, Starbucks, Visa, and more.
Here’s how to add them:
In the Rewards tab, scroll to the Prebuilt Rewards Library and select the “Gift Card (Automatically Fulfilled)” template.
Customize the reward title, image, description, and point value.
Billing note:
If you already have a payment method on file for Donut, gift card redemptions will be billed there automatically.
If not, you’ll be prompted to add a credit card before enabling gift cards.
Gift cards are redeemed at a rate of $0.10 per point, and users can redeem amounts between $5 and $100.
You’ll be charged monthly for the total amount redeemed, plus an 8% service fee.
Toggle the reward “Visible in Store” and click Save.
What teammates experience when redeeming:
The employee picks the gift card amount based on their point balance.
They get a Slack confirmation with a button to claim their gift card.
Donut opens a secure page where they can choose a provider based on their location (e.g. Amazon, Starbucks, Visa, or donation options).
Once selected, they’re redirected to view and use their gift card code.
What admins see:
Gift card redemptions post to your Fulfillment Notification Channel.
These rewards are automatically marked as fulfilled—no manual work needed.
🧾 Pro tip: You can still offer custom rewards alongside gift cards—Donut tracks it all in one place
🚫 Don’t need rewards? No problem.
You can launch a Shoutouts program without a rewards store. On the Rewards tab, just toggle off Enable rewards program. Recognition and point-giving will still work as usual—no rewards required.
Step 3: Create a Fulfillment Channel
If you're using the rewards store, the next step is to set up a private Slack channel where Donut will post when someone redeems a reward.
Note: You can also view and manage reward redemptions from the Fulfillment tab in the Donut dashboard. It includes a log of who redeemed what and when, plus an option to mark rewards as fulfilled.
➡️ Read more about the Fulfillment tab.
Messages will include:
Who redeemed a reward
Reward details
A one-click “Mark Fulfilled” button
Example fulfillment message:
Once marked fulfilled, Donut will update the message to reflect completion.
Step 4: Assign Admins
By default, Donut Account Admins have Shoutouts admin access. You can also add more Shoutouts-specific admins in the Permissions tab.
Admins can:
Create and manage rewards
Fulfill rewards or mark them complete
Deactivate Shoutouts
How to Launch the Program
At the top of each page in the Shoutouts settings you will see a list of the progress you've made while setting up your program.
Once you click Announce Shoutouts, you'll have the option to send a sample Slack announcement you can post to your Shoutouts channel.
What Happens After Launch
Once your program is live:
Teammates give Shoutouts by tagging a colleague in the designated Slack channel and including the chosen emoji.
Donut tracks points and sends confirmation messages in Slack.
Each Friday at 10 AM (based on the Shoutouts admins' median time zone), Donut posts a reminder in your Shoutouts channel encouraging teammates to use any remaining points before they reset.
Recipients can view and redeem rewards right from Slack.
Admins manage setup, track fulfillment, and visibility from Slack and the Donut dashboard—including a Leaderboard to see who’s giving and receiving the most recognition (more on that in a separate article).
Want to make your rollout successful?
📣 Follow our launch playbook to get buy-in and momentum from day one.
Looking for more? Check out the related articles below or see what’s new in Donut in our release notes.