A daily points cap limits how many points a participant can earn in a single day. It's an easy way to keep one very big day, or one very active participant, from running away with the challenge.
Most groups run challenges without a cap, and new challenges start with the cap turned off.
Without a cap, everyone gets credit for all of their activity, and participants spread out more widely across the challenge path. Adding a cap minimizes outliers. It can also make the challenge feel less intimidating and more fair to people further back.
Points caps are available on all plans, for every group and challenge.
How to set a points cap
To set a cap, tap edit ("pencil") icon at the top of any challenge screen. On the Edit challenge screen, tap the Points Cap card.
On the Points Cap screen, switch on Cap daily points, then drag the slider to choose your cap. Once done, be sure to hit Save on the "Edit Challenge" screen.
Back on the Edit challenge screen, the Points Cap card shows On or Off, so you can see at a glance whether a cap is set.
How the cap is calculated
Every challenge has a daily target: the number of points per day a participant needs, on average, to reach the finish on the challenge's last day. Challenges vary widely in how many points they involve, so instead of a fixed number, you set the cap as a multiple of that daily target: 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, 15x, or 20x.
As you move the slider, the screen shows exactly how many points your choice works out to. For example, in a challenge with a daily target of 16,973 points, a 4x cap lets participants earn up to 67,892 points per day.
The cap applies to a participant's total for the day, added up across all of their activities. It doesn't limit any single activity.
PRO Tip: A 1x cap means no one can earn more than the daily target on any day, so no one can finish before the challenge's last day. If you just want to rein in extreme outliers, a higher multiple still leaves plenty of room for big days.
What participants see
When a participant's points for a day go over the cap, their score for that day is reduced to the cap. Their individual activities still show the full points they earned; only the daily total is capped.
Every day in a participant's activity log shows a gauge icon next to the daily score. The icon is outlined on days that stayed under the cap and filled in on days the cap was applied. Tapping the icon on a capped day shows a breakdown of that day's points:
Points earned: everything the participant logged that day
Over the cap: the points above the cap
Final daily score: the points that count toward the challenge
Anyone who can see a participant's activity log can also see the cap indicator. If a participant's privacy settings hide their activity from others, the cap indicator is hidden too.
Changing or removing a cap
You can change the cap, or turn it off, at any time. When the cap is changed, Count.It will recalculate all user scores in the challenge to apply or remove the cap accordingly. That is: All cap changes apply retroactively and prospectively.