Walkthrough of the gamification app I delivered for the Microsoft Dynamics Community.

1. Eric Parsons
Senior Technical Product Manager
August 2014

2. “Nandita” - Asks questions
Customer / Developer
“Simon” - Expert
Partner/ Consultant

3. Why gamification?
Reduce support costs
Drive more members to answer forum threads by awarding badges
Create a greater sense of community
Encourage members to fill out their profiles and upload photos by awarding badges
Legitimize and structure competition that was already happening via leaderboards
Connect members with experts
Have fun
Enable moments of fun while our members are solving real business problems

4. What we built
Badges
Members earn badges as they complete site actions
Leaderboards
Members are ranked in multiple leaderboards (overall points, forums, blogs)
Lifetime view and a monthly view (to allow new members to compete against established members)
Native Zimbra Community App
Rules-based badge administration
Individual badges and leaderboards have full platform support for comments, favorites, likes,
bookmarks, @mentionable, etc.
Badges have email notifications, live alerts, and show up in activity streams as they are earned

5. Updated version of the “Game On: Community Rewards & Recognition” session Eric co-presented at Zimbra’s The Big Social 2013 event

6. Troubleshooter Problem Solver Thanks for the
Help
A Picture is Worth
1000 Words
Connected Movie Maker
Blogger Tweet Me Fan Celebrity

9. Problem Solver 1
1 verified forum answer
Problem Solver 4
50 verified forum answers
Level 1
250 points
Level 8
16,000 points

12. “I got it while hiking with my wife on
a mountain nearby. Couldn't wait to
get back and login here. How geekish
is that?! ;D”
“Great idea! Love what Microsoft Dynamics has done to bring the
community together. It can only mean even more great things to
come.“
“Great addition to the already awesome-looking community!”
“This will re-engage and make people more interested to stay
connected with the community.”
“This will give me great feedback on the people I can trust and the
ones who are the most knowledgeable in the areas I am looking for
help in. Thank you so much to ALL those who actively participate in
this forum.”
“Definitely a great idea – it encouraged me to update my profile and
put more information in it!”

13. Lessons learned
Start small
We didn’t. ;-)
Model your badges
Model your badge requirements against your
member metrics to ensure you have the right
requirements and enough badges
Include some fun
badges
We were worried about keeping it very
professional – One new fun badge is the “I’ve
been a member for 2 years and all I got was
this lousy badge”
Keep adding new
badges
Always raise the bar
Build in recognition
plans
We’ve shifted from tweeting people who’ve
earned top badges to the top 3 people who
make it into each monthly leaderboard