Goals and Challenges - About Active Minutes and How To Earn Them

Overview

Learn what active minutes are and how to earn them in Engage. This article is useful to anyone using Goals and Challenges on the Engage App. 

About Active Minutes

Generally, active minutes denotes increased activity or effort as registered by your device. Depending on the technology in your device, that could mean an increased heart rate or faster movement.

All activity is not automatically counted as active minutes. For example, a slower-paced walk may not count towards your active minutes total. Engage will only sync what your device counts as active minutes!

Active Minutes in Engage

Your active minutes that have synced into your Engage account from your device should appear here in the Activity section of the You tab. You can tap the down arrow to view past active minute totals as well.

Earning Active Minutes - Overview of Devices

Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin and Withings can all record active minute data to send to Engage. If you have one of these devices and still aren't syncing any active minutes to Engage, this may indicate that your device isn't picking up that activity as active time.

Each device tracks active minutes differently. Please refer to your specific device brand to learn more about how they track those minutes. You can learn more about what to expect to sync to Engage for each device below.

iPhone/Apple Health

The Apple Health app for iPhone unfortunately does not record active minute data. This means that if you're using an iPhone to record your steps, you won't be able to sync any active minute data to Engage regardless of your time spent on the move.

Note: This does not apply to users with an Apple Watch since the Activity app sends Exercise minutes to the Health app to sync to Engage

For Apple Health users, if you know how much time you've spent actively moving, you can add manual activity entries directly into Engage to account for your active minute time, as long as your challenge admins have enabled manual entry for your organization.

Apple Watch: Exercise Minutes

The Activity app sends Exercise minutes to the Health app to sync to Engage. When you connect an Apple Watch to Engage, Engage syncs your Exercise minutes into the app as active minutes.

Exercise minutes should show correctly in the Apple Health app in order to sync to Engage. You can find your Exercise Minutes category by going to the Apple Health Summary page > Show All Health Data > Exercise Minutes. Minutes need to show here first to sync to Engage:

Note that Workouts minutes are separate from Exercise Minutes. Engage does not sync Workouts at this time. This means your active minute totals needs to show in the Exercise Minutes category to sync.

Fitbit: Active Minutes

When you connect a Fitbit device to Engage, Engage syncs your active minutes that are sent to us from your Fitbit account into the app as active minutes.

Note that Fitbit sends active minute data to Engage, not Active Zone Minute data.

Depending on the Fitbit device you use, your Fitbit app may display Active Zone Minutes instead of active minutes, which means you might see a different total in your Fitbit app than what syncs to Engage.

If your Fitbit device tracks Active Zone Minutes, then you should be able to log in (at the Fitbit website https://accounts.fitbit.com/login, not the app) to view your active minutes recorded by your Fitbit. 

Here's an example of what you should see:

Note: Active Zone Minutes and active minutes are calculated slightly differently.

You can earn active minutes through 10 minutes or more of continuous moderate-to-intense activity, whereas Active Zone Minutes are earned for time spent in the fat burn, cardio, or peak heart-rate zones.

You can learn more by reading the article; Learn about Active Zone Minutes or active minutes on your Fitbit device.

Garmin: Intensity Minutes

When you connect a Garmin device to Engage, Engage syncs your Intensity Minutes into the app as active minutes. Intensity Minutes should show correctly here in the Garmin app in order to sync to Engage:

Note that Engage does not multiply your vigorous minutes by two the way that Garmin does. You should expect to see a lower total per week in Engage as compared to what is shown in your Garmin app if you have vigorous minutes tracked.

Can I Add Active Minutes Manually Into Engage?

If manual activity entry is enabled for your organization, you can add active minute totals manually up to 7 days back. To learn more about manual entry, please see this article on manually adding your activity into Engage.