Using a coaching app to track daily activities is a great way to gage client engagement in your coaching program. But while it can be tempting to try to gather loads of data on each client’s habits, asking too much on a daily basis can lead to burnout. Here’s how to find a happy medium.

In this post, we’ll cover our recommendations for tracking a client or patient’s health journey through an online coaching platform, as well as how to configure your program’s tracking protocol in a way that sets your clients up for success.

While my examples will include specific steps and screenshots from the Nudge Coach app and platform, these principles are critical if you want to set the tone for long term engagement and success with any remote coaching program.

When starting to develop your program, think about the experience you want your clients to have from the moment they download the app and create an account.

Do you want to personalize the experience for each and every client? Or do you want all clients to start with a similar (and simple) tracking program? You may even want to start with a standard set of trackers and add personalized content as the program progresses. 

However you choose to configure tracking, we recommend starting with no more than 3-5 trackers at first. A major pitfall we’ve seen with remote coaching is hammering new clients with too many trackers while they’re still getting comfortable using new tools and technologies to work with you.

So stick to the basics until they’re ready to log more details daily. 

Let’s say you’ve just sat down with a new client (we’ll call her “Cath”), to get to know her, establish her goals and get her set up on the app. Maybe she stated that she’s feeling lethargic throughout the day and would like to lose weight. To get a baseline for her lifestyle, you decide to have her track some basic information for the first week: Activities, Steps, Water, and Sleep.

To configure your client’s trackers, start by sending them to their phone’s app store to download the Nudge app. Once they’ve downloaded the app and input your Invite ID, you can now refresh your All Clients list in your coach account and dive into their Profile! Select the client’s name from the list and tap “Personalize Tracking.” From here you can choose from a list of Standard Trackers like the visual below. 

Now let’s say this particular client also mentioned that she struggles with mindfulness and you instruct her to try meditating for just a few minutes a day. To gather insight into whether she’s carving some time out for herself each day, you may want to create a simple meditation tracker for her as well. You can do this with a custom tracker.

To create a custom tracker, select New under the Custom Trackers header. From here you can choose from either a Number or a Text type. A Number tracker allows clients to log just that - a numerical value such as servings of a particular food, ounces of a beverage, milligrams of a supplement, minutes or hours spent with loved ones, etc. Just select the color you’d like to assign the tracker and add a unit of measurement if you’d like. 

A Text tracker allows clients to either type out a written response in an open field, or select from a list of multiple choice answers you create. Let’s create a simple yes/no question for this client’s meditation tracker. Just select the ‘Text’ bubble, and then under Options tap “Select One.”

When you’re satisfied with your custom tracker, click Save in the top-right corner of the box and you can view your client’s tracking protocol in the Program Designer. You can even drag and drop the trackers in the order you would like them to appear in your client’s Daily tab. 

And there you have it: a simple way to configure tracking for a new client! As they progress with your program, you can continue to add more trackers as clients become more acclimated with data tracking, or remove some if their needs or goals evolve.

Set It and Forget It: Dr. Steve’s Approach to Data Tracking

Dr. Steve Feyrer-Melk, Director of Lifestyle Medicine at the Optimal Heart Center and Chief Science Officer for us here at Nudge, takes an interesting approach to configuring tracking for new patients that we recommend for clients or patients that may need some more time acclimating to tracking their daily habits. It’s what we call the ‘Set It and Forget It’ approach.

As of this Society for Participatory Medicine survey back in 2016, 58% of all smartphone owners had already downloaded at least one health tracking app.

Rest assured that percentage is even higher today.

With that in mind, Dr. Steve will sit down with a new patient, have them download the Nudge app, and connect their Nudge app with Fitbit or Apple Health or any of the other apps and wearables that sync with Nudge. He does this to get a baseline of his patients’ activity for the first week or two before configuring additional trackers.

This allows Dr. Steve to properly manage expectations up front, and gather insight into trends in his patients’ behavior while the patients can get comfortable communicating with him through the app.

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To make sure he sets clear expectations with each new coaching client, Dr. Steve asks them to sign a simple, “Rules of Engagement” document before they get started on the coaching app. Fill out a quick form and we’ll send you the template he uses so you can customize it for your own clients. You’ll be surprised how effective this little trick is at setting your clients up for success!

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To follow Dr. Steve’s recommendation, just make sure to check the Steps and Activity trackers when configuring your clients’ tracking protocol. They will be prompted to sync any app(s) they use when creating their account in Nudge.

A lot of people don’t realize that many apps like Fitbit and Apple Health can actually track their activity even if they haven’t purchased a wearable device like an Apple Watch. So even if they don’t own a device, you may still be able to track trends in their activity or other factors without them having to manually log data into the app daily.

Configuring A Tracking Program for All Clients

Now that we’ve covered how to configure tracking for an individual, let’s dive into creating a tracking protocol for members of a cohort or group, or even all clients across the board. This is a great way to streamline configuration if your program calls for the same set of core trackers for all members. 

Rather than configure each client’s trackers through their Profile, you can actually create a list of default trackers that will automatically appear in your clients’ Daily tabs once they’ve connected with you via Invite ID. 

To configure tracking for all new clients, start by tapping the ‘+’ sign under My Groups. Then give your group a name; this could be something as simple as ‘Week 1’ or ‘New Clients’. The next step is to configure your default tracking protocol. Check the boxes of the trackers you would like new clients to log, or create custom trackers like we did above. 

Click Next. The steps that follow provide you with the option to create a forum-style message board for members of this group. To learn more about the benefits of this feature, check out our post on 5 Ways to Share Content with Online Coaching Clients. Once you’ve reviewed that post and determined whether a message board is the right fit for your group, follow the steps to create (or skip) the message board feature, then click Next. 

The last step of configuring your New Client group is to choose whether you would like to automatically add all new clients to this group when they sign up, or create an Invite ID so they can choose to join themselves. We suggest automatically adding new clients if you want all new users to follow this protocol. Click “Done” and your group is all set!

When your clients are ready for more tracking, simply follow the steps above to create a more in-depth tracking protocol. Just create another group, set your defaults, and move your client (or clients) into the next phase!

Lastly, keep in mind you can always create personalized trackers for each client through their Profile page to add to the defaults you’ve set for their group. We recommend humanizing their experience as much as possible so they feel support from you even as you standardize and scale your programming. You’d be surprised what recording a brief, 2-minute personalized video for each client from time-to-time can do for keeping your coaching relationship strong!

We hope this post has given you lots to consider as you build your coaching program and start to onboard your first clients or patients. There are several ways to configure tracking, but if there’s one thing we hope you take from our best practice recommendations, it’s that starting simple is key!

Identify the data that will give you the most meaningful insights into your clients’ lifestyle and tailor their tracking accordingly, keeping in mind that people are busy and often still adapting to working with you through a coaching app.

If you’re interested in using a coaching app with clients, a useful next step might be to watch a full demo of the Nudge Coach platform. 

If you have questions about ways to configure tracking for your clients, just schedule a call with me here, and we can go over your options and develop an effective and engaging strategy together!