Defining a chain of dependent badges

Successor badges are defined relative to their prerequisite badges. In the chain we give as an example above, the first badge would require 25 microblogs to achieve; the second we define as requiring 25 more microblogs instead of as requiring 50 overall.

To begin defining a chain of dependent badges, decide whether they are going to be globally-available badges or based in a particular community.

1. Go to either the global Spotlight Management page or the community Spotlight Management page.
2. Click Create and manage badges to set up your badge icons, if need be,
3. Then click the Setup automatic awarding of event-based badges link.

The following picture depicts the recommended way to set up what would be the first badge in the example chain above:

Define first badge rule

Notice that Show in Leader Board is set to Yes. It is recommended that only the first badge in a chain be displayed in the Leader Board. That is because this is the only badge that represents user's overall progress in the chain, and also because it would be somewhat redundant to have the others show.

It is recommended to have Show in Available Badges set to Yes for all badges in the chain. Otherwise, a user will perceive having reached the end of the chain, upon reaching the first badge rule with a No for this setting.

For this, the first rule in the chain, there is no prerequisite, so the Prerequisite Rule setting is left on "Select...".

It is recommended that all rules in a chain are created in a deactivated state, to all be activated together once they're all defined and the start time arrives.

You'll get warnings if you leave some rules in a deactivated state while others are active, to prevent the "stranding" of active rules at the end of the chain due to deactivated rules in the middle of the chain.

The following picture shows the recommended way to define the next badge rule in the chain:

Define next badge rule

Notice that the Points Required is set to 25, even though this badge is displayed as being awarded for creating 50 microblogs. This is because points for this badge won't begin accumulating until after its prerequisite badge is awarded, and in this case the prerequisite requires 25 microblogs to earn.

Notice that Show in Leader Board is set to No. This setting is recommended for all remaining successor badges in the chain.

Choose the appropriate badge in the Prerequisite Rule dropdown to turn this badge rule into a dependent (successor) badge rule.

To view the rules that you create in a deactivated state, you must check the Show Deactivated Rules option, as pictured below:

Check the Show Deactivated Rules option

This screen depicts the full chain from our example. Notice how the Points Required column shows incremental values for points accumulation, rather than total values.