A badge is a mark on a member's profile, and if you like, next to their name in every post. Some you give by hand, most you let rules give out for you.
Badges live in the Interactions tab of your community settings.
Creating a badge
Add badge inside a group opens Create Badge. A badge needs a Name and a look. Under Style you choose Icon, which takes an icon and a Color, or Image, which takes your own picture and no colour.
How to earn this badge is optional, and worth filling in. Members read it on the badge wall and in the badge list of a profile, and a badge without an explanation looks like an accident.
Take the look seriously. Members display these, so a badge that looks like an afterthought gets treated as one.
Badge groups
Every badge sits in a group. Create badge group opens Create Badge Group, and the menu on each group offers Edit, Move up, Move down and Delete. Badges themselves are sorted by dragging, also from one group into another.
Each group decides under Show what a profile displays from it.
- Highest badge: a member shows only one badge from this group, the one placed highest in the group's order.
- All badges: a member shows every badge they earned from this group.
The group header repeats the choice as Show highest badge or Show all badges.
Highest badge is made for ladders. Put the rarest step at the top: a member with 10, 50 and 100 posts then shows the 100 badge alone instead of three versions of the same thing. All badges suits groups of unrelated achievements, such as events attended.
What the badge list tells you
Each badge in the list carries two chips. The first says how it is handed out: the rule in short, Manual when it has no rules, or Rules paused when all its rules are paused. Click it to jump to the rules. The second counts the Members with this badge.
The eye switch turns a badge off. A badge that is off is not handed out by rules and does not appear on profiles or the badge wall. Members keep it, and it comes back when you switch it on again.
Reward rules
A rule watches for something and awards the badge when it happens. Rules live in the Reward Rules tab of Create Badge and Edit Badge, so a badge can get its rules while you create it.
Add rule opens the builder. Pick the trigger under When a member and the number under Reaches.
| Trigger | Awards when a member |
|---|---|
| Posts created | Has this many published posts |
| Comments created | Has written this many comments |
| Likes received | Has received this many reactions on their posts |
| Days as member | Joined this many days ago |
| Activity streak | Reaches a streak of this many days |
| Course completed | Completes a course |
| Lesson completed | Completes any lesson |
Course completed has a Course list with Any course or one specific course. The list only appears once you have courses. Lesson completed always means any lesson; it cannot point at a single one.
Likes received counts reactions on posts only. Reactions on comments do not count towards it.
A badge can have several rules. They work as alternatives: the badge is awarded as soon as any one of them is met. Remove rule deletes one.
Quick start templates
Below the rules sit four Quick start templates: Active Poster (10 posts), Loyal Member (30 days as member), Super Fan (50 likes received) and Graduate (completes any course). One click adds the rule. A template the badge already uses is greyed out.
Add them, then adjust the numbers to your own community.
When rules award
Rules react to the action they count. A post, a comment, a reaction or a completed course or lesson checks the matching rules for that member straight away.
Two triggers are checked by time instead. Days as member is checked once a night. Activity streak is checked when a member reaches one of the streak's milestone days, and again every night.
A new rule does not look back. A member who already has 50 posts gets the badge for 50 posts with their next post, not the moment you save the rule.
Rules can be paused
Each rule shows Active or Paused, and a click switches it. Pausing stops a rule awarding without deleting it, which is what you want while you decide whether a number was too generous.
Badges already awarded stay awarded. Changing, pausing or removing a rule never takes a badge back.
Set numbers against what your community actually does. A badge at 100 posts in a community where the busiest member has 30 will never be awarded, and nobody will know it exists.
Awarding by hand
Rules cannot see everything: who helped somebody, who ran a session, who was there at the start. Those badges you give yourself.
- On a member's community profile, open their badges and choose Manage badges.
- In the member's profile in your audience, under the community access.
- Through a group that includes the badge, for everyone in it at once.
Badges given by hand can be taken away the same way. Badges can also be handed out by an automation or through the API.
What happens when a badge is awarded
The member gets a notification. A badge awarded by a rule, an automation or the API also starts automations that wait for an earned badge and sends the matching webhook.
Pinned badges
In Edit profile, members pin up to three of their badges as Featured badges. That works for every badge a member holds, including one that comes through a group. A badge stays pinned only while the profile can show it: when the member leaves the group or loses the badge, or you turn the badge off, it drops out of the selection and frees its slot. If it comes back, it is pinned again, unless three badges pinned later have taken its place. In a group set to Highest badge, only the badge the profile shows can be pinned.
A set that works
Three steps of the same thing beat twelve unrelated badges. First post, ten posts, fifty posts is a ladder a member can see themselves climbing. One badge at fifty is a wall.
Keep a few rare ones for real achievement, and hand a couple out by hand for things no rule can measure. The hand-given ones tend to be the ones members mention.
The badge wall
With Show Badges tab in the Badge wall tab box switched on, members get a Badges tab in the community. It shows the top badge collectors, how many badges the member has, and every badge that exists, with a progress bar towards badges awarded for posts, comments, likes or days as member. The switch is on by default.
Seeing the unearned ones is most of the motivation. A badge nobody can see is not a reward, it is a database row.