Gamification — Points, Badges, Levels and Leaderboards

Who this guide is for: Admins and Owners deciding whether learners earn points and badges, what each activity is worth, which levels they climb through and which badges they can collect.

Overview

Gamification rewards learning activity. When it is on:

• Learners earn points for signing in, completing courses, earning certificates, passing quizzes and posting in course discussions.
• Points place each learner on a level (out of the box: Beginner → Advanced → Expert → Master).
• Badges are awarded automatically the moment a learner meets a badge’s rule — for example “complete 5 courses” or “reach 500 points”.
• A leaderboard ranks learners by points. Managers and group admins see a leaderboard of the people they manage.

Gamification is off by default. Nothing changes for your learners until you switch it on — organizations that prefer a strictly compliance-focused experience simply leave it off. Switching it off later hides everything again; points and badges already earned are kept, and reappear if you switch it back on.

Gamification is included on every plan, Free included.

Prerequisites

• Admin or Owner role (the gamification:view permission to see the page, gamification:manage to change it). Both can be granted to a custom role.

Step-by-step: switch gamification on

1. Go to Settings → Gamification.
2. Under On or off, turn on Turn on gamification. A confirmation appears.
3. The out-of-box badge library is installed the first time you switch it on.
4. Learners now see a Leaderboard link in their top menu, a Badges tab under Achievements, and their points and level on their home page and profile.

Points count from the moment you switch it on — past logins, completions and posts do not earn points retroactively. Badges are different: a badge whose rule counts the learner’s record, such as Complete 5 courses, counts what was done before too, and is awarded as soon as you switch gamification on — quietly, with no email or notification for those catch-up badges. A learner who opens Achievements also receives any badge they have already reached.

Step-by-step: set the points per activity

1. Under Points per activity, enter a value for each activity (0–1,000). Enter 0 to give no points for that activity.
2. Set Discussion posts that earn points, per learner per day (default 10) — posts past the cap still publish, they just earn nothing.
3. Click Save points.

Every activity is counted once. If the same completion or post is processed twice (a retry, a network hiccup), the second time awards nothing.

Step-by-step: set the levels

1. Under Levels, each row is one level: an English name, a French name and the points at which it starts.
2. The first level always starts at 0 — everyone has a level.
3. Click Add level to add one (up to 10), or the bin icon to remove one.
4. Click Save levels.

Each level must start at more points than the one before it, and every level needs a name in at least one language. A learner’s level updates as soon as their points cross the threshold; lowering a threshold never takes points away.

Step-by-step: manage badges

The Badge library lists every badge, whether it is Built-in or Custom, its rule, and how many learners have earned it.

Create a custom badge

1. Click New badge.
2. Enter a name (English and/or French) and, optionally, a description.
3. Choose Awarded for and the Amount needed (see the rule table below).
4. Optionally upload an Image — PNG, JPG or WebP, square, up to 1 MB. Without one, the badge uses the default artwork.
5. Click Save badge.

Edit a badge — click Edit. Built-in badges can be renamed, re-imaged and given a new amount, but keep their rule type.

Turn a badge off — click Turn off. No new learner can earn it; learners who already hold it keep it.

Delete a custom badge — click Delete and confirm. It disappears from every learner who earned it. Built-in badges cannot be deleted; turn them off instead.

Learners get an in-app (and, if they installed the app, push) notification when they earn a badge.

Custom images and malware scanning. An uploaded image is stored encrypted and served through the content network. Where your organization’s malware scanner is active, the badge shows the default artwork — marked Image being scanned in the library — until the scan passes.

Leaderboards and privacy

• Learners see the leaderboard for Everyone or My groups (the people who share one of their groups). It shows first names and last initials only.
• Managers and group admins see a Team leaderboard at Analytics → Team roster, limited to the people they manage (a group admin’s groups, a manager’s full reporting chain).
• Any learner can hide themselves from every leaderboard with Show me on leaderboards on the Leaderboard page. They keep their points, badges and level; their manager’s Team roster still shows their points.
• You can hide the leaderboard from everyone with Show the leaderboard to learners on this page (on by default). Off, the Leaderboard page and its menu item disappear for learners, and a saved link shows a short explanation instead. Learners keep earning points, levels and badges, and managers still see their team’s standing. Use it when your learners should not be ranked against each other — for example when they come from different organizations.

Reports

While gamification is on:

• Analytics → Team roster adds Points, Level and Badges columns, included in its CSV export.
• The custom report builder offers Points, Level and Badges in the Learner field group, for on-screen reports, CSV/XLSX exports and scheduled reports.

Configuration reference

Every change on this page, every point award, level reached and badge earned is written to the audit log.

Troubleshooting