NEW 2019 Guidelines for setting up Mission Day Missions

Guidelines for setting up official Mission Days
Last edit: Feb 6th 2019

While Niantic Event Managers will create the Missions and the Event pages for Mission Days, we will need the help of local agents to create high quality missions and a successful event. If you want to organize a Mission Day together with Niantic, please read the following guidelines carefully. To apply as a Mission Day POC you have to agree to these guidelines.

Mandatory Requirements to have your city selected for a future Mission Day:

2 POCs per Faction (Total 4 POCs) to guarantee a successful xfaction event (also be prepared to provide backup if any POC has to step back from his or her role, for example for private reasons).
All POCs have to pass Ingress background checks by Niantic. These background checks will be used to determine if a player has violated the Terms of Service (TOS).
NEW: (If one POC from your application gets rejected by OPS you can provide a replacement candidate within 1 week after being informed about this. If your second applicant is rejected again or if more than one person from your initial proposal is rejected by OPS your Mission Day application will be denied.)
NEW: If you want to have a Mission Day in your city on the weekend of an Anomaly, you will have to apply, too. This has not to be done by the same POCs who have been selected for the Anomaly. (Please note: At primary Anomaly sites the Mission Day check-in will be handled by Niantic. Therefore you would not have to provide the information mentioned later in section 3, 4, 6 and 8.)
NEW: 2019 Mission Day application form to be found here

The following is required by POCs for a successful Mission Day (details below):

An approved partner, like the local tourism board. This partner has to provide their official logo for the Mission Day badges. (Mission Days without partners are possible, but submissions with a viable candidate will always be preferred.)
A list of portals, descriptions and pictures for 18 - 24 official Mission Day missions.
Find a venue for check-in.
Provide an agenda for the day.
Decide if you want to provide additional community support.
(If you want to do a group picture.) Get a permit for taking this photo / gathering people in a public space.
NEW: Make a copy and fill out and follow the checklist, so Niantic knows you are on track.
After the event: Provide Niantic with a list of agents who registered for Mission Day no later than 24h after the event.

Niantic will provide the following to each POC for their hard work:

The official POC volunteer coin. (If your region supports this and only as long as supplies last. Otherwise you’ll get a Very Rare Loadout Code instead.)
Additional Loadout Codes if the following deadlines are met:
– Early Deadline: 30 Days before the event. Reward: Very Rare Loadout Code. (You will of course also get the additional Rare Loadout Code from the target Deadline below.)
To get this reward you will have to provide all data from section 1 to 5.

– Target Deadline: 21 days prior to the event. Reward: Rare Loadout Code.
To get this reward you will have to provide all data from section 1 to 5.
– Cut-off Deadline: 14 days prior to the event. Reward: none.
Please be aware: If you do not provide all data from section 1 to 5 until 14 days till the event, Niantic will cancel the Mission Day.

1. Approved Partner (eg. Tourism board/City)

Niantic encourages to have a local partner for the Mission Day. We recommend the local tourist board or the city as an officially approved partner. But also the following kind of organisations or companies are partners that are likely to get approved: museums, non-profit organizations or other organizations who support historic, cultural, ecological or artistic values and have a local presence. All partners have to be approved by Niantic. The final decision lies with your local Niantic event manager.

If you local partner is a tourist board or the city, Niantic also encourages POCs to get approval to use the official pictures of local landmarks. This guarantees a high quality for the mission pictures and gives city officials an additional chance to highlight their city within our game.

What is needed for Niantic approval of your partner? Please send Niantic the written approval (email or letter) from the partner you have chosen. This written approval has to include that Niantic is allowed to use the partners logo for the digital mission badges in the app (and official pictures of landmarks if provided). Please provide a screenshot or PDF scan of this permission via the Google Drive Folder that you use for all assets when sharing them in the Mission Day Slack channel.

What to do if my partner does not approve the use of their logo? Only organisations who provide approval for their logo can become an official partner. In the case that any problems with your partner arise after the initial approval of the Mission Day, it is possible to proceed without a partner. But this has to be discussed and approved with your local event manager.

2. How to Create Mission Day Missions

Niantic requires 18-24 missions to be created for Mission Day. Do not go beyond 24.

The number of portals per mission is limited between 6 to 10. Hack/passphrase only.

Mission Names:
Identify a landmark or theme for each mission.

Mission name should be: “MD YEAR: City, Name of landmark” eg. MD 2018: Paris, Eiffel Tower

Max 50 characters for each mission name.

Mission Description:
Please provide a description. Max 200 characters for each mission description. It is possible to provide a description in your local language. But if you do, you will also have to include an English translation (still within the 200 character limit for both together).

Mission Badges:

NEW: Please use one of the following templates to create the Mission badges:
1) The official Niantic Mission Day template. You can find it here. (No changes to the design allowed!)

Update: The Orbitron font is incompatible with non-english languages, such as Japanese. If you wish to display non-English font, please be sure to use copyright-free fonts.

2) The official Mission Day template for partners. You can find it here. The partners logo must be placed in the designated area. (No changes to the design or the partner logo allowed!) The final design has to be approved by Niantic.

Format: .png
Please give the pictures numbers so they can be assigned to each mission easily.

Use the official template to submit your missions:

Please make a copy of the following template, remove all the examples, and fill it with your own missions. Please submit this document as part of your Google Drive folder with the mission pictures. Please do not create your own template. Only the official template will be accepted.

Link to Official Template (with examples)

Passphrases:
Niantic encourages you to use passphrases as part of your missions to enhance the exploration aspect of Mission Day. When creating a passphrase it is important that the answer can be found at the Portal. Please use the following example as reference. Best practice is to use numbers or names (as they are easy to figure out for international agents, too). If you want to provide passphrases in your local language, please provide an English translation, too.

Missions going live:
Missions will go live some time between 0.00 and 10.00 am on the day of the Mission Day.

Additional Notes for creating missions:

Focus on showcasing the best Portals in your city.
Do not start missions with a field trip waypoint (they need to start with a portal)
Do NOT add portals twice to missions (it is annoying for agents if they have to wait or to use a heat sink.)
Missions can be sequential or non-sequential depending on the situation – but agents shouldn’t have to walk back and forth. Therefore please only lead them in a direct route.
Choose nice and beautiful portals (no bins for eg.).
NEW: Agents only need to complete 6 missions to get Mission Day medal for all type of Mission Days (stand alone or Anomaly Mission Days). To complete six missions should require ca 2 hours. As agents should not feel stressed or rushed during the event. Mission Day is about exploring the city. So the missions should be easily doable for e.g. a family with kids or agents in wheelchairs – less is more!
You are not allowed to impose any additional restriction for the mission day registration beyond the 6 mission limit.
Mission Day missions cannot be part of a banner.
Agents with physical impairment have to finish 1 official Mission Day mission to earn the Mission Day badge. (Final choice whom this applies to lies with the POCs.)
Use the template here to submit us mission details

Commemorative Banner Missions:

Niantic encourages you to create banner missions that agents can do as an additional activity in your city on Mission Day. Up to two of these banners (one per faction) can be featured on the official event page or the newsletter. Please submit such missions no later than two weeks before the event. Fast tracking commemorative banner missions should not be expected nor guaranteed. And please follow the following guidelines to make sure your banners can be approved.

Guidelines for setting up Commemorative Banner Missions

3. Book Check-in Venue

You will have to book or provide a public venue, where agents can check-in after they have completed at least 6 missions. Please give agents a minimum of two hours for registration (starting earliest at 12 noon).

NEW: Niantic does not allow email check-in anymore. We want to encourage agents meeting and spending time together. Visiting the check-in and interacting with fellow agents is part of a Mission Day experience that we want to foster.

What is a good check-in venue?

This is usually a location somewhere within the cluster of available missions, usually a café or
restaurant, or a park/large open area – or sometimes a communal space provided by the city if they are partner of the event.

How to check-in agents:

NEW: Check in process

On the day before Mission Day, Niantic shares an RSVP list containing all registered agent names to POCs.
At the Mission Day: Agents arrive at the check-in venue and show their scanner (Agent Name + missions badges cleared) to the POCs.
The POCs match the name in the scanner with the agent name on the RSVP list and check them off
If agents are not on the list because they did not RSVP or did so after the list was exported, POCs should give agents the chance to register on-site via the Mission Day event website. Any agent who registers on-site has to show their confirmation email on their phone to the POCs. Only then are the POCs allowed to add this agent on their list.
The POCs have until 24 hours after the event to submit their check-in list to Niantic. See more information about this in step 8. (Please do not add additional agent information like email addresses or real life names to the check-in list.)
Niantic verifies all names gathered by the POCs with the official registration via the official Mission Day website. Agents who are not both registered with Niantic AND checked in with the POCs on-site, will not get a Mission Day medal.
Please note: The registration QR code that is sent out with the ticket, is only required for Mission Days where Niantic handles the registration themselves.

4. Create a Registration Schedule

You are required to provide a registration schedule for the day of the event. It should include at least the time and place of the registration. Most times it also includes the time and location of the group picture. Feel free to also include other community events you want to provide - this may include and is not limited to: warm-up or after parties, sightseeing tours, xfaction meet-ups.

Sample Agenda:

11:00 till 11:15 – Group Picture (at Central Square)

14:00 till 16:00 – Registration (at Hank’s Bar)

20:00 till 23:00 – After Party (at the XM Factory)

5. Provide Additional Community Support

Community created Mission Maps:

If you want to provide a mission map, please provide the link so that your local Niantic Event Manager can share it on the official event page and newsletter.

Community communication channels:
If you have created any social media groups or channels (eg. Facebook Group, Telegram Channel) please provide the link so that your local Niantic Event Manager can share it on the official event page and newsletter.

NEW: Community event websites:

Niantic does not endorse or link to unofficial or community created event pages and QR code registration for Mission Days. POCs are not allowed to sell tickets for the Mission Day.

6. Group Picture

If you have a group picture on your schedule, please inform your city about the location where you will gather for the picture. (Even if no partnership with the city has been established.)

Please share the group picture at the event day or 1-2 days later with your Niantic PoC for social promotion on our Ingress Channels (add the picture credit if needed). Please make sure you get a permit for doing a group picture / gathering many people.

7. Fill Out Checklist

You will have to fill out the following checklist during your way to Mission Day to make sure, that Niantic is aware of all data and information for the Mission Day. In the end this data is then used to create your RSVP website and to send out the reminder newsletter to all participants.

Link to Mission Day Checklist

8. Submit Names for Medal Push

NEW: We are no longer accepting email check-in!
NEW: Niantic will share an RSVP list one day before the event with POCs. (This list may only be used for the registration process.)
NEW: The final Check-in list must be submitted to Niantic no later than 24 hours (one day) after the event. Niantic does not accept any late submissions afterwards. Agent names not on the final Check-in list will not get the Mission Day medal pushed. (Exception: If there are any typos that are recognized by Niantic during the push, your local Niantic representative will contact you with the option to correct these names.)
NEW: Agents must sign up on the official event page AND be on the final Check-in list by the POCs in order to get the Medal assigned.
It may take up to 14 days for the in-game medals to be pushed.

IMPORTANT: Make sure the agent name is the exact same as the scanner profile. Agent names are not case sensitive! Please help us minimize errors so that we can push the medals efficiently. Your Niantic POC will follow up if there are any agent name errors.