Creating an external coaching activity lets your participants demonstrate a skill outside of a structured presentation—such as a sales pitch, product walkthrough, or customer conversation—and submit a recording or document for review and grading. By configuring the activity with clear instructions, supporting content, defined participants and reviewers, a measurable rubric, and the right delivery settings, you can deliver consistent, repeatable coaching that scales across your team.

See how it looks

Key features

• Provide rich, formatted instructions and supporting Brainshark or uploaded content
• Assign participants and route submissions to named reviewers, the participant’s manager, or their designated coach
• Choose a rating, pass/fail, or no-grade evaluation model with a weighted, multi-category rubric
• Use the Virtual Coach evaluation scope to ground AI-generated feedback in your own reference material
• Enable take limits, leaderboards, peer sharing, and multiple submission formats (video, screen recording, document)

You need this to succeed

• Plan: Bigtincan Basic Readiness, Bigtincan Elite, Bigtincan Essential, Bigtincan Readiness, Bigtincan Standard Plus, Bigtincan RolePlayAI
• Permissions: Activity Creator or Head Coach
• Prerequisites: Your Company Administrators must enable external coaching activities. Participants must have an active Brainshark account.

Do this step by step

Create an external coaching activity

1. Click the Coaching tab.
2. Click the Create button and select External Activity.
3. Configure the activity in order across the three tabs. Start in General to define the activity, content, and audience; move to Feedback and grading to set up scoring.

Define the activity on the General tab

Capture the identity of the activity, the learning content, and the people involved.

1. Enter a clear, descriptive Title. This is the required field that participants and reviewers see in their dashboards and email notifications.
2. In Instructions for participants, use the rich-text editor to describe the scenario, expectations, and evaluation focus. You have up to 4,000 characters and can apply bold, italics, lists, links, alignment, and other formatting to make the brief easy to scan.
3. In the Content section, click Select Brainshark content to reuse an existing presentation, or click the upload icon to add an image, document, or PowerPoint from your device.
4. In Participants, click Select and choose the individuals or groups who must complete the activity.
5. In Reviewers, click Select to assign named reviewers. Optionally, enable Participant’s Manager or Participant’s designated Coach under Assign reviewers to route submissions based on org-chart relationships.
6. Under Reviewer visibility, select Allow peer reviewer visibility if you want reviewers to see each other’s feedback for calibration. Leave it off to keep grading independently.

Set up scoring on the Feedback and grading tab

Determine how submissions are evaluated and how the Virtual Coach is configured.

1. Under the Grading system, choose Rating (and select a scale from 2 to 10—the default is 5), Pass / Fail for binary outcomes, or None if you want feedback only with no score.
2. In the Feedback categories, review the default categories (Accuracy, Certainty, Expertise, Energy, Overall). Edit the Title, Description, and Percentage of any row, click Add to create new categories (up to 10 total), or use the row checkboxes to remove ones you don’t need.
3. Adjust the Percentage values so the Total equals 100%. The system enforces this rule before you can save.
4. Optionally, expand Virtual coach evaluation scope and describe in natural language what the AI should focus on when generating feedback. You can write up to 50,000 characters.
5. If you want to ground the Virtual Coach in your own material, upload a PDF reference file under Content. The file must be no larger than 32 MB or 100 pages and cannot be password-protected.

Control delivery and submission formats on the More tab

Govern attempt limits, communications, engagement, and accepted submission formats.

1. Under Take limit, enable Enable take limit if you want to cap the number of attempts. Limiting takes increases the stakes and prevents endless rerecording.
2. Under Email notifications, decide which messages to send to reviewers: Send reviewer a challenge submission notification (on by default), Send an email to announce the activity, and Send daily reminders.
3. Use the Leaderboards toggle to publish a public ranking based on scores. Turn it on for gamified engagement, leave it off for sensitive coaching scenarios.
4. Under Peer feedback, select Share with peers prior to submitting to review if you want participants to exchange drafts with colleagues before formal submission.
5. In Submission types, select the formats participants can use: Record a video and Upload a video; Create a screen recording; and Upload a document. Mobile app submissions are limited to record or upload only.
6. Click Save to continue at the top of the page to publish the activity.

Design effective external coaching activities

Strong external coaching activities pair a clear scenario with a measurable rubric and the right delivery settings. Use the guidance below to keep your activities consistent, fair, and easy to scale.

Best practices for writing the brief

• Use a verb-led Title that names the skill being practiced (for example, “Deliver the new product pitch to a CFO”).
• Structure Instructions for participants with a short scenario paragraph followed by a numbered list of expected behaviors.
• Link to one supporting Brainshark presentation or document—not several—so participants focus on the most relevant material.
• State the take limit and submission format in the brief so participants know the rules before they start.

Choosing reviewers and visibility

• Assign named reviewers when consistency across submissions matters; use Participant’s Manager for line-manager coaching, or Participant’s designated Coach for ongoing mentorship programs.
• Enable Allow peer reviewer visibility for calibration sessions and new-reviewer onboarding. Disable it when you want each reviewer’s grade to stand on its own.

Designing the rubric

• Limit yourself to four to six feedback categories. Fewer categories make grading faster and reduce inter-rater variability.
• Write each Description as an observable behavior (“Asks at least three discovery questions”) rather than a subjective trait (“Is curious”).
• Weight categories to reflect what matters most for this skill—core behaviors should carry more than supporting ones.
• Use a 5-point Rating scale for most coaching scenarios; choose Pass / Fail only for compliance-style certifications.

Engagement and delivery settings

• Enable Send daily reminders for short-window activities to boost completion rates.
• Use Leaderboards for cohort programs and sales kickoffs; avoid them for new-hire or sensitive coaching.
• Turn on peer sharing when the activity is intentionally collaborative (for example, drafting an objection-handling script before the formal pitch).
• Match Submission types to the skill: video for verbal delivery, screen recording for product demos, document for written deliverables.

Example: A discovery-call coaching activity

Use this example as a template when configuring your first external coaching activity.

• Title: Run a 10-minute discovery call with a VP of Operations
• Instructions: Record yourself running a discovery call with a prospect playing the role of a VP of Operations at a mid-market manufacturer. Cover qualification, current-state pain, and next steps.
• Content: Discovery Call Framework (Brainshark presentation)
• Reviewers: Participant’s Manager + one named Sales Enablement reviewer
• Grading: Rating, 5-point scale
• Feedback categories: Discovery questions (30%), Active listening (25%), Pain identification (25%), Next-step commitment (20%)
• Take limit: 2
• Submission type: Record a video

Distribute the activity after saving

After you click Save to continue, the activity is assigned a backend ID and the More tab gains a new Share section, a Download section, and an Add participants by default when login toggle under Participants. Use these options to distribute the activity outside the built-in invitation flow.

Share the activity link

The Share section displays a direct link to the activity, along with a Copy Link button. The link embeds the unique challenge ID created at save time, which is why this section is hidden during initial creation.

• Click Copy Link to copy the URL to your clipboard.
• Paste the link into Slack, Microsoft Teams, an enablement newsletter, or your intranet.
• Forward the link to managers who can distribute it to their reports.
• Note: Recipients still need an active Brainshark account to launch the activity.

Download a SCORM package for your LMS

The Download section exports the activity as a SCORM package so you can launch it from a learning management system instead of Brainshark’s native interface. Two formats are available, each with a download icon on the right.

• SCORM 1.2: Broad compatibility with older corporate LMSs. Choose this for the widest support.
• SCORM 2004: Richer tracking, including sequencing, multiple attempts, and granular score reporting. Choose this for modern LMSs that fully support the standard.
• Upload the downloaded package to your LMS (for example, Cornerstone, SAP SuccessFactors, Docebo, or Workday Learning). Learners launch the activity from inside their normal training catalog and completion data flows back through the SCORM API.

Auto-enroll participants on login

A new Add participants by default when login toggle appears under Participants on the More tab. With this toggle on, any user who reaches the activity through the Share link or a SCORM launch is automatically enrolled the first time they log in, as long as they have an active Brainshark account. With it off, only the participants you explicitly listed on the General tab can submit.

• Turn the toggle on for self-service distribution at scale (cohort launches, sales kickoffs, and LMS-driven rollouts).

• Turn it off for tightly controlled activities where you want to manage the audience by hand.

  Note: Auto-enrollment does not bypass the take limit, grading rubric, or submission types you configured. Those rules apply identically to participants who arrive through the link or SCORM package.

Note: Only participants who have an active Brainshark account will be able to participate in this Coaching activity. 

SCORM files created for an external Coaching activity do not pass completion over to an LMS. Since the SCORM file is created from a Coaching Activity which cannot be "completed", a student's completion status would not update in an LMS after uploading their submission.