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Mission Day

Creation Guide
How to plan for and create a successful Mission Day

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Section
What is Mission Day?
Step 1- Contact Your Local Tourism Board
Step 2- Setup Your Infrastructure
Step 3- Plan Your Missions
Step 4-Submitting a Mission Day Request
Step 5-Approval and Event Planning
Conclusion

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What is Mission Day?
Mission Day is an event sponsored by Niantic Labs and it takes place in cities
around the world. It encourages players of the game Ingress to have an adventure
while exploring their chosen city on foot. It is a non-competitive, non-profit event meant
for players of both factions. The creation and planning of mission day should be a cross
faction activity. Using the Ingress game interface, players visit chosen landmarks and
points of interest, in sequence, to complete each individual mission.

Mission Day is designed in partnership with each chosen cities local tourism
board. This allows the designers to choose missions that are relevant to each city and
access city resources should they be required. The city tourism board logo is
incorporated into each missions individual icon. A volunteer must reach out to a city
contact at the tourism board to request written permission to use their icon.

Mission Day icons with the respective city tourism logo incorporated in their design.

A check in station is setup in the host city for Mission Day. This is usually a
location somewhere within the cluster of available missions, usually a caf or
restaurant, or a park/large open area. Players must check in after completing a
minimum number of required missions in order to earn a Mission Day badge on their
agent profile in Ingress.

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Step 1 - Contact Your Local Tourism Board
The very first step in planning for Mission Day is to reach out to your chosen
cities tourism board for permission to use their images. This can be done by searching
on the chosen city web site or simply by googling for it. In our sample for this document
we will use Calgary. For example, searching for Calgary Tourism in google is enough
to bring you to
http://www.visitcalgary.com. Look for the Contact Us section of your chosen cities
website for contact emails and phone numbers for the tourism office of your host city.
Include the following in your email:
1- State your name and contact information.
2- State that you are a volunteer and that this is for a free non-profit event in the city.
3- Explain what Mission Day is and what Ingress is.
4- Request Permission to use their official logo in the Mission Day icon sets.
5- Tell them the estimated number of attendees.
6- Feel free to include sample images and sample mission information in your email.

If you do not hear back from your local tourism board within a few days, a phone call
or visit to their office is recommended. After you have obtained permission from them to
use their images, and have obtained the image files themselves, save the permission
email or notification in digital format (print email to PDF). Save the email and the images
in your Mission day google drive folder when you obtain it.

Step 2 - Setup Your Infrastructure/Contacts


Ingress is a cross faction event. Make sure you have knowledgeable and
experienced agents from both factions and that all information is shared openly
with them and that you work together. The following tools will help you in planning
Mission Day.

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- Google Drive Folder Shared with all the organizers: For all document storage.
- Google Hangouts or Slack: For coordination of the event and information tracking.
- Google MyMaps: For designing area maps for players.
- Google Sheets: For organizing ALL of your data.
- Photo editing tools: For making it look good.
- Ingress Intel Map (Ingress.com/intel): For planning your missions.
- Identify Photographer: Usually an Agent volunteer to take icon photos and event
photos.
- Identify Check-in Agents: Usually event organizers with experience.

Step 3 - Plan Your Missions


Create a master spreadsheet in your Google Drive folder. This spreadsheet will
be shared when you make your official application for Mission Day to Niantic. This will
be your main working document for tracking every step. Each row in the spreadsheet
will represent an individual mission. Recommended headers are: Mission Name,
Picture Status, Photo Link, Completion, Mission Designer, Link to Portal
Document. In the first cell, or somewhere in the spreadsheet, have a link to the shared
image of the city tourism logo, a link to the file indicating your permission to use that
photo(from step 1), and a master link to the root of your shared google drive containing
all data. You want your spreadsheet to be a one stop shop for the Niantic Employee
who will make these missions for you.

Sample Spreadsheet

Time to start designing missions, for Sunday after anomaly Mission Days, we
have found a formula that leads to a fun, stress-free social event:

1) Recommended number of missions: 18-24 missions


2) Recommended portals per mission: 6 to 8 portals per mission
3) Recommended missions to get medal: 6 missions to get medal

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Agents have flights to catch on Sunday after an anomaly this formula helps everyone
have a chance to participate and gives agents time to meet one another and spend
quality time together rather than just a fast rush from one portal to another. They can
stop and go to a museum, have lunch, and enjoy the day!

For standalone Mission Days, recommended number of missions is 24, and keep it to
less than 10 portals a mission or you risk long tedious meandering missions that
cause back and forth travel and frustration. Many standalone Mission Days can have
6, 9 or 12 missions required since it is on Saturday and players have more time.

Identify the general theme of your mission. You can use existing missions in the area
as a guide, but be sure to design high quality missions that focus on a main landmark
or theme. Quality is more important that quantity Have meaningful descriptions for
specific portals. Here are some examples for mission ideas:

- Mission 1- Central Memorial Park- Portals in the mission are all portals in the park.
- Mission 2- The Peace Bridge- A landmark bridge, all portals selected make you
cross the bridge.
- Mission 3- Center Street Art- All murals along center street. One question could
ask how many hockey players are in this mural? for the portal of a hockey game.

Create a document for each individual mission, save it as the name of that
mission in your Google Drive folder (ie: 1-PeaceBridge.doc), share a link with editing
rights to that document and put the link in the corresponding cell for that mission in your
master spreadsheet. Try to keep all missions within walking distance of each other,
remember you want agents to be able to complete these missions the day of the event.

For each mission you will want a high quality photo for that mission icon. Reach
out to a player in your community with a good camera and photography experience.
Make sure the image for your icon is clear, an accurate representation of that mission,
and looks as they say cool! If you use a sourced image, you must have the rights to
use that image, which is why it is better to simply take your own. Place that image in
your shared drive folder, and create an editing share link of that image and place it in
the corresponding cell in the master portal spreadsheet.

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Sample photo taken by agent f4Runner for Calgary Mission Day

The mission document outlines the portal names of each portal in the
mission. You want to follow the following schema in your portal document

- Document Header has the mission name


- A.) description of portal
- B.) link to mission icon
- C.)Exact Portal Name ie( Stephen Ave Clock ) with description being a sub-
point of that bullet.
- C.)Next Portal Name.

Remember Quality over Quantity when it comes to selecting portals for your
missions. Keep people in wheelchairs in mind and avoid portals in grassy areas or that
are hard to reach. Avoid banners, and try to keep it designed so that 2.5 hours is
enough time for an agent to complete the missions. See below for a sample mission
document.

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Sample Mission Document from Calgary

When you have completed your spreadsheet and you have verified everything
youre your planning team it is time to submit your Mission Day request to Niantic.

Step 4 -Submitting a Mission Day Request


(You may skip Step 4 if you are already in touch with a Niantic Rep)

To submit mission day requests go to: https://www.ingress.com/missionday.


Outline all of the things you have done and include a link to your master spreadsheet
you completed in step 3. Keep the following things in mind:

1- An application for mission day and all the work you have done is not a
guarantee that you will get a mission day.
2- Do some polling to get an accurate estimate of the number of agents you will
have at your event.
3- Include your Ingress experience in the Why should we choose your city?
section.
4- Submit your request at least 2 Months Prior to your proposed event date.

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Step 5 - Approval and Event Planning
For approved Mission Days, a Niantic Representative will reach out to you and you can begin
your next steps. They will fill you in on any remaining details or gaps. The next things to
coordinate are:

1- Where will check-in be? Pick a location within the mission cluster that is open to all
ages and arrange for trusted agents to work the check-in table. Call the site for
permission. Typically a caf or a restaurant works great as agents can socialize after
the event, and the event attracts business for your check-in location.
2- Pick a photo location: Select a field/park/area large enough to support the number of
registered agents at your event and have your photographer scheduled for the photo.
3- Design a map showing the general location of each mission using Google My Maps.
Provide this map to your Niantic Rep for distribution. Head to mymaps.google.com to
access the map designer.

Sample MyMaps document for Calgary Mission Day. Each Icon is placed at
the starting coordinate for each mission. The icons were provided by Niantic
and are modified markers on the map.
4- Create a check-in form for agents who have completed the minimum number of
required missions for Mission Day. Check-in agents will verify on the players
scanner that they have completed the missions, and then have the agent fill out
the form at check in on a laptop or tablet. The check in form should include the
agents Agent Name, Email Address, Faction.

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5- Compile all of the data into a spreadsheet and sent it to your Niantic rep for the badge
push-out.

Conclusion

Mission Day brings agents of all factions together. It is meant


to be an enjoyable event accessible to all who love Ingress and their
communities. Always keep a positive attitude during the event and
remember that you represent Niantic and your community. A strong
cross faction relationship will make this event enjoyable and memorable
for all who attend. Good luck agent!

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