Set up communication channels¶

The Grand Challenge platform offers several communication tools for both organizers and participants. These tools help streamline announcements, questions, and support throughout your challenge.

Forum (Organizers & Participants)¶

We recommend enabling the forum for your challenge. It serves as a shared space for:

• Organizers to post announcements and updates
• Participants to ask public questions and see responses
• Building a shared knowledge base visible to all users

By default, both organizers and participants are subscribed to the challenge forum. When a new topic is created, it triggers a notification. Whether users also receive an email depends on their notification settings:

• Receive emails immediately
• Get daily digests
• Or opt out of emails entirely

To post in the forum:

• Go to your challenge forum and create a new topic
• Under "Post topic as", select either:
  • Post — a standard forum message
  • Announcement — highlighted and pinned to the top for visibility

⚠️ Forum questions are public. We recommend using it for general inquiries so other participants can benefit from the answers, reducing your support load.

Organizer ➡️ Participant Communication¶

Direct Messaging¶

Organizers can send private messages to participants directly:

• Go to Admin → Participants tab
• Click the "Message User" button next to the participant’s name
  OR
• Use the same button from an evaluation’s detail page

If this is your first message to a participant, a new thread will be created. Otherwise, it opens the existing conversation.

Participant ➡️ Organizer Communication¶

Contact via Email¶

Participants can reach out directly to organizers by clicking the "Contact Challenge Admin" button on the challenge homepage. This will send an email to the address specified in your challenge's Contact Email setting.

⚠️ Organizers should monitor this inbox to ensure timely responses.

Forum Questions¶

As noted above, the forum allows participants to ask questions openly. This is preferred for general issues or clarification requests, as it promotes transparency and reduces duplicate support requests.