Configuring CE (Continuing Education) Credit Tracking
With countless associations and member-based organizations running on PheedLoop's platform, there has always been a major need to invest in ways to help our customers track CE (Continuing Education) credits for attendees. PheedLoop has mechanisms in place to track credits for both on-site (via badge scanning from the PheedLoop mobile event app) and virtual (via timed check-in surveys) events, export PDF certificates, export data reports, and more. In this article, we'll discuss the simple ways to configure your event for CE tracking and share some advanced tips as well.
Step 1 - Assigning Credits to Sessions
Since credits are connected to attending educational sessions, you must specify them for each session which is accredited. It's as simple as selecting the session you'd like to assign credits to from the Sessions module in your dashboard, and setting the CE Credit Value field under each individual's Session's Advanced Settings. You can set it to any number, including one with decimals for partial credits, for example.
Once you've assigned credits to sessions, an indicator for the number of credits a session is worth will be visible in interfaces where an attendee is directly participating in the session. For example, the event app or virtual event portal.
Step 2 - Earning Credits On-Site
Earning credits on-site at a physical event involves using the PheedLoop mobile event app and its built-in badge scanning tool. Badges you generate, order, or print from PheedLoop all have a QR code option on them, allowing for all sorts of on-site engagement. Badges are a bit of a separate topic, so we'll operate for the purposes of this article assuming you have badges in place already.
To register attendees on-site for sessions, you simply need to login to the mobile versions of the PheedLoop Go! event app (iOS or Android) with your event's admin credentials. Doing so will allow you to see an option in the menu called "Session Check-In".
You'll see several options there, we'll describe them below:
- Select Session - Allows you or your volunteers standing outside sessions to select the session they are scanning for
- Restrict to Pre-Registered - Only attendees who have pre-registered for the session will be allowed to be scanned in, anyone else will trigger an error
- Automatic Mode - Allows for more rapid scanning of badges, skipping the step where event staff are required to verify the scan
- Check Out Mode - Valuable if you are tracking people leaving the session so that you get check-in, check-out, and duration times
- NFC Mode - Applicable only to badges equipped with our NFC technology
When you're ready to scan a badge, simply click on "Launch QR Scanner". After each successful check-in, these attendees will be able to see those sessions under their session certificate.
Step 3 - Earning Credits Virtually
For events that are hybrid or fully virtual, credit tracking is just as critical as on-site. You can't scan a badge of course, but you can quiz attendees! PheedLoop has a system in place called check-in pop up surveys. They allow you to create short (ideally) surveys that attendees can respond to, and they'll pop up after a number of minutes you specify once the session's stream is enabled. This requires your attendees to pay attention and watch out for the pop-up survey so that they can submit their proof of attendance. The survey itself can be any general form you create via the Custom Forms module in the PheedLoop event dashboard, and you can attach the same survey to more than one session. We won't discuss how to create custom surveys in this article as it's identical to the way you'd use the form and survey builder for any other aspect of your PheedLoop powered event.
- Create Survey - Visit the Custom Forms module in your PheedLoop dashboard, and create a survey. This can be anything at all, it's entirely up to you. Often times events simply have one question check-in surveys, just to confirm that the attendee stuck around for the session more than anything else.
- Attach Survey - Visit the Sessions module in your dashboard, select a session, and set the field Check-In Survey to the survey you created in the first step. Set the Check-In Survey Delay to any number of minutes you'd like the system to wait for before presenting the survey to attendees once the stream for the session is live.
- Submit Response - Attendees will see the survey pop-up after the specified delay, and once they respond, the credit will be assigned.
Step 4 - Retrieving PDF Certificates
There are two ways to retrieve the PDF certificates for each attendee at your event.
Dashboard
Visit the Attendees module, select any attendee, and use the Actions menu to select Certificate > Download or Send. Sending the certificate will email the PDF to the attendee.
Virtual Event Portal
If you're running a virtual event, entirely optional is a setting that allows your attendees to download their own certificates via their Account section in the virtual event portal itself. You can enable or disable this setting via the Sessions module in your dashboard, under Settings > Enable Certificate Export in Portals.
Customizing the Certificate PDF
You may want to add some custom content to the certificate document. Custom text is supported, and can be added to the end of the certificate document by setting the Sessions > Settings > Attendance Certificate Custom Content text area.
Step 5 - Downloading Session Check-in Data
Once you have completed your event, you may download relevant session check-in data by navigating to Data and Reports and Custom Reports and creating the Session Check-in Data Report. If you are looking for a summary of responses/check-in totals, you may click on the drop-down toggle and select All Sessions. If you are looking for specific data to each session including the associated attendee responses, you will need to select the individual session from the drop-down toggle and download accordingly.