Introduction
In CiviPlus you can automate the creation and distribution of certificates awarded to event participants (certificates can also be linked to Memberships and Cases). Once the certificate has been created, it can be printed or emailed to participants, or they can access them directly from the Self-Service Portal themselves.
Creating an Event Certificate
There are several steps to creating an event certificate:
Create the event that the certificate will relate to.
Create the template which will hold the actual content/format of the certificate.
Create a certificate configuration record, which essentially links the Event with the Template. This is where you will say what participant type and status is eligible to receive the certificate.
1. Create the event
There are a series of articles covering how to create an event here. Follow these steps to create the event for which you want to award a certificate - the key pieces of information you will need to refer to later on in the process are: The event name, the participant type who is eligible to receive the certificate and the status they need to achieve in order to receive it.
For the purposes of this example we will use the following Health and Safety Training event:
2. Create the certificate template
Event Certificate template are created using the CiviPlus Message Template option. Navigate to Mailings -> Message Templates and click the ADD MESSAGE TEMPLATE button. The image below shows an example of what a Message Template configured for a certificate might look like:
Firstly, the Message Title is used in a drop down list whenever you need to select a specific template. Give it a meaningful name so that it easy to understand what the template is going to be used for.
Ignore the Source field, since although in principal it is possible to upload a merge document, it is virtually always created on-line, as in this example.
The Message Subject field will be used if you decide to email the certificate to an event participant. You can use tokens in the both the message subject line and the content - in the example above we are using the {First Name} token to personalise the subject line.
There are two options in terms of the content for the certificate itself, HTML and plain text. Within the HTML editor you can add text, images, tables, utl links, bullets and numbered lists - a whole host of constructs to make the certificate look attractive and professional.
As mentioned earlier, you can also use tokens to make the certificate specific to the event and person who attended. There are dozens of tokens available covering the contact and the event, including custom fields associated with both, but there are also a set of tokens specifically associated with the Certificate configuration record which we will configuring in the next step. These are:
Token Name | Token Value | Description |
All types |
|
|
Certificate Start Date | {certificate.start_date} | Adding this token will add the start date of the certificate |
Certificate End Date | {certificate.end_date} | Adding this token will add the end date of the certificate |
Certificate Name | {certificate.name} | This will add the certificate name |
Events: |
|
|
Event Contact Email | {certificate_event.contact_email} | To add Event Contact Email associated with event |
Event Contact Phone | {certificate_event.contact_phone} | To add Event Contact Phone associated with selected event |
Event End Date | {certificate_event.end_date} | To add Event End Date associated with selected event |
Event ID | {certificate_event.id} | To add Event ID associated with selected event |
Event Info URL | {certificate_event.info_url} | To add Event Info URL associated with selected event |
Event Location | {certificate_event.location} | To add Event Location associated with selected event |
Event Registration URL | {certificate_event.registration_url} | To add Event Registration URL associated with selected event |
Event Start Date | {certificate_event.start_date} | To add Event Start Date associated with selected event |
Event Summary | {certificate_event.summary} | To add Event Summary associated with selected event |
Event Title | {certificate_event.title} | To add Event Title associated with selected event |
Event Type | {certificate_event.event_type} | To add Event Type associated with selected event |
Event Participant End Date | {certificate_participant.event_end_date} | To add Event Participant End Date associated with selected event |
Event Participant Event ID | {certificate_participant.event_id} | To add Event Participant Event ID associated with selected event |
Event Participant Start date | {certificate_participant.event_start_date} | To add Event Participant Start date associated with selected event |
Event Participant Title | {certificate_participant.event_title} | To add Event Participant Title associated with the selected event |
Position your cursor within the HTML editor where you want to place the token, then click the </> Tokens dropdown to insert a specific token into the message.
It's normally best to leave the Plain Text Format field blank, since the HTML version you entered will be used to automatically create a plain text version for recipients with text-only email clients and people who are visually impaired and using email reading software. However, you can create your own plain text version of the certificate by filling out this field.
The PDF Page Format and Image Format fields allow you to select specific formats for the certificate. You can use the default that has been configured for the system - for example this might be A4 for PDF, or PNG for image - or select one of the other options available in the drop down list for each format type.
Administrators can add or edit formats or set the default format by navigating to Administer -> Communications -> Print Page (PDF) Formats or Administer -> Communications -> Image Formats (Certificate)
Lastly, you can specify whether this certificate message template is Enabled (i.e active) or not.
3. Create a certificate configuration record
A certificate configuration record links a specific event, message template and other information to define under what circumstances a certificate is available. Navigate to Administer -> Certificates and click the NEW CERTIFICATE button. The screen below shows the form to update an existing Certificate configuration record, but it is exactly the same as for a new configuration record.
The Certificate Name is used to identity each specific certificate, and is available as a token to be included in the certificate message template, as well as appearing in the Self-Service Portal. The Type fields says what entity this certificate is associated with - it can be Events, Membership or Cases.
Because we have said that this is an Events certificate, the Linked to field appears and you need to select the specific Event that this certificate is awarded for. If you want, you can also specify the Event Role that is eligible to receive the certificate - if you leave this blank then any role associated with the event can be awarded the certificate.
Now we enter the name of the Message Template that we created in Step 2 above - obviously this defines the format of the certificate to be created.
In the Status field you specify which of the valid statuses associated with the event in question will trigger creation of the certificate. An obvious choice would be "Attended", but depending on how your event is configured there may be other statuses that are applicable. Note that you can specify more than one status in this field.
Start Date and End Date allows you to provide a window during which the certificate can be accessed.
The Download Format fields says whether a PDF or Image file type will be generated.
The Access for Related Contacts field is used to specify the user(s) who hold a relationship (A to B ) that allows them to access/download certificate in addition to the main contact. This might be useful where, for example, a user should be able to download certificates for an organisation record for which they are the main billing contact, or for a partner or spouse.
Click the SAVE button and the Event Certificate Configuration record will be available for generating a certficate.
Generating and accessing the Certificate
There are a number of ways in which an Event certificate can be created and accessed by users:
Within the Self-Service Portal navigate to the My Certificates, and then choose the Events tab. You will see any certificates that you are entitled to, and when you click the ፧ symbol in the Download column you can download the certificate in its original format (PDF or Image depending on how it is configured), or as an HTML file.
You can view a list of event participants (for example, by navigating to Events -> Find Participants), and when you have the list select the ones you want to generate a certificate for and from the Actions dropdown choose Email or PDF Letter Print.
In the form that follows, select the appropriate Certificate Message Template and then click the DOWNLOAD DOCUMENT button (if you chose PDF Letter Print as the option) or SEND EMAIL button (if you chose Email as the action). The certificates will be generated and downloaded or emailed depending on your choise.Note: This method of creating Event Certificates does not check for attendee role or status, so include these parameters when you search for the participants you want to create certificates for
An example of the example Health and Safety certificate we created earlier is shown below. The text in blue are tokens that have been automatically replaced by appropriate values when the certificate is generated:
