Community challenges are an excellent strategy for fostering commitment and engagement among members in fitness, business, motivation, or any other genre-focused community. These challenges serve as a powerful tool to motivate individuals and empower their progress. We now make it EASY for you to launch a new challenge for your community.
Participants in community challenges can complete challenges at their own pace from the start to the end date.
Community Challenges requires mobile version 3.14 or later to be available for stores with mobile apps.
Challenges Overview
Where Challenges are Managed
Challenges are managed inside of your account admin backend. You can now access them by clicking on community and the new challenges submenu:
You will then be able to create a brand-new challenge or manage an existing one.
Creating a New Challenge
Under Community > Challenges, click on Create Challenge.
When creating your challenge, there are 3 main steps to complete. You're able to see a preview of your challenge on the right-hand side. You're also able to set the visibility for your challenge.
Step 1: General
Select the channel where your challenge will be published. This allows you to control who gets access if you have restricted channels.
Add a title to your challenge.
Give it a description.
Set the challenge dates.
Add a cover photo. The recommended image size is 1480x840px.
Step 2: Select Videos
Next, you'll need to select the video collection for this challenge.
The collection you want to use must be published and available for use in order for it to be selected in the challenge settings.
Step 3: Email
Last, you'll come up with an email that gets sent to those who successfully complete the challenge. This will automatically fire for you once a challenge participant finishes the challenge.
Ensure that your email conveys a strong message of appreciation and congratulates the challenge winner in a way that uplifts their spirits.
Publish The Challenge
Select the status of the challenge.
Here are your options:
Leave it unpublished to continue working on it at a later date.
Select published to publish now.
Select Scheduled to publish at a later date and time.
Don't forget to click Save!
Note: Once a challenge has been published you'll only be able to edit the Title, Description, Cover Photo, and the Email subject and copy. You will not be able to change the dates or video collection selection.
You can completely edit a challenge prior to publishing.
Understanding Challenge End Dates
Community challenges in Uscreen close at midnight (00:00) on the specified end date according to your store's designated timezone
How Challenge End Dates Work
When you schedule a community challenge to end on a specific date (for example, November 16), the challenge will expire at exactly midnight (00:00) at the beginning of that day. This means:
If your challenge is set to run from November 10-16, it will actually end at 00:00 on November 16
Any users trying to complete the challenge by the end of the 16th will find that it's no longer available
The challenge follows the timezone you have designated for your store
What Happens When a Challenge Ends
When a challenge reaches its end date:
The original challenge post remains in the community as part of the channel's history
Community members can no longer join the challenge
Progress trackers are removed from participants' dashboards
Users who completed the challenge will have received the customized "winner email" you set up
Important Considerations for Challenge End Dates
Cannot be modified after publishing: Once a challenge has been published, you cannot change the end date
No extension option: There is currently no way to extend the end date of a published community challenge
Workaround for extensions: If you need to extend a challenge, the recommended approach is to create a new challenge for the remaining days
Timezone matters: The challenge will adhere to the timezone you have designated for the store
Planning Your Challenge End Date
When setting up your challenge:
Consider adding an extra "cushion day" at the end if you want participants to have the full day to complete the challenge
For example, if you want the challenge to be available through August 31st, set the end date to September 1st
Remember that challenges work best when all content is published before the challenge starts
Managing an Existing Challenge
From the Challenges page, you'll see a list of your existing challenges.
Click on the challenge you want to make changes to either by clicking on the challenge name or by clicking on the 3 dot menu to the right of the challenge.
Note: Once a challenge has been published you'll only be able to edit the Title, Description, Cover Photo, and the Email subject and copy. You will not be able to change the dates or video collection selection.
You can completely edit a challenge prior to publishing.
Delete a Challenge
You can delete a challenge from the Challenge Lists page. Click on the 3 dot menu next to the challenge and select delete.
Or you can select multiple challenges and delete them in bulk.
How the challenge will appear for your community
Advertised as a post
Once you have published your new challenge, it will be posted in the selected channel from Step 1.
The post will adhere to your store's color scheme and will include the title, dates, and description. Your community members can choose to join the challenge!
Participants can also leave the challenge as well:
Pinned to the top of the community
Your ongoing and upcoming challenges are pinned to the top of your community for easy access. This will be under the user profile on the right-hand side.
Clicking on it will allow them to quickly see their progress and the content they have yet to consume. If the challenge has not started, they will be reminded of the start date for the challenge:
Once the challenge has started they can see the content and their progress:
On the Catalog Page
Challenges will also appear on the catalog page! This is a great reminder to your participants about the commitment they have made. It will appear as a side widget under the notifications widget.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I add the same video more than once to a challenge?
We highly recommend not adding the same video more than once to a challenge. Currently, challenges do not support the same video being present to a challenge more than one time. This may result in the challenge marking the video as completed in all instances where it appears in the challenge after viewing it the first time.
Can I add videos to the challenge or schedule them to be published during the challenge?
Challenges work best when all of the video content is already published. Adding videos or scheduling videos to be published after the start of a challenge can cause issues with your challenge. We do not recommend running challenges with scheduled content. All content should be readily available during the entirety of your challenge.
How do I see a list of Challenge participants?
You can export a list of all challenge participants. Simply go to Community > Challenges > Click the 3 dot menu next to the challenge > Click Export CSV.
You will then download a list of all participants of your challenge.
