Timing Challenges for Automatic Publishing and Closing

Keeping your Influitive up to date with new challenges on a regular basis is a demanding task. Timing challenges for automatic release and closure is a great way for you to prepare many challenges in advance and ensure that your advocates always have new content to check out. When challenges approach their end-date, a countdown appears on the challenge, to warn advocates that they only have a limited amount of time left to complete the challenge. 

Here's an example, to show you how this is done. 

First, begin by creating a challenge. This feature is commonly used for events that recur each month, like Twitter challenges or blog post promotions. Check out the example below: 

Once you've saved your challenge, you will be directed to the challenge overview. You can also access this page by selecting Challenges in the toolbar, and then clicking on your challenge. In that screen, click on the pencil icon beside the Preview and Clone boxes, and from that drop-down menu, select Publish. You can also access this feature by selecting the orange Not Published tag. 

Selecting Publish or Not Published will direct you to this screen, where you can access the fields used for assigning a start and end time for your challenge. Choose the desired Show After and Hide After dates (if applicable) and hit the Schedule button. 

You can also access this page by selecting Publishing options on the bottom right hand side of the challenge overview, or by selecting the pencil icon beside the challenge name in the Challenges overview page.

When you're happy with the time you've input, you can save these settings by selecting either Publish (if you've entered no date) or Schedule (if you've entered dates). 

Scheduled challenges will be distinguishable by the Scheduled flag below the challenge name (see below). Once the Hide After date (if applicable) has been reached, the flag will switch to Expired. To see a list of all scheduled challenges, filter by Scheduled on the right sidebar.

For information on targeting your challenges, see this article.