How to Implement Gamification in Salesforce Experience Cloud 

The moment you hear "gamification," the first that pops in your head is games, enjoyment, and entertainment. And that is not necessarily bad, but when you transfer it to Salesforce Experience Cloud, it is not just about fun; it is a powerful tool to enhance user experience, productivity, and engagement.

In this lesson, we will take you through the Salesforce Experience Cloud gamification setup and show you how you can use it to enable your users to have a positive time and rewarding experience.

Understanding Gamification

Gamification refers to the process of adding game elements to non-game contexts to foster user participation and activity. It is most commonly the process of earning points, badges, and rewards for performing certain actions. Some examples are:

• Posting a comment on a post in a community.

• Completing a lesson or training module in full.

• Sharing best practices with fellow members of a community.

• Competing with peers in challenges or leaderboards.

A fine example of gamification on Salesforce is Trailhead, in which users progress through various modules and earn badges and points, creating a sense of achievement.

Advantages of Gamification in Salesforce Experience Cloud

If gamification is properly implemented, it can greatly increase user engagement and overall experience. Its benefits go even further than that. Below are some of the most important advantages of adding gamification to Salesforce Experience Cloud:

• Increased User Retention – Engaging gamified elements encourage users to return to your platform frequently. Personally, I’m more likely to revisit an online community if it includes interactive and entertaining components.

• Increased User Satisfaction – Old, text-based customer experiences can be dry. A gamified experience makes user interactions a fun experience, resulting in increased satisfaction.

• Increased Collaboration – Gamification establishes a sense of community through encouraging users to work together, exchange their experience, and even compete with other users in a friendly way.

• Enhanced Sales Performance – Gamification can be leveraged by sales teams to drive motivation, accelerate deal closure, and acquire new customers—if presented in an engaging manner.

Key Gamification Features in Salesforce Experience Cloud

Gamification in Salesforce Experience Cloud revolves around three key elements: Recognition Badges, Missions, and Reputation Leaderboards. Before explaining the configuration process, let's explore these features in more detail.

1. Recognition Badges

Recognition Badges are digital rewards which users receive for achieving certain milestones or performing certain actions. The badges are an example of positive reinforcement and one of the best examples of gamification in use:

• Users receive badges through helping others in the community and contributing to it.

• Other badges are rewarded for doing certain pre-defined actions, like commenting on a post or joining the community.

• Recognition badges underscore expertise and sharing of knowledge.

• Leadership-based badges recognize people who volunteer as mentors.

2. Missions

Missions are organized tasks that enable users to earn badges, points, and other benefits. Because issuing badges manually may be labour-intensive, Missions assist in streamlining the process.

Each mission in Experience Cloud revolves around a specific action, such as:

• Writing a post

• Leaving a comment

• Receiving a comment

• Liking a post

• Asking or answering a question

• Marking an answer as the best

• Uploading a profile picture

Missions provide users with clear objectives and motivate them to take meaningful actions within the community.

3. Reputation Leaderboards

Gamification thrives on competition. To prevent community interactions from becoming a passive experience, Reputation Levels and Leaderboards introduce a competitive element.

Reputation Leaderboards highlight top-performing users based on their accumulated points, badges, and engagement metrics. When enabled, Salesforce automatically activates a default point system with reputation levels that community managers can customize.

The benefits of leaderboards are similar to those of badges and missions, but they serve as an additional motivation booster, especially for users who might otherwise remain inactive.

Each user’s reputation level appears on their profile within the Influence Board, making their contributions visible to the entire community. As new users join, they start at the lowest reputation level but can progress by engaging with posts, answering questions, and actively participating in discussions.

How to Set Up Gamification in Salesforce Experience Cloud: A Step-by-Step Guide

Now that we’ve covered the fundamentals, let’s walk through the process of integrating gamification into a Salesforce Experience Cloud site. Follow these straightforward steps to get started—no rocket science involved!

Step 1: Accessing Gamification in Experience Builder

Begin by logging into your Salesforce organization. In the Home tab, type Digital Experiences into the Quick Find box and select All Sites.

Once inside, you’ll see a list of all the Experience Cloud sites (also known as digital experiences) you’ve created. Choose the site where you want to enable gamification and locate the Workspaces action. Click on it.

Now, you’re inside the backend of an Experience Cloud site. Look for the Gamification tab under My Workspaces and enter it.

If your website does not currently have gamification enabled, you will need to do so in order to begin utilizing features such as Leaderboards, Missions, and Recognition Badges. Since it hasn't been activated on my site yet, let's go on to the next step.

Step 2: Enabling Thanks Settings

We’re getting closer! You might assume gamification can be configured in Salesforce Lightning, but that’s not the case, some settings need to be adjusted in Salesforce Classic.

To switch to Salesforce Classic, go to the Home screen, click View Profile in the top-right corner, and select Switch to Salesforce Classic.

Once inside the Classic interface, navigate to Setup. In the Quick Find box on the left, type WDC and select WDC Settings.

Here, enable Thanks Settings, this is a crucial step for activating gamification, as it allows you to create Recognition Badges and Missions.

After enabling it, return to Experience Builder Workspace → Gamification and refresh the page. Congratulations, gamification is now active on your Experience Cloud site! Now, the real fun begins.

Step 3: Creating a Recognition Badge

With Recognition Badges and Missions now available, let’s create our first badge.

Note: You must assign a badge before creating a mission.

Salesforce provides default badges like Welcome, Congratulations, Nice Work, and Thanks. You can either modify these or create a new one from scratch.

For this example, I’ll create a Top Performer badge, which will be awarded to the most active and engaged community members.

Options include:

• Making the badge public (allowing community members to award it to others).

• Marking it as Active.

• Associating it with a Mission so it’s awarded automatically when certain actions are completed.

After configuring the badge, click Save. Now, it’s time to create a mission.

Step 4: Setting Up a Mission

To encourage engagement, I created a Comment mission, which rewards members every time they leave a comment in the community. Upon completing the mission, they receive the Top Performer badge we just created.

To set up a similar mission:

• Click New in the Missions section.

• Define the mission criteria.

• Associate it with a Recognition Badge (in this case, the Top Performer badge).

• Save your mission.

Step 5: Enabling Reputation in Experience Cloud

Now, let’s activate the Reputation feature and levels within the Experience Cloud site.

Go to Experience Workspaces → Administration → Preferences, then enable Setup and display of reputation levels. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Note: If Chatter is not enabled on your site, the Reputation section won’t appear. To enable it, go to Administration → Preferences and check Show all settings in Workspaces.

Step 6: Customizing Reputation Levels and Points

Next, configure Reputation Levels and Points to motivate users to engage with the site. Salesforce provides 10 default reputation levels, but you can customize them to align with your brand identity.

To modify them:

• Go to Experience Workspaces → Administration → Reputation Levels and customize the names and values.

• Click Save.

For Reputation Points, follow the same process in Administration → Reputation Points. Here, you can assign specific point values for different activities. If you don’t want users to earn points for a particular action, simply enter 0 in the points field.

Step 7: Adding Gamification Components to the Site Layout

With Recognition Badges and Missions in place, it’s time to integrate them into your Experience Cloud site.

• • • Open Experience Builder.

    • In the left-hand dashboard, navigate to Components and search for Gamification.

    • Drag and drop the Reputation Leaderboard component onto the site layout and configure its display settings (up to 10 users can appear on the leaderboard).

    • Add Recognition Badges by dragging and dropping the component onto the layout.

    • Customize the button text (e.g., "Give") to encourage badge distribution.

Now, community members can view and award badges, but they won’t be able to assign badges to themselves.

Step 8: Viewing Gamification as a Community User

Now, let’s take a look at the community from a user’s perspective.

Click on your profile avatar (usually in the top-right corner). Here, you’ll find:

• The Influence Board, displaying your followers, posts, comments, and likes.

• Your Reputation Level, Reputation Badges, and Points (if configured by the site admin).

• The Reputation Leaderboard, showcasing top contributors based on engagement.

As users participate more, their reputation level increases, helping foster a dynamic and interactive community.

Final Thoughts

Setting up gamification in Salesforce Experience Cloud is a straightforward yet impactful process. While it involves multiple steps, the benefits far outweigh the effort.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• • • Salesforce Classic still plays a role in setting up certain features, so be prepared to switch interfaces.

    • Creativity is key, customize gamification elements to match your brand and community goals.

Don’t hesitate to seek expert advice. Partners like Appinventors specialize in Salesforce Experience Cloud implementation and can provide additional guidance.