Participating in Challenges

Overview

OuterSpatial challenges are activities created by organization partners. A challenge can ask you to visit places, scan QR codes, answer questions, upload photos, or complete other tasks.

Some challenges are public in a community. Others may be shared by a link or QR code. You need to be logged in before joining or submitting challenge responses.

Find a Challenge

You can find challenges from several places:

• The Open & Upcoming Challenges section on your community home screen.
• Search or the Challenges list.
• A challenge section on a place or organization when a place is connected to a challenge.
• An invite link or QR code shared by an organization.
• The Challenges area in your profile after you have joined.

If a challenge list says No Matching Challenges, choose a different status filter. If it says Couldn’t Load Challenges, check your connection and tap Try Again. Retrying keeps your selected status.

Open a challenge to see the host organization, description, dates, requirements, rules, tasks, locations, photos, prizes, and related community activity when those sections are available.

When a challenge has sponsors, their names and logos appear in the challenge header. Tap a sponsor to learn more, visit its website, or open its organization page when available.

Review Challenge Timing

Challenge timing controls which actions are available:

• Open challenges can be joined and completed.
• Upcoming challenges can show Add to Calendar until they start.
• Expired challenges no longer accept new submissions.
• Open-Ended challenges do not show a fixed end date.

If a challenge has expired or has not started yet, OuterSpatial explains that submissions are not currently accepted.

Join a Challenge

Open the challenge and join it, logging in if prompted. The join screen can show requirements such as notifications, location access, required task counts, custom rules, or email sharing with the organization. Some challenges also require a complete profile or age assurance before you can continue.

iOS

Tap Participate, then review and accept the challenge rules.

Android

Tap Join Challenge, review the host, requirements, terms, and any custom rules, then tap I Agree.

Complete Tasks

Open the Tasks tab to review all available tasks. You can filter between to-do and completed tasks and pull to refresh. Some tasks can be locked until another task is complete.

Common task types include:

• Check-In: Go to the required place and tap Check In.
• QR Code: Scan the QR code provided by the organization.
• Survey: Complete the required survey.
• Photo: Submit a photo for the requested place or category.

Follow the host's rules for check-ins. Some challenges allow you to check in remotely and do not require location access. Others check your proximity to the place.

The challenge screen shows which tasks still need work and which are complete. Some challenges require every task; others require a minimum number of tasks.

Hunting Check-Ins in Hawaiʻi

Choose Hunting Check In from Create to open the hunting challenge, then join if

needed and complete your check-in before your hunt. When area selection is

available for your account, choose your hunting area. Starting from Hunting

Check In on a participating area's page selects that area for you.

Complete the matching check-out after your hunt. Each check-out keeps the area

chosen for that hunt, including when you have more than one hunt in progress.

Submit Photos

Photo challenges can use locations, categories, or both.

1. Open the Photos, Locations, or Categories tab depending on the challenge.
2. Tap Submit Photo.
3. Choose the required location or category when prompted.
4. Add or change the photo.
5. Answer any required questions.
6. Submit the photo.

Once a photo submission has been saved, its category cannot be changed in the app or by the organizer. Review the category before submitting.

Some categories have submission limits. If you reach the maximum number of submissions for a category, OuterSpatial shows Limit Reached.

Like Challenge Photos

Tap the heart on another participant's photo in Photos or open the photo and tap its heart. Log in when prompted. Tap the heart again to remove your like. If a like cannot be saved, check your connection and try again.

Photo like counts include ordinary likes outside the challenge dates. When People's Choice is enabled, only qualifying likes received during the challenge count toward judging. The organizer selects and publishes the winners.

Save Photos That Could Not Sync

If a submission is rejected because the challenge ended or closed, your photos remain on this device.

1. Open Settings, then Needs Your Attention.
2. Find the affected submission and tap Save Photo for each photo you want to keep.
3. Choose where to save each copy.
4. After saving your copies, tap Discard Photos and confirm if you want to remove the originals from the app.

Saving a copy does not submit the photo or remove the original. A canceled or failed save leaves the original available. Stay logged in to the same account while recovering photos. Logging out or replacing your account deletes unsynced work and retained photos after you confirm the warning.

View Progress and Results

Use the challenge tabs to move between details, tasks, photos, locations, submissions, community activity, and badges when those sections are available.

When you complete enough required work, the challenge can show a completed state and any earned badge. After a social challenge expires, you can tap View Results when it is available. For photo challenges, this opens Photos, including any published winners. For other challenges, it opens the leaderboard. Some organizations may follow up separately about rewards or prize fulfillment.

Challenge Location Alerts

Some location-based challenges can remind you when you are near task places. These reminders use background location access and are covered, along with how to turn them off, in Location Access and Privacy.

Offline and Pending Responses

If you already joined a challenge, many challenge responses can be saved while you are offline and synced later. If a response is saved while your connection is limited, it can appear as a pending response; open the challenge options menu and choose the pending response action to submit it when you are back online.

After the organizer publishes results, Challenge Winners appears above Photos. Winners are grouped by category and show their award and public attribution. Tap a winner to open the photo post. Category filters also filter winners; some categories may have no published winners. Likes received during the challenge inform People's Choice, but the organizer selects and publishes awards. Unavailable photos are hidden without choosing a replacement.

If the server rejects a photo because you are not eligible, the saved draft explains the reason and stops automatic retries. Other pending submissions can continue. After your eligibility is corrected, use the pending draft action to retry. A manual retry does not restart automatic attempts if it fails.

On Android, automatic uploads pause after four failed attempts for a response. Other pending responses can still upload. Your response and its saved photo stay on your device; use the pending response action to try again after checking your connection. If it continues to fail, contact Visitor Success before removing the app or leaving the challenge.

You still need an internet connection to join a challenge for the first time and to load new challenge details that are not already on your device. Keep OuterSpatial installed and stay logged in so pending responses can sync.

Leave a Challenge

Open the challenge options menu and choose to leave the challenge when you no longer want to participate. Leaving a challenge deletes your existing responses for that challenge and cannot be undone.

Troubleshooting

If you cannot join or submit a challenge response:

1. Check your internet connection.
2. Make sure you are logged in.
3. Confirm the challenge is open and accepting submissions.
4. Confirm the task requirements, such as location, QR code, photo, survey, profile, age assurance, or email sharing.
5. Turn on location access if the task requires proximity validation or you want challenge location alerts.
6. Update OuterSpatial from the App Store or Google Play.

If a private challenge does not appear, open its invite link again. If you are still stuck, contact Visitor Success at visitors@outerspatial.com.