Rewards tied to the training you care about
Decide what each course is worth in points, write badge rules around completions, quiz scores and streaks, and give every course a forum where the best reply gets marked as the solution.
At a glance
- Points with a daily cap
- Tiered, shareable badges
- Streaks with bonuses
- Leaderboards you can scope
- Goals, challenges, celebrations
Gamification gets a bad name when it rewards clicking. Points in LMS Advisor come from finishing courses, where you set the value per course so a short policy refresher and a multi-week leadership program don’t pay out the same, and from 10 point rules you configure under a daily cap.
On top of points sit a level ladder, badges with rules you write (in bronze, silver and gold tiers, some of them secret), a daily login streak with bonuses, challenges, a daily learning goal, leaderboards and a short celebration when a learner finishes a section or a whole course. Each course can also have its own discussion forum. None of it is forced on your learners: the leaderboard has its own on/off setting and can be renamed or hidden in the learner menu, individual learners can opt out of being ranked, and a badge you don’t like can simply be deactivated.
Why optional training stalls
Enrolled, then forgotten
Optional courses collect plenty of enrollments in week one and few completions. Nobody notices until the quarterly report.
Effort nobody sees
Someone who finished ten product courses looks the same in the system as someone who finished one.
Questions with nowhere to go
Stuck learners email the instructor, who answers the same thing over and over. The answer never reaches the next group.
Points for the wrong behavior
Platforms that hand out points for page views teach people to click around, not to finish anything.
The pieces you can switch on
Every engagement feature is tied to something real in the LMS: a completed course, a passed quiz, a day the learner actually signed in, or a question someone answered in the forum.
Points with a daily cap
Each course has a Grade Points value, paid once on first completion, and 10 point rules carry values you set. A daily cap stops point farming, and manual changes go to the audit log.
Tiered, shareable badges
Fourteen rule types, bronze, silver and gold tiers, and secret badges. Each one is an Open Badge 2.0 with a public page learners can share to LinkedIn, X, Facebook or email.
Streaks with bonuses
Consecutive days with a sign-in are counted automatically. Bonus points land at 7, 30 and 100 days, and a streak freeze every 30 days covers a missed day.
Leaderboards you can scope
All time, monthly or weekly rankings for the whole platform, one course, a group or an organization. Learners who would rather not appear can opt out.
Goals, challenges, celebrations
A daily learning goal, challenges for everyone, a group or an organization that pay points or a badge, and a pop-up when a section or course is finished.
Course forums
Each course can have a threaded forum, limited to enrolled learners if you like. Moderators pin, lock and delete threads and mark the reply that solved it.
How points, badges and streaks are worked out
Where points come from
Course completion is still the anchor. Every course has a Grade Points field in its settings, and a learner receives that number once, the first time they complete the course. Retaking it doesn’t pay out again. Set it to zero for courses that shouldn’t count, such as a tour of internal tools.
Beyond completions, the points settings hold 10 point rules, each with a value you choose, plus a daily cap on what one learner can collect in a day. Set the cap before launch. Without one, a determined learner can race through short items to climb the rankings, and the people doing the long courses fall behind.
Administrators can also award or deduct points from the leaderboard screen, optionally tied to a course and with a reason, and each manual award goes to the audit log. A super admin or branch manager can reset one learner’s points if something went wrong.
Levels
Total points map to a level ladder, with five levels by default: Starter, then Bronze at 100 points, Silver at 500, Gold at 1,500 and Platinum at 5,000 by default. Plan course values with those thresholds in mind.
Badge rules
A badge has a name, description, icon, color and a rule with a target number. There are 14 rule types, and these are the ones most programs start with:
- Courses completed: for example 1, 5 or 10 finished courses.
- Quiz score: the learner’s best passing quiz score reaches the value, such as 100 for a perfect score.
- Login streak: consecutive days signed in, such as 7 or 30.
- Grade points: total points reach the value.
- Manual award: never automatic. An admin gives it to a named learner.
A badge can come in bronze, silver and gold tiers, so one badge grows with the learner (say 5, 10 and 25 completed courses) instead of you building three. Mark a badge as secret and it stays out of sight until someone earns it, which suits small surprises like a perfect score on the hardest quiz in the catalog.
New installs start with eight badges you can edit or deactivate, from First Step (one course) to Elite Learner (5,000 points). Automatic rules are checked each time a learner completes a course. The admin badge list shows how many people hold each badge, which is a quick way to spot one nobody can realistically reach.
Badges outside the LMS
Badges are issued as Open Badges 2.0, and each earned badge has a public page where the learner’s email is hashed, not displayed. Learners share a badge to LinkedIn, X, Facebook or by email, and can hide any single badge they’d rather keep to themselves. The format is Open Badges 2.0. Open Badges 3.0 isn’t supported.
Streaks and activity
The streak counts calendar days with a sign-in. It pays bonus points at 7, 30 and 100 days, and every 30 days the learner gets a streak freeze that protects the count through a missed day. Miss a day with no freeze available and the streak resets to one. Separately, every course has an activity calendar for the learner with active days, total time spent, average time per active day and a course-level streak. In coaching conversations that view is often more useful than the leaderboard.
Challenges and a daily goal
A challenge gives learners a target with points or a badge as the reward, and you aim it at everyone, one group or one organization. That lets a regional push reward only the region it was meant for. Each learner also has a daily learning goal, and finishing a section or a whole course brings up a celebration pop-up with the progress made.
What we’d tell you before switching it on
Leaderboards come in three time windows (all time, monthly and weekly) and four scopes: the whole platform, one course, a group or an organization. If you train competing regions, or customers who shouldn’t see each other, point each audience at its own organization or group board rather than the platform-wide one. Learners can also opt out of appearing at all. There are no store-level leaderboards, so a retail chain ranks by group or organization instead. And keep point values honest. When a two-minute video and a certification course pay the same, learners work that out quickly.
See Gamification & Engagement in a live demo
We will show it with your own scenario, answer the security questions and send a written quote after the call.
Setting it up without overdoing it
Price your courses in points
Open each course’s settings and fill in Grade Points, then set the point rules and a daily cap. Give core programs more and set anything that shouldn’t count to zero.
Edit the starter badges
Rename, recolor or deactivate the eight default badges, then add your own.
Decide on the leaderboard
Turn it on or leave it off in Settings, then tell each team which board is theirs: a course, a group or an organization. In the learner menu you can also rename the Rankings item or hide it.
Open the course forums
Enable the forum on the courses that need one, tell learners to ask there, and mark accepted solutions so the next group finds them.
Review and adjust
Check which badges are being earned and which courses pay out most, then tune the values.
Programs where it earns its place
Sales and product enablement
Reps work through a catalog of product courses. Points per course and a monthly leaderboard for the sales group give them a reason to finish the fifth course, not only the first.
Customer academies
Customers collect badges as they complete product levels and post them to LinkedIn. Each customer company ranks on its own organization board, and the course forum is where they help one another with setup.
Apprenticeship and graduate programs
Streaks and the per-course activity calendar show who is building a steady habit and who has gone quiet, early enough to pick up the phone.
Voluntary professional development
Nobody has to take these courses. A badge for five completions is small, but it gives people a target and something on their dashboard to show for it.
What learners and admins notice
- Optional courses get a reason to be finished, not just started
- Sustained effort becomes visible to learners and managers
- Point values stay under your control, course by course
- Learner questions answered once, in a forum the next group can read
- Engagement features you can dial down without touching course content
- Badges learners can show on LinkedIn, backed by a public Open Badges page
Works well with
Gamification questions
How do learners earn points?
Can we create our own badges?
Can a leaderboard be limited to one team?
When are badges awarded?
Is there a discussion forum?
What progress do learners see on their dashboard?
Can learners share their badges?
What happens to a streak after a missed day?
Can a challenge be limited to one department?
More features
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