Overview
Providing a certificate of completion for your learners, while a simple concept, is technically complicated. Envolvemedia has tried to make this as easy as possible to generate a certificate for Adobe Connect (Connect) or Adobe Learning Manager (ALM).
We have two solutions:
- A free solution, where you can build-your-own certificate using Adobe Captivate Classic (Captivate Classic), Adobe Captivate (Captivate) or Articulate Storyline 360 (Storyline).
- A paid solution which provides more functionality such as support for CEU through Skills, better integration and can be tied to other external resources. We will provide a turn-key solution for you.
This article is going to focus on the free solution and describe the process for building your own certificate using Captivate Classic, Captivate or Storyline content authoring tools.
Languages: English
Author: Envolvemedia
Documentation
Quick Start Guide
While Adobe does provide a “certificate” template of sorts for both Captivate Classic and Captivate, it is actually limited in functionality. It can only really pull the learners name and the learners ID from any LMS. If you would like to display the actual date a learner completed a curriculum, course, certification or learning path; the name of the curriculum, course, certification or learning path; or other information from Connect or ALM, you will not be able to use the variables provided by Adobe Captivate or data that can be obtained from using LMS standards such as AICC or SCORM.
Using Envolvemedia’s solution, you will be able to display in a certificate built in Captivate Classic, Captivate or Storyline:
- The User’s Name from Connect/ALM.
- The User’s ID from Connect/ALM.
- The User’s Email, if populated, from Connect/ALM.
- The Course (includes Course or Curriculum in Connect and the Course, Certification or Learning Path) Name, from Connect/ALM.
- The Course ID, from Connect/ALM.
- The Course Status (completed, incomplete or not started), from Connect/ALM.
- The Course Score, from Connect/ALM.
- The Course Completion date, from Connect/ALM.
The basic steps to build your own certificate are to:
- Download and modify/create a certificate using one of these template files:
- Adobe Captivate Classic (11.5.5 or earlier)
- Adobe Captivate Classic (11.8 or higher)
- Adobe Captivate (12.5 or higher)
- Articulate Storyline 360
The names of the variables that can be used/referenced in these templates are:
- lmsUserName
- lmsUserID
- lmsUserEmail
- lmsCourseName
- lmcCourseID
- lmsStatus
- lmsScore
- lmsCompletionDate
There is also a separate variable created for the templates which is used by the code
- lmsNextPage
- Publish the file (from Step 1 above) using the SCORM 1.2 standard
NOTE: If you are using Adobe Captivate Classic and you want to publish for Adobe Connect, the process and steps are significantly easier. Please follow these instructions.
- Using the Certificate Packager, upload the resulting ZIP file from the publish process in Step 2
- If the certificate is intended to be used in Adobe Learning Manager, enter the Application ID and the Application Secret in the Certificate Packager (step 4), created as an Integration Administrator in ALM. Please review this article on creating or approving an application for use in Adobe Learning Manager, which will create/provide the Application ID and Application Secret.
NOTE: You will only need to create an application once and then can use/re-use it for multiple certificates, if necessary.
- Import the modified ZIP that was downloaded from the Certificate Packager into Adobe Connect or Adobe Learning Manager
When using the certificate created using the templates from Envolvemedia, in both Connect and ALM, it is required the certificate is a separate item or module. Here is the process:
Adobe Connect Curriculum
After following the steps 1-4 of building your own certificate:
- Log-in to your instance of Adobe Connect with a user that has Author permissions.
- Select the Content tab (and choose between Shared Content or My Content as appropriate).
- Select the New Content
- Either drag/drop the ZIP file created using the Certificate Packager/certificate process; or select Choose File and select the same file.
- Enter a Title for the Certificate.
- Select the Save
- Select the Training Tab (and choose between Shared Training or My Training as appropriate).
- Select the New Curriculum
- Enter a Curriculum Name and complete the other fields as necessary.
- Select the Next
- Select Add Content
- Find the content file (whether it is a Captivate Quiz or any other content file) and select Add.
- Select the Add
- Continue to add any of your other content files. When finished, select the Certificate File imported in step D, above.
- Select the Next
- Select Finish.
RESULT: You should now have a Curriculum with one or more content files and a separate Certificate item as the last item in the Curriculum.
- You may want to set the certificate as optional, since learners should not have to launch/view the certificate in order to get the Curriculum marked as completed.
Adobe Learning Manager
- Log-in to your instance of Adobe Learning Manager with a user that has Author permissions.
- Select Content Library.
- Select Add > Content from the button in the upper-right corner.
- Enter a Name for the certificate.
- Either drag/drop the ZIP file created using the Certificate Packager/certificate process; or click in the Add Content File field and select the same file.
- Select Save.
- Select Courses.
- Select Add
- Enter a Course Name, complete the other fields as necessary and then select the Add Modules
- Select Self-Paced Module and find/select the content file(s) and then select the Certificate file imported in Steps D-F, above.
NOTE: You may want to set the certificate module as optional, since learners should not have to launch/view the certificate in order to get the Course marked as completed.
- Publish the Course.
- RESULT: You should now have a Curriculum with one or more content files and a separate Certificate item as the last item in the Curriculum.
Once created, create a Certification or Learning Path based on the Course, where the Certificate should be the last module.