Admin How-To Guide

Allowing your participants the option to use fitness trackers for automatic data collection ensures maximum participation. You simply create an activity that enables trackers and you are ready from the administration perspective. Your participants, however, will still need to authorize their tracker on their user page.

The steps to include fitness trackers in your challenge are as follows:

On the Administration Page (Admin Completes)

1. Enable the Commercial Edition by clicking the Change Tier option under the Organization menu and then selecting Commercial Edition and click Save.
2. When creating a new activity or editing a prior activity, select Yes for Fitness Devices and then select the devices you want to allow in your challenge. You will also need to select the type of activity (Steps Walked, Miles Travelled, Calories Burned, etc.)
3. The default Field Type when using trackers is integer or decimal which creates a text box for your participants to enter data into. You can also use the Multiple Choice option which will select the choice once the tracker sends data at or above the desired value. E.g. a multiple choice option for 5000 steps is selected once the participant’s tracker sends at or above 5000 steps and a multiple choice option for 10,000 would be selected when the sent data crosses 10,000 steps.

On the Challenge Log Page (Participants Complete)

1. Participants register for the challenge and, once complete, the Challenge Log page displays. If the challenge was set up to accept data from fitness trackers (see above), a Trackers button appears. Click the Trackers button.
2. The User Profile dialog will appear. Click the Authorize link next to the fitness tracking device you would like to use.
3. Depending on the device selected, an Authorization page is displayed. Fill in the Id and password for your device. Click the Allow button if it is presented to allow ChallengeRunner to collect data from your device manufacturer’s website on your behalf. NOTE: If you are already logged into the tracker website such as fitbit.com or garmin.com, you may not be presented with a login page and simply be authorized with no further input.
4. The ChallengeRunner website will display a message stating Authorization Successful. Close the User Profile dialog.

• Once a challenge starts, data is pulled from the tracker manufacturer’s website every 15 minutes for the current day and once an hour for the prior day. Early every morning, data is collected for the past 7 days. This schedule executes until the challenge concludes.
• It is important to note that data is NOT pulled from the user’s tracker. It is pulled from the tracker’s website such as fitbit.com or garmin.com. Therefore, it is very possible that the user has 10,000 steps on their device and showing less or no steps on ChallengeRunner. In this case the user should sync their device and log into the tracker’s website and check their steps. This is the case in almost all discrepancies with ChallengeRunner data.
• An admin can make trackers the only source of data if they select the Admin Only option when creating or editing the activity. However, be aware that it is sometimes possible to manipulate data on the manufacturer’s websites that feed data to ChallengeRunner.
• If the admin does not use the Admin Only option (above) allowing participants to enter their own data (in the case that some participants are using trackers and others pedometers). Participants who did not authorize trackers can enter data without any problems, however, participants using trackers will have any manually entered data overwritten by the incoming tracker data within 15 minutes.
• Do not Authorize more than one device at a time. If you do, the data feeds from each will overwrite one another.
• Google Fit, Apple Health, and Samsung Health can take in data from multiple sources. Therefore, the data received from any of these “trackers” may not be what is expected. Remove any sources you are not using to get more accurate data.
• ChallengeRunner can accept data from the Apple Health and Samsung Health apps; however, they are different from other sources. Instead of ChallengeRunner collecting data every 15 minutes, data is sent whenever the ChallengeRunner iPhone or ChallengeRunner Android app is opened.
• An admin cannot authorize a tracker for a participant. If the admin uses the Switch to User View button, selects a participant and then clicks the Trackers button, they will only see their own profile. Admins cannot see or modify participant profiles.