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Samsung Health

the logo for Samsung Health to show that Big Team Challenge now connects with the service

We now connect with Samsung Health

With the release of our latest app update we now connect with Samsung Health and many more devices and services than ever before.

How to connect Samsung Health to the step challenge

Connecting Health Connect on Android to Big Team Challenge allows you to sync your steps from the following platforms:

  • Google Fit
  • Samsung Health
  • MyFitnessPal
  • And others as more providers join the Health Connect platform

Connecting Samsung Health or Google Fit to Big Team Challenge is a two-stage process:

  1. Connect Samsung Health/Google Fit to Health Connect
  2. Connect Health Connect to Big Team Challenge

Step One

Download Health Connect from Google Play here.

Open the Health Connect app and tap Get Started.

Select App permissions. You should see Samsung Health or Fit. If not, tap "Can't see all your apps?" at the bottom of the list, then "See all compatible apps" on the next screen. You should be able to select Samsung Health or Google Fit.

Health Connect permissions

Now, select Samsung Health or Fit from the list (as per the screenshot above).

On the next screen, tap "Allow all" or select at least "Steps". You are finished connecting Samsung Health/Google Fit to Health Connect. Move on to Step Two.

Health Connect permissions

Steps Two

Now you need to connect Big Team Challenge to Health Connection.

Open the Big Team Challenge app and go to Sync Device in the menu.

Sync devices

You should see "Health Connect" at the top of the list, Tap on "Connect", and then "Connect" again on the popup that appears.

Finally, you need to give Big Team Challenge permission to access Health Connect. Enable "Allow all" at the top of the list, then "Allow" at the bottom.

You should now be connected to Health Connect.

Connected successfully

If you run into any errors, please take a note/screenshot of the message and contact our support team for more assistance.

Big Team Challenge Vs. Movespring

Big Team Challenge as an alternative to Movespring

Movespring is a great platform aimed at providing activity challenges for large corporate brands. As a consequence it comes with a hefty price tag, with options starting at $2000 for 100 users, and even more if you want some fairly standard options included such as your branding incoroprated.
At Big Team Challenge we understand that sometimes you just want to run a simple and fun step challenge to engage your colleagues and friends. That's why our system can have your challenge up and running in a matter of minutes and our costs are much lower.

Running a step challenge with Big Team Challenge is easy, fun and comes with a whole host of included features:

  • Your company logo in the challenge website and app
  • Free iPhone and Android apps for your users to enjoy
  • Syncing with Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Health and Google Fit
  • Creat teams, invite colleagues and compete on leaderboards
  • Advanced team segments for locations, departments and other criteria.
  • Earn achievements

Learn how we differ from Movespring

How to create a step challenge

Learn how to start your very own step challenge.

When creating your first step challenge there are a few key points to consider to get the most out of your employees and their time:

  • How long should the challenge last?
  • How many people will likely take part?
  • Should we be working together or competing?
  • What route should we walk?

In this post we'll discuss each of these in detail and hopefully help you get a better idea of the type of step challenge you are hoping to create for your teams.

How long should the challenge last?

At Big Team Challenge our pricing is broken into two tiers based on duration. Our first tier is any challenge lasting up to 6 weeks, and the second is any challenge lasting 7 to 12 weeks. How long you choose to run your challenge will largely depend on how motivated your teams are. If this is your first time running a step count challenge our recommendation is to make the most of the lower tier and run one for somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks. We've found that a minimum of 4 weeks helps build lasting change in users, and that after 6 weeks they start to drop off if they aren't fully engaged.

That's not to say that 7-12 week challenges aren't effective, in fact from what we've heard from our repeat customers it's quite the opposite. While a drop off can occur after 6 weeks, we've found this has been avoided when the challenge organisers are actively engaged in the challenge themselves and making use of incentives, or even simply keeping in touch with participants with the News Posts feature. It seems to be that if participants know that you are engaged in the competition they are too!

How many people will likely take part?

As tricky a question as 'how long is a piece of string?'. It can be really difficult to know exactly how many people will take part in your challenge but there are a few guidelines we can offer on this.
The first one is how big is your company? If you have 100 or less employees and you have a good relationship with them all you can expect anything from 50-75% participation. For larger companies, especially those in the thousands of employees, we would probably expect around 10-25% participation. It's not that these employees don't want to take part necessarily, it's just that these types of challenges can sometimes get lost in communication. When you have employee groups in different departments, locations, or even countries, it can be easy for some groups to simply miss out.

One way to achieve the highest possible levels of participation is to open the challenge up to registration as early as possible and give everyone time to discover it and get signed up. At Big Team Challenge we don't bill you for the registration period, so you might as well open it up 2 weeks or 2 months early! The longer you give your users to register and get ready, the better chance you'll have of capturing those stragglers!

Should we be working together or competing?

Is your challenge to foster some friendly competition between teams, or would you like everyone to be working towards a shared goal? Our step challenges have two challenge modes to choose from: Teams Vs Teams and One Big Challenge. Both modes require your users to get into teams (which you can set the sizes of), so you can still have the teams showing up in various leaderboards and encourage some friendly competition. However in Teams Vs Teams each team is individually collecting enough steps to move their own team along the virtual map that you've set for them, where as in One Big Challenge all teams are pooling their steps together to move everyone along the map at the same time.

Both modes can foster some friendly competition, while One Big Challenge might give you more freedom to work together and tackle a much larger map such as our Around The World routes.

What route should we walk?

What step challenge route works best for your specific situation will depend on what we've discussed above.
As a general rule we use the following formula to guess at what length of route you should be trying to tackle:

(Number of people per team) x (number of days in the challenge) x (10,000 steps).

Eg, we're running a teams vs teams challenge, for 42 days, and teams are set at a maximum of 5. So we would calculate (5)x(42)x(10,000) = 210,000. So we need a route that is 2,100,000 steps long (roughly 1500km / 930 miles).
We would then look at our library of routes to find one that matches. In this case we might choose Scotland: Heritage, Land and Culture as it's a close match and a fun route full of interesting milestones.

What if we're running a One Big Challenge and all the teams are collecting their steps together?

In this case you simply ignore the team sizes and swap it for the number of participants in the whole challenge. So for example we still have teams of 5, but there are 235 people taking part, we would use the following formula:

(235 people) x (42 days) x (10,000 steps) = 98,700,000 steps (68,000km / 43,000 miles).

As you can see, for One Big Challenge you require a much larger route to accommodate the number of people contributing to it. In this example we might suggest our Icons Of The World route as it is a good size and has a lot of milestones to keep your challenge interested and engaged.

If you ever need help, we're always here to answer your questions

At Big Team Challenge we pride ourselves on being there to help. Our team is made up of actual humans who are ready to help answer any questions you have and even chat over your ideas and help provide some guidance. So why not get in touch and start a conversation with one of our team today!

Team Building Apps

Engaging with your workforce while driving your teams to be both healthy and motivated is a tough line to tow.

Online Team Building

More and more human relation departments are looking towards the digital world to help solve their problems. Online games such as Game Night for the apple TV are a great way for small groups to get together and participate in some friendly competition with an easy to use interface.

However when it comes to getting staff active and moving in the real world you need to look at different solutions.

Other Team Building Solutions

World Walking

World walking is an online system that allows single users and small groups to get together online, transfer their real world activity into digital steps, and move themselves and their group along a virtual map. This is an ideal option if you have 1 to 10 people that you want to help you walk along a virtual map without the competitive edge.

Find WorldWalking.org here

Big Team Challenge

Our step challenge app is a perfect solution to helping larger groups from 25 to 25,000+, with no limits on the system and a variety of different virtual routes to suit any challenge. Users can create and join teams, see the other competing teams on the leaderboard, earn achievements and share their progress online.

Online step challenges are a fantastic way to engage with your company teams all around the world and help to build upon their team working skills while helping them stay active and motivated while at work.

Why not get in touch and speak with a real person, we'd be more than happy to run through the system with you and tailor a challenge to your exact needs.

Inverclyde’s International Women’s Day Challenge

We were delighted to have the opportunity to mark International Women’s Day 2023 in a practical way by running a challenge to help Scottish charity, Aid for Education, raise money for its microfinance project in Rwanda.

Using our One Big Challenge option coupled with a bespoke route complete with milestones which told the story of the Aid for Education’s inspirational work in Eastern Rwanda, the challenge participants raised £1,570 as they walked over 7,900 miles from Greenock, where the charity is based, to the heart of Africa.

The money raised will enable Aid for Education to help 15 women set up their own business which will provide each of them with the opportunity to earn money to pay for food, education and healthcare and give their children the chance of a more positive future.