Learn how to create Certificates, associate them to your Courses, and automatically email them to your Delegates when they complete their Courses!
Providing certificates to your Delegates when they complete a Course is essential to validate their efforts and achievements! Even when certificates are not logistically required, certificates add a tangible and rewarding element to the learning experience. These certificates can not only boost your Delegates' confidence, but also serve as an acknowledgment of their skills, and they can use them enhance their credibility in their respective field.
To offer a great customer experience, we recommend issuing out certificates as soon as possible following a Course so that your Delegates' can showcase their new skills and credentials quickly, give them an immediate sense of accomplishment, while also reinforcing their enthusiasm for your training and Courses!
With accessplanit’s Document Templates, you can upload your Certificate templates (created using Microsoft Word) and automatically send these out with your Delegate’s details populated in them, as soon as your Courses are completed.
Follow this page to learn the steps and best practice for sending out Certificates effectively and automatically!
Create your Certificate
With your accessplanit platform you can upload certificate templates, that have been created in Microsoft Word!
There are special accessplanit merge fields that you can include in your Word documents, so that the information held in your accessplanit platform is automatically populated in your certificates when they are emailed out.
To create a Certificate, you will follow these steps:
Build your Certificate in MS Word
Create a Certificate Document Template
Test the Certificate
Build your Certificate in MS Word
The first step is to open Microsoft Word and create your certificate template, using accessplanit merge fields
Top tip!
Before you begin building your Certificate, first consider what you would like to include in your certificate, consider:
What information do you want to include? The name and date of the Course, and the name of the Delegate are recommended as a minimum!
Your brand - are there certain colours and logos that you need to include?
Legal requirements - do you need to include a unique ID or an expiry date on your certificates?
Open the Microsoft Word application
If you have an existing Certificate document, you can open this and use it as your Certificate template
If you do not yet have an existing Certificate document, use Microsoft Word’s tools to build the structure of your Certificate
Once you have the structure in place, you can add in ‘merge fields' which will pull information from your accessplanit platform into each Certificate that is generated, for example adding in the merge field of ‘course_label’ so that the name of the Delegate’s Course is included on their Certificate
The first step of adding a merge field is to find the label that is needed for the field, to do this, open the and find the merge field that you would like to include, copy the label of the field from this page
Click into your Word document where you would like to place the merge field
Open the ‘Insert' menu in Microsoft Word and view the 'Quick Parts’ options
Click the ‘Field…’ option to open the ‘Field’ pop-up window
From the ‘Field names:' list scroll down and select the 'MergeField’ option
Paste in the merge field label into the ‘Field name:’ textbox
Click the OK button to add your merge field into your certificate template
Repeat steps 5-11 for each merge field in your certificate
Save your certificate file
Create a Certificate Document Template
Once you have created and saved your certificate in MS Word, you will next upload this into your accessplanit platform as a ‘Document Template’.
Open the ‘Administration’ menu from the Profile options at the top-right of your platform
Open the ‘Document Templates’ menu option to access the page where you can add and edit Document Templates such as certificates and sign-in sheets
Click the ‘Add Document Template’ button to open the pop-up window where you can create a new Document Template
From the 'Add Document Template' window, complete the form to upload your certificate template
Select your Training Provider from the ‘Account’ select option
Provide a name for your Document Template, such as ‘Certificate of Attendance’ or ‘Certificate of Achievement’
Optional: Provide a description for your document to inform your team what it is for
Make sure the ‘Active’ checkbox is checked
Leave the ‘Keep original document type when emailed’ option unchecked, this will mean that your certificate is sent in a PDF format so your Delegates cannot edit it easily
Upload your file
Leave the ‘Applies to’ option selected as ‘Course’ and the ‘Details Used’ option selected as ‘Delegate’
Click ‘Save & Close’ to finish creating your Document Template
Test the Certificate
Before you move onto automating your certificate to send out from your platform, first test that the certificate generates as you are expecting
From the Document Templates DataGrid, right-click your Certificate Document Template to view the context menu options
Click the ‘Edit’ option to view to the Document Template’s Details
Click the ‘Preview’ button at the bottom of the form to open the Document Generator window
From the Document Generator window, use the ‘Delegate IDs’ selector to select a Delegate who has completed a Course
Click the 'Generate' button to download a copy of the certificate for this Delegate
Review the certificate to check that the correct information is included, no information is missing, and everything is formatted as you expect
If you need to make any changes to your certificate, you can make these on your Microsoft Word document and save your changes, then update the file that is linked to your Document Template by using the ‘Upload New File’ option when editing your Document Template
Associate your Certificate to your Course Templates
Open your ‘Course Templates’ DataGrid from your main menu on the left
Find the Course Template that you would like to assign your Certificate to by applying filters and/or searching the Course Templates DataGrid
Right-click on this Course Template in the DataGrid, this will show you the context menu options for this Course Template and click on the 'Edit' option
Scroll down to the ‘Document Templates’ section on the page
Use the ‘Select’ button to assign your Certificate to your Course Template
Click ‘Save’ at the top of the page to apply your changes
Create your Certificate Email Template
Create your Certificate Email Template
This step will teach you how to add a new Email Template into your platform which contains a link to your Certificate. Once you have added your Email Template, you will be able to build a Workflow to send this Email Template out to your Delegates automatically, or send it out manually yourself via the Delegates DataGrid.
Open the ‘Administration’ menu option at the top right of your platform
Click on the ‘Email Templates’ menu option to open the Email Templates DataGrid
If you plan to copy from an existing Email Template, search for that Email Template, right-click on it and select ‘Edit’, then copy the contents of the Body, return back to the Email Templates DataGrid
Click the ‘Add Email Template’ button at the top of the Email Templates DataGrid
Give your Email Template a ‘Name’ We recommend labelling your Email Template with the name of the anticipated recipient followed by a description of the email, such as “Delegate - Certificate of Attendance”
Select which Module your Email Template relates to, as Certificates only send about Delegates you will use one of the following:
Delegates -this module is for sending emails to all Delegates and Trainers, please note that this module does not include course type specific fields for you to include in your email (such as eLearning Package information, Venue information, or Webinar Course joining information)
Class Delegates - this module is for sending emails to Delegates and Trainers on Class Courses only, and it includes classroom specific fields such as venue that can be included in the body of your email
Web Delegates - this module is for sending emails to Delegates and Trainers on WebCourses only, and it includes webinar specific fields such as webinar joining information that can be included in the body of your email
eLearning Delegates - this module is for sending emails to Delegates on eLearning Courses only, and it includes eLearning specific fields such as the eLearning launch link that can be included in the body of your email
Knowledge Document Delegates - this module is for sending emails to Delegates on Knowledge Document Courses only
Leave the ‘Email Type’ selected as ‘Normal’ as this is a transactional email, not a marketing email
Leave the ‘Creation Mode’ as ‘Free Text’ as you will be defining the content of your Email directly in the Email Template rather than first building Text Templates
Add in a ‘Subject’for your email We recommend including the name of the Course within the subject to catch the recipient’s attention in their inbox, you can do this by adding the merge field @@CourseOrAliasName into the Subject text box
Add in the ‘Body’ of your email If you copied the content from an existing Email Template, you can paste this content into here!
Use the ‘Field' drop-down option in the text editor to include merge fields such as the Delegate’s name within your Email Template
Ensure that you include the link to the Certificate, if you do not already have this link included, click on the ‘Quick Link’ option and select the ‘Certificate Link’ option to insert the link into your email
Update the wording of your Certificate link by clicking on the ‘Edit’ Link button
We also recommend making sure that your certificate link is underlined and centred so that it stands out on the email to your Delegates
Click ‘Save and Close’ to save your Email Template
If you would like to test your Email Template before continuing, remain on the Email Templates DataGrid, search for your Email Template, right-click on it and select the ‘Edit’ context menu option
Click on the ‘Preview’ option at the bottom of the Email Template editor
Select a Delegate from the ‘Preview Object’
Enter your Email Address into the 'Send sample to' option
Click the ‘Send Email’ button to send a copy of this Email Template for this Delegate to your Email Address
Optional - Manually send out your Email Template
This step will teach you send your Email Template out manually, if you want your Email Template to send out automatically please jump ahead to the next section where you will create your Certificate Workflow.
Create your Certificate Workflow
Create your Certificate Workflow
This step will teach you how to add a new Workflow into your platform and set up a Workflow Action to send your Certificate Email Template out automatically!
Test and enable your Certificate Workflow
Test your Certificate Workflow - Single Email Test
This testing approach is best used for Workflows where you want to view/test the content of the email only, if you would like to test that your rules are set up correctly, please jump ahead to the “Test your Certificate Workflow - Become the Recipient” below.
Test your Certificate Workflow - Become the Recipient
This testing approach is best used for Workflows where you are not confident with the rules of your Workflow, and you would like to ensure that you will not send out your Certificate emails to the wrong Delegates. With this approach you will start using your Workflow, but all of the Emails will be sent to an Administrator's email address temporarily.
