All timezone settings take daylight savings into account automatically, so challenge start and end times will be adjusted accordingly.

Each user has their own timezone (including admin users) - this is either automatically set when using the mobile app or chosen on the challenge website My Account > Settings.

The challenge starts and ends in the challenge organiser's default timezone. This is chosen when signing up with Big Team Challenge and editable in the admin website under Settings (main menu) > Account > Settings.

By default, challenges start at 00:01 (12:01 am, just after midnight) and end at 23:59 (11:59 pm, just before midnight) in the challenge timezone. This can be customised by our support team if required, please contact us for more information.

Start of the Challenge

When adding or syncing activity, participants choose the date for the activity (not the time). This is important as it means that participants can enter all of their activity on the first day of the challenge, even if the challenge "starts" during that day.

For example, if you set your challenge to start at 09:00 (9 am) London time, participants will not physically be able to enter activity before that point. The challenge will begin at 09:00 and then participants will be able to enter their activity for that day (so this may include their steps walked before 09:00). If the participant is syncing, all of their walked steps for that day will be synced, not just those walked after 09:00.

This makes the challenge fairer if you have a participants around the world. In the above example, a challenge starting at 09:00 in London would start at 20:00 in Melbourne and 02:00 in Los Angeles. Since all participants can add their steps for the whole of the first day to the challenge, participants in Melbourne are not disadvantaged by only having a few hours of walking time on day one.

End of the Challenge

What happens when the challenge ends depends on whether or not you have enabled the grace period.

With the grace period disabled:

Your challenge by default ends at 23:59 on the final day of your challenge (in your challenge timezone). You can contact the support team to change this. After this point in time, no further distance can be added. Please take timezones into account if you have global participation as this may negatively impact people in different timezones. For example, if you end a challenge at 17:00 London time, people in Los Angeles will only be able to add a few hours' worth of activity on the final day of the challenge.

With the grace period enabled:

Your challenge will end at the time specified and your grace period will begin. The default grace period is 24 hours but this can be extended. During the grace period, participants will be able to add all of their activity for the final day of the challenge. For example, if you end a challenge at 17:00 London time on May 31st, while the grace period is active all participants will be able to enter and sync all of their activity for the entire day of May 31st (in their local timezone). Once the grace period is over, the challenge is locked and no more distance can be added.