How to Set Up and Award Badges in SureDash

Badges let you recognise members for their participation and achievements on your SureDash portal. You can create your own badges, customise how they look, award them automatically when a member reaches a leaderboard level or membership tier, and assign them by hand to any member at any time.

Before You Start

• Administrator access to your WordPress dashboard.
• SureDash is installed and activated on your site.
• To set up automatic badge awards based on leaderboard levels, the Leaderboard feature must be active in SureDash.
• To set up automatic awards based on memberships, you need the SureMembers plugin installed and configured.

Part 1: Create and Customise a Badge

Step 1: Go to the Badges section

In your WordPress dashboard, click SureDash in the sidebar. Click Settings, then scroll down the left panel and click Badges under the Gamification section.

Step 2: Add a new badge

Click the + Add Badge button in the top-right corner of the User Badges area. A new blank row will appear at the bottom of the list.

Type the name of your badge directly into the text field in the new row — for example, Early Adopter or Course Champion.

Tip: Keep badge names short and action-oriented. Names like “Top Contributor” or “Space Champion” are more motivating than generic names like “Badge 1”.

Step 3: Customise the badge appearance

Click the edit icon (pencil) next to the badge name to open the Edit Badge panel. Here you can adjust three things:

• Icon Visibility: Choose Visible to show the badge icon on member profiles, or Hidden to keep it out of sight.
• Color: Sets the colour of the badge icon.
• Background: Sets the background colour behind the icon.

When done, click Return to Save, then click Save on the main Badges page.

Part 2: Award Badges Automatically

SureDash can award badges to members automatically through two integrations — the built-in Leaderboard and the SureMembers plugin. You set these up inside the Edit Badge panel for each badge.

Step 4: Assign a badge to a Leaderboard level

Open the Edit Badge panel for the badge you want to automate. Under Leaderboard Integration, click the Assign Badge When User Achieves the Level dropdown and choose a level.

SureDash has six leaderboard levels, from lowest to highest:

Leaderboard Level	What it means
Space Initiate	The starting level — awarded when a member first becomes active
Space Pathfinder	Member is beginning to build a presence on the portal
Space Enthusiast	Member is regularly engaging with content and spaces
Space Champion	Member is a consistent, active contributor
Space Luminary	Member is among the top contributors on the portal
Space Master	The highest level — awarded to the most active members

Once a member reaches the level you selected, SureDash will award them this badge automatically.

Step 5: Assign a badge to a membership (optional)

If you use SureMembers, you can also award a badge when a member joins a specific membership tier. Under SureMembers Integration, choose the membership from the Assign Badge When User Gets In Membership dropdown.

Note: You can set both a Leaderboard level and a SureMembers membership on the same badge. SureDash will award the badge whenever either condition is met.

Click Return to Save, then Save to apply your settings.

Part 3: Award a Badge Manually

You can give any badge to a specific member at any time, regardless of whether it has automatic rules set. This is useful for recognising contributions that happen outside of leaderboard activity — like helping a new member or making a standout post.

Step 6: Open the member’s profile

In SureDash, click Users in the top navigation. Find the member you want to recognise and click on their name.

A profile panel will open showing the member’s details and any badges they currently hold.

Step 7: Add the badge

Click the + Add Badges button. A dropdown will appear listing all your available badges as checkboxes.

Tick the badge you want to award, then click Save. The badge will appear on the member’s profile immediately.

Tip You can assign multiple badges to a member at the same time — just tick all the relevant boxes before clicking Save. Members can also see their badges on their public profile page on your portal.

Troubleshooting

A badge is not being awarded automatically after a member reaches a leaderboard level Open the Edit Badge panel for that badge and confirm the correct level is selected under Leaderboard Integration. Also, check that the Leaderboard feature is enabled in SureDash Settings. If it were just set up, the badge would only be awarded to members who reach the level from this point forward.

A badge I deleted is still showing on a member’s profile Deleting a badge from the Badges list does not automatically remove it from members who already have it. You will need to open each affected member’s profile and untick the badge manually.

You are all set

Your badges are now set up and ready to go. Members will see any badges they earn on their profile, giving your community a visible sense of progress and recognition.