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External Metrics: Gamify any metric and automate it using scheduled emails

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Stephen Spiegel
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Summary

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What it is

We use external metrics to measure and reward the performance on metrics tracked outside of Crewhu.  Once added to our system we can automate contests based on these metrics to keep the team focused on what is important for company success.

You can also automate the metric by using an automated email with a CSV attachment.

If you are accountable for contest admin and ideation of contests that will improve team performance, this feature will save you time and give you the opportunity to increase the scope of metrics that you can gamify.  This is a game-changer.

Note: The contest automation based on emails is available only for pro and badass plans;

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How it Works

Follow the steps below to create your metric and your contest:

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Create the External Metric

  1. Go to Settings > External Metrics

  2. Add a new external metric:

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    1. Name: This name will identify the external metric and will also create an API token for those wanting to update contests through an API call

    2. Unit of measure: You have a choice of #, $ or % to measure your metric

    3. Order: Is a higher number better or a lower number better? You can create a metric based on something you want to increase such as tickets closed (higher is better) or based on something you want to avoid (such as reopened tickets).

    4. Description: The description will show in the contest and should include important details about the metric definition and why it is important.

    5. Launch and reward rules: By default, the day starts at 12 am.  In the above example, we have instructed any contest with this metric to launch and reward 8hrs after the default time which would be 8 am in the company's headquarter timezone.

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Create the Contest

Once the external metric is saved it will appear on the drop-down when creating a contest.

In order to create the contest, go to Contests and click on Add+. Then you have to select the source of the contest as External Metric, select the newly created metric in the field below, and fill in the contest details:

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Refer to this article to have more details about SMART Contests;

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How to set Scheduled Emails

In order to update your contest by sending a CSV file by email, take the following steps:

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Step 1: Configure Contest Settings

  1. Go to Settings > Contests:

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  2. Check Contest Updates via Email and configure settings
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    In the above example I did 3 things:

    1. I checked "Has Header" because the CSV attachment will have headers that I do not want to be included in the contest update automation.

    2. I added the sender email to be authorized.  Only these emails will be authorized.  The only emails allowed to update contests are those listed in this section.

    3. I set notifications to go out to CCs on the autogenerated email if there was an error during the update.  I did not want to notify the sender since it is an auto-generated email with a no-reply address.  I also have the option to notify a specific user, which I did not use in this example.  A use case for this option would be a person accountable for the integration such as a Systems Admin.

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Step 2: Get the contest's email

After the contest based on an External Metric is saved, its email is generated, so you can send the CSV file with the results to this email, in order to update it.

So you just have to copy this contest's unique email address and paste it into the application that is sending the contest data.

In order to get the contest's email, go to Contests, click on Active > Edit over the contest, and click on the  Copy Address button:

 

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Step 3:  Paste the email address into the "To" field of your external application's email scheduler tool

The email address: Each of your external metrics will have its own personal email endpoint.  The email has 5 parts:


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  1. Your unique company token
  2. Your company domain
  3. the gamification category
  4. the external metric name
  5. contest time frame
  6. crewhu.com domain

Note:
- Because each of our clients has a unique endpoint per contest, we do not need you to provide any more information than the CSV.  Nothing is required in the subject or the body of the email;
- Just send the CSV to the email address associated with the contest to activate the contest update;
- The frequency of email updates is up to you.  You can send an automated email every 10 minutes, once a day, once a week, or any other timeframe that suits your needs.

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Automated Contests using Connectwise Report Writer

It's also possible to use the Report Writer feature in Connectwise in order to send automatic emails, and in consequence, update the contest automatically. In the use case below, after creating the Metric and Smart Contest in Crewhu, it was created a Report in Connectwise to automatically track the following KPI: number of tickets closed by employees in one month.

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Connectwise Setup


The screenshots below were taken from Connectwise Report Writer to be used for this specific example/metric. The report below will show the member_id and the number of tickets solved in the current month.

If you have any doubts about creating reports in Connectwise, we recommend contacting a specialist from Connectwise and seeking advice on the appropriate Data Source, Fields, and Filter to use on their Report Writer to track any metrics you need.


1) In Connectwise, go to System > Report Writer and click on New.

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For this example, the following tabs were used:



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Data Sources

Search and click on the v_rpt_Service checkbox:


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Fields

Select from the dropdown menus:

Resolved_By, Function Group

SR_Service_RecID, Function Count



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Filters

Select from the dropdown menu:

Date_Resolved_UTC, Operator In Time Period, Value Current Month:


Misc

Make sure that you paste the smart contest email created on step 3, and choose to Send Email as CSV. Also, set up a scheduled email to automatically update the contest.


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Note:
If the email sender in Connecttwise is random (changes every email), you can set your own email as the recipient for the report, then create a forwarding rule from your email to the contest's unique email. This way, you only have to whitelist your email in the Contest Settings. 


If you prefer to update de Contest manually (maybe for a test, to check if the information is populating correctly), you can generate a CSV file from the report in Connectwise and upload this file manually into the contest in Crewhu, by locating the contest, clicking on the Update button and then on Upload CSV.

Below is the log of external updates that an Admin can see in Crewhu by going to Settings > Contests > View Updates Log.  


After the update, click on the Active drop-down menu in the contest and click on Leaderboard to see and celebrate the results:

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