Activities and Secret Codes

Activities and Secret Codes are features that allow your readers to gain points, prizes, badges, etc. for non-reading activities. The main differences:

  • Activities: Readers see a list of all available activities; they click an activity in the list to indicate they have completed it.  The reader is then awarded any points, badges, etc. that you have defined for that activity.  In other words, activities are "on the honor system."
  • Secret Codes: Readers must enter secret codes into the application to obtain the points, badges, etc. that you have defined for that code.  If you do not want to use secret codes, please contact us.

Each Reader can only claim a specific Activity or Secret Code one time.  If you want Readers to be able to get points for repeating a specific activity, you need to enter the activity multiple times, e.g., "Play a board game in the library #1," "Play a board game in the library #2," etc.

Events: some library systems wish to award points or badges for attending library events, such as story hours.  You can choose between Activities or Secret Codes to handle this.  If you wish to let any reader claim they attended the event, create an Activity for that event, e.g., "Attended June 20th Story Hour."  If you wish to restrict awards for that event to readers who can prove they attended, create a Secret Code for that event and distribute the code to attendees, e.g., "PETE-THE-CAT-22" so that only attendees can claim the corresponding points/badge.

You'll define a list of Activities and Secret Codes when you set up your programs, using the instructions below.

To Add Activities

Setup Menu > Activities > Add Activity.

To add an Activity to more than one program, type a comma after the first program in the Program Reference field and then add your additional Programs. Be sure to click Save!

To Add Secret Codes

Setup Menu > Secret Codes > Add Secret Code

 

Deleting an Activity or Secret Code

We hide the Delete capability to make it harder for activities and codes to be accidentally deleted.

To delete an Activity or Secret Code, you must login with your admin account.  Then visit https://YOURSITE.bookpoints.org/admin/structure/entity-type/activity/activity or https://YOURSITE.bookpoints.org/admin/structure/entity-type/activity/secret_code respectively.  These pages list all of your activities or secret codes.  

Each list page has tabs at the top, including "EDIT" and "DELETE" -- do NOT click these tabs.  Do NOT click the CAPITAL "EDIT" or "DELETE" tabs.

Instead, look in the list -- each row has a lowercase "edit" and "delete" link for each individual activity or code.  Use THESE "delete" links to delete an activity or code.