Virtual/Challenge Results Setup

Modified on 26 March

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What are Virtual/Challenge Results?

Virtual/Challenge Results allow your participants to submit their own results directly on your Race Website during a time period that you define. You have the option to also enable Text Messaging to allow participants to submit their times with a simple text message.


IMPORTANT:

You MUST have an Event set up as "Virtual Race" under the Type. Only events that have a type of “Virtual Race” in the race wizard are eligible.


You can set this in the Basic Info step 1 of your Race Wizard:




This Crash Course in Challenge Setup goes through most of the features that are detailed on this page.  It is specific to setting up a Challenge Event, but many aspects are relevant to all events utilizing the Virtual/Challenge Results feature.

For an updated video guide please click here










Getting Started:


To find the Virtual/Challenge Results settings, go to RaceDay Tools > Virtual/Challenge Results > 

Configure Virtual Results.

 

Next, find the event that you want to set up Virtual/Challenge Results settings for, and click Enable Virtual Results.


Note: If you checked off the box for "Let participants submit their own results" in the Basic Info step of the Race Wizard, then you will not have the Enable Virtual Results button, because they will already have been enabled.  You would click on Virtual Result Settings to edit the settings, instead.


This will bring you to the the Virtual/Challenge Results setup page.



RESULTS SETTINGS:


In the Results Settings section, you will first need to set the dates for Accept Results Starting and Accept Results Until.


This will indicate which dates that results submission will be open for participants.  Between those dates, participants will be able to log into their RunSignup account, go to Profile, find their registration for your race, and click Submit Virtual Results.  Detailed instructions on how the can do this can be found here: Submit and Manage Virtual Results


Next up, you will need to select a Results Set for those results to populate.


Using the dropdown, you can select Create New Result Set in order to make a brand new results set to start dropping participant submitted results into OR you can select an existing results set if necessary.  In most cases, you will likely want to Create New Results Set.


If you select Create New Results Set, then you will be asked to set a name for this results set, in the New Result Set Name field.


Event Grouping 


Now you have the option of selecting "Alternate Events" which will allow Virtual Result submissions from participants of the Event you're setting up to other Virtual Events you have Results for. For instance, you may want to let participants from the "5k - No Shirt Option" Event submit to the "5k" Results, or allow participants from the "Challenge Bundle" Event submit to the "Push Up Challenge" Results, the "Hot Dog Eating Contest" results, and the "Run across the country" Results.


When setting up Virtual Results, you can now select "Alternate Event Submission Only" if you plan on only letting this Virtual Event submit their Results towards other Events. For instance, if you have a "Challenge Bundle" Event, you could use this option if there are no results for the Challenge itself, and are only having registrants of this Event post towards other Virtual Events as described in the feature above.




The next field let's you indicate whether your participants can upload multiple activities, such as runs on different days.  This is useful for Challenge Events, which you can read more about on our blog and/or you can visit our Challenge Platform specific page for more information on.


An "Activity" is each run, ride, walk, etcetera, that your participant does.



Click the toggle to switch between No and Yes on the "Can Participant Submit Multiple Activities?"  Below is an example of what participants will be able to submit if Yes is selected (which you can read more about here).  If you select No, then participants will only be able to submit one activity.



Regardless of whether you selected Yes or No for the previous field, you will need to decide For Each Activity, What can the Participant Upload?


You can decide to collect Times, Distance Complete (or Other Tallies), and/or Elevation Gain.  Elevation can be used for challenges like a stair climb or biking challenge.  (Multiple selections can be made; what you select will depend on what you want your registrants to submit)


If you select the Distance Complete (or Other Tallies) option, then you will be given two additional fields that will need to be filled out, for Tally Type and Label for "Tally" Field.


Important: 
Changing the Tally Type AFTER participants have already entered data may result in data corruption.
Switching from km to meters is okay, but switching from km to miles, miles to yards, etcetera,
will result in corruption.


From the Tally Type dropdown, you can select "Custom", "Distance in KM", "Distance in Meters", "Distance in Miles", "Distance in Yards", or "Distance in Laps".  You can also pick "None" if you do not wish to use the Distance Complete (or Other Tallies) option.


Next, in the Label for "Tally" Field, you can type in whatever label you would like for the tally field to say.  This is the text that will be displayed to your participants when they go to submit their times.


The next question allows you to choose How Should Results Be Sorted?  When your participants begin submitting results, this field will allow you to decide how those results will be sorted.  You can sort from the Lowest Time first to the highest time, the Highest Time first to the lowest time, the Greatest Distance/Tally with Time Tie-Breaker (which will sort from greatest distance/tally to least distance/tally, using the highest time as the tie breaker), or the Greatest Elevation Gain with Time Tie-Breaker (which will sort from greatest elevation gain to least elevation gain, using the highest time as the tie breaker).


The fields for Minimum Allowed Time and Maximum Allowed Time are where you can set the limits on what times participants are able to submit.  In the example below, a participant would not be able to submit a time lower than 1 minute or a time higher than 1 hour.


These fields can help to prevent cheating.  For instance, most people can not finish a marathon in under 2 hours, so you could set the Minimum Allowed Time for your marathon runners to 1 hour and 55 minutes, with the Maximum Allowed Time being much higher (possible 7-8 hours or more).


The final three settings on this page are fairly self-explanatory:


You can Require race director approval for each posted time before including in results, and this will hold all results from going public until after you go to RaceDay Tools > Virtual/Challenge Results > Approve Results and approve each person's results submission.  This option is usually left unchecked, which allows times to be posted immediately.  You are always able to go to the results page and click Edit on a time if adjustments need to be made to it, so allowing them to be posted without approval is recommended, and participants appreciate being able to see their results appear right away as well.


If you would like to Allow participants to indicate that they completed the run, but not provide an actual time, then you can check off this box, and that will give runners an option to simply check a box that says "I finished, but did not time my run."


Lastly, you can leave selected the box for Allow participants to upload results quicker by entering their E-mail or last 4 digits of their phone number instead of logging in, in order to make results submitting much easier for participants who are not logged into RunSignup.


Once you are finished with all of the settings on this page, be sure to click Save.



Edit Enhanced Features:


After your initial set up of the Virtual/Challenge Results features (explained in the previous section), you will be able to return to the Virtual Result Settings page by clicking on the button for Virtual Result Settings.



Activity Types:


Activity Types allow you to let your participants submit multiple different activities by type.  This is great for triathlons, where you need to collect three different activity types (run, bike, and swim), or creative challenges!  For instance, a gym will be able to use this to track their participant's exercises (such as pushups, sit-ups and pull-ups), a yoga studio can have challenges based on the amount of time for different poses and time meditating, libraries can do reading challenges (maybe # of fiction and non-fiction books read over the summer).


If you selected Yes in answer to Can Participant Submit Multiple Activities? in the Edit Enhanced Features section, then you customize the Activity Types by going to the Activity Types section.


Important:
The Activity Types that you can set up here are dependent on the activity settings you customized in the Edit Enhanced Features section, so if you do not see an option listed under Activity Types, then you can go back to the Edit Enhanced Features section in order to trun that option on.


Once on this page, begin by clicking Add Activity Type. This will open up the settings box for a new activity type.


In the Activity Type box, you can use the dropdown menu to select what type of activity you want to create.  This can be Run, Ride, Swim, Walk, Ski, Paddle/Row, or Custom.


If you select Custom, then a second field will appear for Activity Type.  This is where you can enter in the custom name for the activity type you want to create.


Next you can set up the Data Entry Tally Type.


This can be set as None, Distance in KM, Distance in Meters, Distance in Miles, or Distance in Yards.  If you select any option aside from None, you will also be given a box for Max Tally (Optional).  This is the maximum total that can be entered for the activity, and this is optional.


Note: The total tally is defined at the event level. However, you can allow certain conversions such as meters to km when participants enter their information.


The Time Entry can be set as Not Allowed, Optional, or Required.

This will indicate whether your participants can enter in a time for this activity, and whether it is mandatory.


The Elevation Gain Entry can be set as Not Allowed, Optional, or Required.

This will indicate whether your participants can enter in an elevation gain for this activity, and whether it is mandatory.

Elevation can be used for challenges like a stair climb or biking challenge.


If you would like to include a split in results for the total time for this activity type, then you can check off the box to indicate this, under the Show Splits for Activity Total? section.


If you check off the box under Show Field for Activity Tally Total? then this will include a field in results for the total tally for this activity type.

This adds a column to the results for the activity which will display the overall tally for each participant.


The fields for Require AT LEAST 1 of this Activity? and Require AT MOST 1 of this Activity? can be set as either No or Yes.  Here is what each setting does:

This field is only relevant if you have multiple Activity Types created:

If left at the default of No, then participants will not need to enter in an activity of this type in order to begin viewing themselves in the results.
This field is only relevant if you have multiple Activity Types created:

If set to Yes, then participants will need to enter in an activity of this type in order to begin viewing themselves in the results. If they have not yet submitted an activity of this type, then they will receive a notice that they will not appear in the results until after they have entered in an activity of this type.

If left at the default of No, then participants can enter in as many activities of this type as they would like.
If set to Yes, then participants will ONLY be able to enter in 1 activity of this type.  They will be able to go back and edit the existing activity of this type, if they have already met the maximum of 1.


You can continue to create as many activity types as you need, by clicking Add Activity Type.


In the upper right corner of each Add/Update Activity Type box, you will have button to move the activity type Up or Down in its order (this will effect how the activity types are displayed to participants; top will be first, and bottom will be last).

To remove an activity type, you can click the Trash Can next to that activity type.


Once you are finished with all of the settings on this page, be sure to click Save.

Messaging & Notifications:


The Messaging & Notifications section will allow you to set up text and email messaging in regards to your virtual events.


TEXT MESSAGING


You can give your participants the option to opt-in to receiving text messages, by clicking the switch from No to Yes.


IMPORTANT:
Submitting results via text messaging DOES NOT work for challenges.
So you should leave the Text Messaging option in the No position if you are doing a challenge.



If you do select Yes, then you will be asked for a Text Message Keyword.

Here you will need to enter in a short keyword (3 to 8 characters) that participants will use when texting in their results.

This MUST BE globally unique to all RunSignup events and must contain at least one number and one letter. This may only contain the letters A-Z or numbers 0-9.

Warning:
This cannot be changed after the initial setup.

VIRTUAL RACE DETAILS PAGE


We create a Virtual Race Details Page for you when your Virtual Race is set up, however, if you would like to add a link to your own custom page, then you can do so by checking off the box for "Add my own, custom Virtual Race Details Page".


If you do select this option, then you will be given a few additional fields.  In the Details URL field, you can enter in the URL for the custom Virtual Race Details Page that you have, and here you will also be given



PARTICIPANT MESSAGING


You need a minimum of two messages, one to welcome your participants with instructions, and one with instructions for results. You can send up to a total of 5 messages.




Goals:


Goals allow participants to make progress towards completing your challenge so this should be set up for all challenge events.  To begin click on for Goals:


Important:

1) To set up goals, you must first enable Distance Complete (or Other Tallies) OR enable Elevation Gain on the main setup page (explained above).

2) You can only add a goal for distance/tally or elevation, but not both.


Is there a Goal Distance/Tally?
If you select Yes on the question for "Is there a Goal Distance/Tally?", then a few more fields will be opened up for you.
You will be able to choose whether you want to have the Same Goal for All Participants
or you can Let Participants Define Their Own Goals:
If you select Same Goal for All Participants, then you will be given a field where you can indicate the goal in the distance or tally option you set up for results.
If you select Let Participants Define Their Own Goals, then you will not set any goal for the participants, but they will be able to set their own goal when they log into RunSignup and go to Profile > Submit Virtual Results.
You can then use the checkbox to indicate whether or not you would like to Show Goal Progress Bar:
If you check off the box, then here is what that progress bar will look like on the participant's results page:


Display a map with route and participant progress on result page?
If you select Yes on the question for "Display a map with route and participant progress on result page?", then an upload field will be opened up for you.
Here you can upload a KML file for the map by clicking Choose Your File.

Simple KML with a single route and few annotations works best. If more than one route segment is defined in the file, the route with the most number of points will be used.

Below is an example of how the map will appear on a participants results page:


Is there a Goal Elevation Gain?
If you select Yes on the question for "Is there a Goal Elevation Gain?", then a few more fields will be opened up for you.
You will be able to choose whether you want to have the Same Goal for All Participants
or you can Let Participants Define Their Own Goals:
If you select Same Goal for All Participants, then you will be given a field where you can indicate the goal in feet.
If you select Let Participants Define Their Own Goals, then you will not set any goal for the participants, but they will be able to set their own goal when they log into RunSignup and go to Profile > Submit Virtual Results.
You can then use the checkbox to indicate whether or not you would like to Show Goal Progress Bar:
If you check off the box, then here is what that progress bar will look like on the participant's results page:



Details:


REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS:


The first box is where you can fill out the Registration Instructions for your race:



This is where you can let participants of your race know more about your virtual race, and how it works.  You can edit this text to be specific to your race, and please note that this is a race level setting; changing it here will change it for all events.


Here is where it will display on the race registration form:




Remove Virture Features:


If you would like to remove an event's Virtual/Challenge Results setup completely, then you can do so by clicking Delete Virtual Results.


You will next get a pop-up box that will ask you to confirm that you want to delete all of the settings for this event.  If this is what you wish to do, then click Delete.