Challenges for Advanced Managers

Challenges: Driving Engagement Through Competition

By completing this commuter challenge training program for RideAmigos Advanced Managers, you will be able to perform all major functions related to creating and managing challenge programs using RideAmigos.

  • Understand why challenges are effective and how they work best
  • Learn how to determine what type of challenge would appeal most to your users
  • Create a new challenge
  • View and edit existing challenges
  • Plan for and fulfill prizes and rewards for challenge participants

Estimated Time for Completion: 45 minutes

We recommend completing the User Management, Network Management, and Incentives modules prior to beginning this module. 

(Each lesson will open in a new window so you can easily return to this module.)

Lesson 1: Challenges – What? Why? How? (~ 5 minutes)

What are Challenges? Why use them? How can you get the most out of your challenge?

Assignments:

  • Consider what you already know about your users and their contexts. What types of challenges might be most engaging for your user base?
  • What types of challenges would work best in your setting: Users vs. users? Teams? Networks vs. networks?
  • Is there additional information you could learn through a survey that would help you design effective challenges?

Lesson 2: How to Create Challenges and Check Their Progress (~ 20 minutes)

Creating challenge programs is easy enough; getting your users and networks involved is the real challenge. This lesson will teach you how to tweak each setting to create the optimal competition for your users.

Assignment: 

  • Create a challenge called [YourName] Challenge Test for your test network with user, team, and network leaderboards, Be sure to give it the tag “Test”.
  • Choose start and end dates that encompass a one- to two-month period around the current date.
  • You can choose whichever other challenge metrics and eligibility options you would like to experiment with. Include the web platform as an eligible trip source so you can easily add example trips.
  • After creating the challenge, visit the Programs > Challenges area to see how your challenge will appear to users. Note that if you set up an opt-in challenge you will find it in the Available tab.
  • Use your user account to log several trips that will count toward the challenge. Proxy in as your other test users (from earlier modules) and log trips as them, too, so you can start to populate your leaderboards.
  • If you like, you can also experiment with creating a team then joining your team while proxied as other test users.
  • After logging example trips, visit your challenge’s leaderboard to see who is winning! (Remember, leaderboards update approximately every 15 minutes so you may have to wait after logging for results to appear.)

Lesson 3: Rewarding Challenge Participants (~ 20 minutes)

The spirit of competition and earning bragging rights is a great start for motivating users to participate in your challenge. But to really drive engagement, offering prizes and rewards are key.

Assignment: 

  • Look at and familiarize yourself with the reporting options for your test challenge.
  • Create an incentive program designed to compliment your challenge named [YourName] Challenge Incentive.
    • For example, you could create an incentive that requires logging at least four trips during the first week of your challenge, and as the reward the user is given a URL link to a downloadable coupon.
  • Make sure your challenge-related incentive is set to auto-join and assigned to the same test network as your test challenge.
  • Update the description of your challenge to reference your new reward program so users know to check their rewards area to check their progress and claim their prize.

Module Review

After completing all of the assignments for this module you should have created the following in your platform:

  • [YourName] Challenge Test
  • [YourName] Challenge Incentive
  • A team for your challenge
  • Trip logs from your user account and test user accounts

Double-check that you have successfully created all of the above objects and associations, they may be referenced in future modules.