Best practice forum (Archived)

Help fixing a certification

 
? ?
Help fixing a certification
by ? ? - Wednesday, 2 September 2015, 3:51 AM
 

Hello all,

I wondered if anyone would be able to help with a certification that was set up.  The certification has only one course in it (which only has one scorm package in the course with a pass grade).  It was set up as a certification as it needs to be completed every two years.

This was set up really before the system was ready (due to time pressures) which has meant some users were added to a static audience and enrolled and others were uploaded via a certification completion record (as they'd previously completed it in another system).

The set audience obviously stops new users being added to the audience by default.  

What I want to do is clean up the certification so it only has the one dynamic audience.  If I were to delete the current assignments in the certification and then add the newly created dynamic audience (which automatically adds users with a specific job role ) this should include those previously uploaded via the certification upload record and also those that were in the previous static audience.  What I would like to know is, will their record of completion be maintained so that even when added to a new audience and that audience is added with a completion due (two weeks after first login for example) it keeps their previous completion date and their previous renewal date?

Also on the same topic, if in that audience I have that the certification is visible and the certificate is added to the audience as enrolled learning, do you also need to add it at course level?  I.e. add the course as visible and enrolled learning, and also in the course settings add the audience as enrolled and as visible users?  I thought doing it at audience level for the certificate would automatically mean it's done at course level and that course is visisble to those users.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks very much in advance.

Nathan Lewis
Re: Help fixing a certification
by Nathan Lewis - Wednesday, 2 September 2015, 3:13 PM
Group Totara

Hi Andy.

First, about set audiences. You can add users to your set audeince, and those users will become assigned to the certification when the next program user assignment cron/task runs (by default that happens once each day, configurable in Totara 2.7). So you could just keep using that set audience, and add people when needed.

Using a dynamic audience is also a good idea. You can set it up to automatically add new users as they become eligible. However, if you want to remove the set audience and individual assignments and add the same users in the dynamic audience, make sure you do it in the opposite order! First, create the dynamic audience and make sure it has all the users. Then add it to the assignments in the certification. Then you can safely remove the set audience and individual assignments. If you were to remove the users and then add them back into the certification, there might be problems with users who are already complete - there is a tool to fix these users/records, but it would be much better to avoid the problem in the first place.

Beware that if you set a new relative date (say on a new dynamic audience, or even change the existing set audience), it may interfere with the due date (but not expiry date) of users who are currently certified (as well as those that are not). This was fixed in Totara 2.5.30, 2.6.23 and 2.7.6 (August releases, patch TL-5709 which is missing from the patch notes).

Note that adding a certification in "enrolled learning" in audiences is the same as adding an audience to a certification, except that user assignments aren't processed until the program user assignment cron/task (changes to this will hopefully be coming soon).

About visibility: If your course is set to visible to all users then you don't need to enrol the users into the course, just the certification. There is currently a problem and patch coming soon which will allow users assigned to the certification to access the course even if the course is set to enrolled users only (audience visibility), so if you're currently set up like this and experiencing this problem (users assigned to cert but can't access the course) then change the visibility to "Enrolled users and members of audiences" and then add the same audience (to the course visibility, not to the course enrolment).

This information is based on the most recent versions of Totara. We keep improving the behaviour, so upgrading to the latest is always a good idea.

Nathan

? ?
Re: Help fixing a certification
by ? ? - Friday, 4 September 2015, 2:01 AM
 

Nathan, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed answer.  It's incredibly helpful and I will certainly follow your advice. We want to use the dynamic audience so we dno't have to keep adding people to the set audience.  The more automation the better.

 

Thank you again for your help.

Patricia Arenas
Re: Help fixing a certification
by Patricia Arenas - Friday, 4 September 2015, 10:54 AM
 

I just wanted to pipe up here and say thank you to Nathan for this explanation, as we had the same issues happen to us a few months back, and had we had your info then we'd have saved ourselves a lot of confusion and extra work.

Andy, I echo Nathan's warning about being very careful about assigning due dates to an audience that has people who have already completed the course (the guys from the set audience). We did this also and had a lot of our due dates and reports show incorrectly as a result. I hope you don't have to experience this as you are on one of the versions that has that fix already implemented.

 

-Trish

 

? ?
Re: Help fixing a certification
by ? ? - Tuesday, 15 September 2015, 5:36 AM
 

Hi Patricia,

I'm sorry you had to deal with the issues described above.  My plan is to create the dynamic audience (already done) and then add them to the assignments (making sure email notifications are off just in case it causes confusion).  Once added, I will remove the set audience and individual assignments.  The new audience will have a relative completion date to a custom profile field I have created - i.e. when their account was first created.  

Unfortunately these are all the settings you and Nathan have warned me about.  Hopefully, given the 2.6 version we are on and Nathan's detailed instructions it will run smoothly.  I'll keep you updated, and I'm going to get our partner to take a full back up of the system so we can restore if it goes horribly wrong!

Unfortunately, some of the people in the set audience won't be in the new dynamic audience because they were wrongly enrolled (information in spreadsheets given to me was incorrect).  So unfortunately some people will have it as a record of learning, but didn't need to do it and won't need to re-take it.  But I can only do as well as the information I'm given I guess.

Thanks again for the message.