ContestPad provides the unique ability to create a global landing site that can list all published and closed contests. This is great when you plan to run multiple contests and you want your participants a launchpad to access each contest.
It can also be used to provide a historical view of previous competitions and entries which can serve to provide inspiration to your participants for your active competitions.
To enable the Global site pages go to the Global Settings area in the top right cog of the dashboard.
Then scroll down the page until you come to the "Enable global site pages" switch. Change this switch to ON. The Default page will be automatically set to the global site home page.
This means that whenever someone comes to the URL for your contest site without the contest name folder e.g. https://<contest url> the Global site page will be displayed.
Once enabled the Global Site templates and static pages can be configured and the menu to access this will be displayed in the main menu on the right.
This menu is used to style the global Themes (Templates), Email notifications and Static HTML pages.
The global site can be customised just like the contest level standard templates, using the template editor or the template code editor.
Some key differences between the contest level site and the global site include the following:
Contest Gallery
The Contest Gallery contains a list of all the Published and Closed contests. It will never display "Offline" contests. It is displayed in a summary gallery on the homepage (will display the latest three contests on the homepage) or in the Contest Gallery page were all contests will be displayed.
The Contest Gallery also adheres to the permissions you have setup for each contest. That means if you have setup a contest that cannot be viewed unless you are in a specific group then you must be logged in and be a member of that group in order to see the contest in the contest gallery.
When a contest thumbnail is selected the user will be directed to that contest.
Top Entries
The Entries displayed on the global site homepage are from across all of your published contests. You can select the highest voted entries, latest entries, oldest entries, etc. The entries displayed can also be filtered by contest.
Only entries that are from contests that you have access to will be displayed.