Configuring Status Levels

Enable status levels to encourage people to get involved in the community. People can accrue status by earning points as they create and respond to content in Jive. Assigning status levels this way is sometimes known as "badging." Over time, people develop a reputation for reliability and authority in their favorite areas. The more people participate, the more information that is available for the community as a whole. Where a person's name is displayed, the user interface displays a status icon or badge such as corresponding to the number of points the person has accrued.

Admin Console: People > Settings > Status Level Settings

You can use the following suggestions to make the most of status levels:

Set the number of points per scenario based on the kinds of activity you want to reward. For example, if you want to provide a context in which questions are usually answered, award more points for correct and helpful question responses.
Define status levels or badges that people will be enthusiastic about -- make it fun. For example, you could think of it as a kind of game. Is the highest level a "Ninja"? A "Genius"? "Indiana Jones" or "Nobel Laureate"? Devise a list of levels that goes well with the culture of people using the community and edit the existing status levels.
Offer rewards or recognition for people who reach or maintain certain status levels.

Note: When content is deleted, status points are also deleted.

Adjusting Status Scenarios and Points

You can set how many points are awarded for a given scenario or action the user takes in the application. If you give the action User's status was liked 1 point, then a user's status points will increase by one point whenever someone likes their status.

You can also define the status levels themselves, setting the point range that the status level represents. By default, for example, the application includes the following status levels: master (501-1000 points); junior (101-500 points); newbie (0-100 points). You can configure the levels, along with how many points correspond to an action.

Disable a scenario when you want that scenario not to be included in status level calculation.

Adding and Editing Status Levels

You can edit the existing status levels or add new ones. In both cases, you enter values in fields under Add/Edit status level on the Status Level Settings page in the admin console.

To edit an existing status level, locate the level in the list and click its edit button. Its property values will appear under Add/Edit status level. Change the values as you like, then click Save.

To add a new status level, begin when the boxes under Add/Edit status level are blank. Enter the values you want, then click Save.

Here's a description of status level properties:

Setting	Description
Name	The name that should appear
Description	Additional text to describe the level. By default, this doesn't appear in the user interface.
Image Path and Large Image Path	Click Pick Images to choose from among the included icon images. The application provides more than 50 status images, but if you want to add your own you can. To do that, put the GIF files in <jive.instance.home>/resources/images/status. If the <jive.instance.home>/resources directory doesn't exist, you can create a symlink to /usr/local/jive/var/www/resources/images/status using the following commands: cd <jive.instance.home> ln -s /usr/local/jive/var/www/resources resources You can use different types of image files, but you should use the same naming scheme as the existing images: statusicon-<number-in-sequence>.gif. You might want to start your numbering at some higher level to avoid problems if application upgrades include more images. For example, to add five new images (where included images currently end at number 52), you could add images called statusicon-100.gif, statusicon-101.gif, statusicon-102.gif, statusicon-103.gif, and statusicon-104.gif. For more on the location of jive.instance.home, see What Happened to jiveHome
Point Range or Group	Enter a point range or select a user group with which this status level should be associated. Entering a point range will tie this status level to activity in the community. You might want to associate this level with a user group if you want certain users in your community to always have a particular level, regardless of their activity level. For example, you could define a user group made up of a few community managers or gurus, then associate a special status level to them in order to have a recognizable name and icon visible to other people.