Teams and Challenges
Walker Tracker uses Teams and Challenges as two methods of organizing members. They have different purposes, however, and function differently in the system.
Teams
Teams are groups of users. They organize users for the purposes of challenges and step tracking. Teams can hold any number of users but admins can also set a maximum number.
Depending on your program, teams will either be assigned randomly or you will need to join or create one.
A team will have a step count which is the average of each member in the team. This allows teams of different sizes to compete on a relatively equal playing field.
The main use of teams is to organize users for Team Challenges.
Challenges
Challenges, like Teams, have a list of participants. They also, however, have a date range and a type of goal which determines when and how members’ stats will be tracked and compared.
The most important factors for a challenge are whether it is a step or wellness challenge, whether it is an individual or team challenge, and its date range.
Step Challenges compare step counts, primarily against a pacer but also against other members. These can be Steps Only challenges, which only count synced or manually entered steps, Steps and Activities challenges, which count both steps as well as entries made using the activity converter, or Activities Only challenges which only allow converter entries. For all three types, the primary metric for members or teams in the challenge is a step count.
Wellness Challenges compare Points accrued by members. Points can be gained through a specific set of factors, chosen from a list by the program administrator. These are commonly gained through entering wellness metrics, making daily step entries, and answering challenge questions. Generally, these challenges are different in that they track the consistency of activity over time rather than high step or activity counts.
Challenges can also be Individual or Team Challenges. Members join Individual Challenges directly and compare their step or point totals directly against other members. In Team Challenges, members do not join personally. Rather, they join a Team and that Team is then added, with all its members, to the challenge. The averages of different teams are then compared.
The Date Range of a challenge determines which dates are considered as part of the challenge. Steps entered before or after these dates will not be counted. If a step count in a challenge looks different than that member’s main profile page, this is often the reason why. Members or Teams can join before or after a challenge’s start date and will still pull steps from those dates in the date range and only those dates. After the end of a challenge, there is a 48 hour grace period in which you can fix and finalize any step entries before the final tally is made.
Comments and Questions
If a part of this article is unclear, please reach out to support@walkertracker.com with an explanation of your issue. For best results, please share your program URL and Username.