Running a hackathon successfully depends on data‐driven insights—knowing how many participants you have, where and when they’re most active, and which ideas are likely to push your event toward its goals. The Event Overview dashboard provides a real‐time look at key metrics such as participant counts, team formation, idea submissions, and overall engagement trends, helping you to make timely decisions at each phase of your hackathon. Below is an explanation of each major component and how you can act on that information.
Headline Metrics
Visitors
- What It Shows: The total number of unique visitors to your hackathon platform.
- How to Use It: A high visitor count is a good sign of initial interest or awareness. Compare it week over week to see if awareness campaigns (internal announcements, email reminders, social media posts) are driving new visits. If you see a plateau early on, it may indicate that you need to increase outreach.
Participants
- What It Shows: The subset of unique visitors who have voted, commented or submitted an idea. This data point only accounts for the submitter and does not include any team members associated with the submission.
- How to Use It: This metric is a better measure of active interest than Visitors alone. Keep an eye on how quickly this number grows—especially during the recruitment and Incubation phases. Slow growth might mean your sign‐up process is unclear or you need more compelling calls to action.
Teams
- What It Shows: The total number of teams is calculated by counting submissions that have two or more users associated with them. If two submissions feature the same team members, they will still be counted as separate teams. Please note that submissions in draft status are not included in this count.
- How to Use It: Monitor this alongside "Participants" to ensure sufficient engagement and event capacity. If team growth is slow, consider hosting a team-matching event or encouraging mentors to help participants recruit team members.
Submissions
- What It Shows: Total submissions is a count of all ideas and projects submitted, either visible or hidden. This does not include draft ideas.
- How to Use It: If this number seems low relative to your total participants, provide workshops or brainstorming templates to spark new ideas and ensure everyone feels confident about submitting.
Votes
- What It Shows: The total number of votes is determined by adding single votes and chip votes. Chip votes are counted per participant, not the total number of chips.
- How to Use It: If voting is low, send reminders or create incentives for participants to review and vote on ideas. This helps surface popular or promising projects early on.
Comments
- What It Shows: Total comment counts include both parent and child comments across all submissions in the hackathon.
- How to Use It: If comments are low, prompt participants to leave constructive feedback, ask questions, or provide clarifications, which can spark further idea development.
Micro Charts
User Engagement Funnel
This funnel illustrates the journey from Permitted to Visited to Participated, with statistics indicating that ”24% of permitted users have participated”.
- How to Read It:
- Permitted vs. Visited: If you see a large drop‐off here, it’s likely an awareness or access issue.
- Visited vs. Participated: If many visit but don’t submit or join teams, they may need clearer guidance or a nudge to take the next step.
- What to Do:
- Share short tutorials or “Getting Started” guides.
- Provide an easy path from “browsing ideas” to “submitting or voting.”
- Offer small incentives—like badges or a leaderboard—to motivate deeper engagement.
Submitted Ideas per Participant
In this section, you’ll find the number of ideas submitted by each participant, along with the average (for example, 3.5 ideas per participant) and specific distribution details (for instance, “10 users have submitted 4 ideas”).
- Why It’s Useful:
- Helps identify “power users” who consistently contribute multiple ideas.
- Shows if most participants stop at just one submission.
- Suggested Actions:
- Encourage those who have not submitted to join a team if they don’t want to submit.
- Invite prolific contributors to mentor or help others with ideation.
Participants per Team
A bar chart illustrates the distribution of participants across different team sizes (1, 2, 3, …, 10+), along with the average team size (e.g., 6.9).
- Interpreting the Chart:
- Large Teams (8–10+): Could be unwieldy if leadership isn’t well‐defined. Consider splitting or adding co‐captains.
- Small Teams (1–2): These participants might struggle with insufficient skill sets or resources. Offer them matching opportunities or encouragement to join bigger teams.
- Overlap (Multiple Teams): Sometimes mentors float between teams, or participants sign up for multiple projects. Confirm this arrangement is beneficial.
Idea Status
A donut chart that shows a breakdown of submissions by status. You can change the colors and labels for status in the site setup menu.
Callouts
Engagement Percentage
- Shows the proportion of users who are currently most active in your event. Calculated as the count of participants that have performed two or more actions.
- High engagement is typically a good sign, suggesting that your content, challenges, or tasks are resonating with those users.
Draft Ideas
- Indicates how many ideas arena draft status.
- Nudge Button: Sends a targeted email prompt to the users who have drafts, reminding them to finalize and submit their ideas.
Multiple-Team Participants
- Tells you how many individuals are currently on more than one team.
- Nudge Button: Lets you email this specific group—perhaps to confirm their availability or encourage them to focus on a primary team.
How the Nudge Button Works
By clicking Nudge, you can send an email directly to the relevant cohort. For example, you might remind users with draft ideas to complete their submissions, or check in with participants spread across multiple teams to keep them informed or balance workloads. This helps drive timely action and keeps everyone on track.
Timeline
A Powerful Timeline View: Multiple Metrics, Goals, and Comparisons
The timeline view offers a comprehensive look at your event, letting you toggle among a range of metrics—such as total participants, total visitors or total ideas,—to visualize trends as they develop. Scheduler phase overlays highlight each stage of your hackathon, helping you see exactly how metrics shift over time. You can set numeric goals (like reaching a certain number of participants or visits) and watch your progress approach or exceed that target.
By comparing current performance with historical data, you’ll know if you’re on track to surpass previous benchmarks. You can also mark key announcements (email blasts, social media posts, or internal newsletters) right on the timeline, then monitor any resulting spike in engagement or signups.
Why It Matters
- Real‐Time Adjustments: Easily spot when you’re lagging behind goals and respond with targeted outreach.
- Budget Awareness: Tracking cost per participant helps identify where funds might be reallocated or optimized.
- Data‐Driven Communication: Validate which announcements boost interest, and refine your messaging or channels if results fall short.
Event Activity Heatmap
A calendar‐style heatmap of daily engagement throughout the Hackathon. Darker squares indicate higher activity—like a spike in visits, submissions, comments or votes.
- Why It’s Helpful:
- Shows patterns of activity, letting you see which days are typically “hot” or “cold.”
- Helps you decide when to schedule big announcements or when to run “lightning challenges” to spark interest.
- Practical Tips:
- Notice if weekends are usually quieter—consider short weekend push challenges or automated reminder emails.
- Align heavy marketing or communication efforts with the days that show consistently strong engagement.
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