Team Challenges


What is a Team Challenge?

A Team Challenge is essentially a competition between teams to see which team can return the most results, or generate the most points or run time in a given time period. A Team Challenge can be open to all teams on World Community Grid, or limited to only teams invited by the challenge creator.


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How do I create a Team Challenge?

As the captain of a team, you may create as many Team Challenges as you want; the only requirement is that they have different names so members can tell them apart from other Team Challenges.

To create a Team Challenge, go to My Contribution and click on My Team in the lefthand navigation. Just under the Team Information, you'll see the Team Control Panel with an Issue Team Challenge button. Click the button to be taken to the Issue Team Challenge page.

Once on the Issue Team Challenge page, you start by picking a name for your Team Challenge. After that, decide if you want your Team Challenge to be open to all teams, or if you want to choose which teams to invite. If you want an Open Challenge, check the box next to "Open Challenge?"

Next up, pick the dates for your Team Challenge. The Start Date must be at least one day in the future, but not more than 30 days away. The End Date must be at least one day after the Start Date, but not more than 180 days after the Start Date.

Once you've chosen the dates, select what type of Team Challenge you'd like. The choices are Points, Run Time, and Results Returned, or an Increase in one of Points, Run Time, or Results Returned. For more in the "increase" challenges, read this FAQ.

Next choose whether or not you want to allow Late Joiners; that is, allow teams to join the challenge after the Start Date. This applies to teams that are invited as well as for Open challenges. Teams that join a challenge after the Start Date will only receive credit for statistics after they join the challenge.

Last but not least, you may invite other teams to participate in your Team Challenge. You may invite teams even if your are issuing an Open Challenge. If you are issuing a Closed Challenge you must invite at least one team.

To invite teams, just search for the name of the team you want to invite, and click the link to "Invite This Team." For more general searches, only the first 25 teams are returned. If this happens, try being a little more specific in your search.


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How do I create a Team Challenge that is open to all teams?

When on the Issue Team Challenge page, just give your Team Challenge a name, check the box labeled "Open Challenge?", enter dates for your Team Challenge, select a type of challenge, and click the submit button. Done!

You can invite teams to an Open Challenge if you'd like. This will insure that your challenge invitation shows up in the team captains Pending Challenges under the Challenge Control Panel. If the team captain has chosen to receive Team E-mails (via the My Profile page) they will also receive an e-mail informing them of your newly created Team Challenge.


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How do I create a Team Challenge that is just limited to certain teams?

When on the Issue Team Challenge page, just give your Team Challenge a name, enter dates for your Team Challenge, select a type of challenge, and invite at least one other team. Inviting teams is as simple as searching for a team name, and clicking the link to "Invite This Team." You may do a search, invite some teams, and then do another search to get a broad array of teams to invite to your challenge.


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How do I invite teams from my team's country?

Unfortunately, the Issue Team Challenge team search doesn't filter by country. To invite teams from your country to your Team Challenge, you can filter by country on the Find A Team page, and then do a search by name on the Issue Team Challenge search for the teams that come up in the country-filtered Find A Team search. The best way to do this is to open two browser windows so that you can have each page open at the same time. The Issue Team Challenge page will not save the teams you've invited if you go to a different page before clicking the submit button.


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May I invite more teams to my Team Challenge after I issue it?

Once a Team Challenge has been issued (by pressing the submit button on the Issue Team Challenge page), no more teams may be invited. If you have issued an Open Challenge, other teams may still join the challenge up to the Start Date, or until the end of the challenge if you have chosen to allow Late Joiners (Late Joiners only get credit for statistics accumulated after joining the challenge).


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How do the Increase in XXXX challenges work?

The Increase in XXXX challenges, can also be viewed as "percent increase" challenges. In these challenges, a baseline is calculated based on the recent daily average production for each team in the challenge. During the challenge, the daily team statistics are averaged for the current duration of the challenge and then the baseline average is subtracted to yield an average increase (or decrease). That average increase/decrease is divided by the baseline average to determine the percent increase/decrease. For example, if a team averages 3 days of Run Time per day leading up to the challenge, and then averages 4 days of Run Time during the period of the challenge, the percent increase would be 33%. The math would be: (4-3)/3.

The final winner of the challenge will be the team with the largest percent increase over their baseline average.


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How will the captains of teams I've invited to my challenge know about it?

There are two ways that World Community Grid informs captains about challenge invitations:

  1. If a captain has chosen to receive Team E-mails (on the My Profile page), they will receive an email for each challenge to which they are invited.
  2. On the My Team page, there is a Challenge Control Panel. Team captains will see challenges to which they've been invited under a section called Pending Challenges. Captains can accept challenges directly from the Challenge Control Panel, or they can click the name of the Team Challenge to view the full details of the Team Challenge before accepting or declining the invitation.


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Where do I check on the status, statistics, etc. for my Team Challenge (or a challenge my team is participating in)?

Just go to your My Team page, and scroll down to the Challenge Control Panel. All team members will see up to five Current and Upcoming Team Challenges (team captains will see Pending Team Challenges as well). If your team has more than five Current Team Challenges or more than five Upcoming Team Challenges, you may click the link at the bottom of the Challenge Control Panel to view your team's entire Team Challenge History. In the Challenge Control Panel or Team Challenge History View you may click on the name of the challenge to view more details about the challenge; for example: scores for all teams in the challenge, the names of the other teams participating in the challenge, and whether the challenge is open or not. The Team Challenge History page is where you may view your team's past challenges.


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Plan Ahead for Team Challenges!

It's a good idea to make the Start Date of your Team Challenge at least a week in the future so that other teams will have a chance to join your challenge before it starts. Remember, after the Start Date, no teams may join your challenge, unless you opt to allow Late Joiners, so try to give the other team captains adequate time to get in!


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