Entries by Ryan

Expanded SCORM and xAPI/Tin Can support for LearnDash

June 24, 2021 /0 Comments/in , /by

At long last, the Tin Canny 4.0 release is now available! And it includes one major new feature that will transform what’s possible for small businesses running LearnDash sites: full SCORM and xAPI support. Back when we originally launched Tin Canny it was an easy way for LearnDash sites to upload their modules from popular elearning tools like Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate and iSpring. Over the years we added support for Lectora, Quizmaker, H5P, Presenter, Rise… but all of that support was explicitly defined and we couldn’t offer fully SCORM or xAPI compliant solutions. Introducing full SCORM and xAPI/Tin Can support The 4.0 release should work with any standards-compliant SCORM 1.2, 2004 and xAPI / Tin Can file. It took us close to a year to get there, but the effort was absolutely worth it. Now we can stop saying “no” to people every time we get requests to add support for a custom authoring tool or something third party that we don’t support. Better yet, there’s no longer a need to ask! With this update, he’s a partial list of authoring tools we will be supporting with Tin Canny: Camtasia Elucidat Adapt Easygenerator Of course, there are hundreds of authoring […]

Uncanny Groups 4.0: Dozens of enhancements

June 22, 2021 /2 Comments/in /by

The Uncanny Groups for LearnDash 4.0 release has been in development for months and focuses heavily on reliability and marginal improvements. And there are a lot of those; this release includes almost 50 plugin enhancements and fixes. Let’s jump right into some of what’s new: More form support Use Gravity Forms, WPForms or Formidable Forms? Now you can add enrollment key redemption fields from the form editor so you can link any form in those plugins to key redemption in Uncanny Groups. New edit group page options Ever wish administrators could see invited users? That’s in, so is the ability to see orders and products associated with groups that were created from a purchase. You can even unlink a group from an order if you no longer want users to be able to add courses or seats to a group via purchase. New group list page options We modified the group listing under LearnDash LMS > Groups to show seat counts and to make enrollment keys downloadable by admins. Both of these changes will make it a lot easier for administrators to get data they need without drilling down into a group or switching to the front end Group Management page. Shortcode support in […]

Two Factor Authentication for LearnDash Login Forms

May 3, 2021 /1 Comment/in , /by

Version 3.5 of the Uncanny Toolkit for LearnDash was released today with one very important addition: new support for Two Factor Authentication (2FA). We have had a number of requests to improve security options for our login module and we’re pleased to now support a direction integration with WP 2FA, a popular two-factor authentication plugin for WordPress. Easy 2FA for WordPress sites What this new integration means is that it’s easier than ever to integrate the flexible, clean login forms in the Uncanny Toolkit with the additional security of the WP 2FA plugin. It’s the best of both worlds. Using both plugins together, you can now: Require some or all users to authenticate with 2FA (including setting rules by role) Allow users to add a secondary login check using an email or supported 2FA app Beyond the additional account security, LearnDash site owners may appreciate that this additional security measure makes it much harder for users to share WordPress accounts. Here’s what the login process looks like for end users when they try to sign in: The use of two-factor authentication is of course completely optional, but we’ve made it as easy as possible to install the WP 2FA plugin […]

Uncanny Codes 4.0 for WordPress

March 16, 2021 /0 Comments/in /by

Our Codes plugin for WordPress has gone through many iterations since we first launched it in 2016. It started off as a simple code redemption tool to unlock LearnDash course and group access. Then we linked codes to registration and purchase, added expiry dates, allowed custom codes, then built in advanced code generation and redemption rules. Despite being a very capable and scalable plugin, it was never particularly popular and was limited to LearnDash use. With the release of Uncanny Codes 4.0, however, everything changes. Introducing Uncanny Codes 4.0 For about a year, the Uncanny team has wrestled with 2 big questions about our Codes plugin: How far could the plugin go if we supported more than LearnDash alone? What if instead of building integrations for other plugins we just linked it to Uncanny Automator? Uncanny Codes 4.0 will answer those questions, because the plugin no longer requires LearnDash and we have linked the redemption of codes and code batches to Automator recipes. (For anyone not familiar with Uncanny Automator, it’s a plugin that connects lots and lots of things together. When something happens somewhere, Automator can make something else happen, like the redemption of a code adding a user […]

Connecting codes to Uncanny Automator

March 16, 2021 /0 Comments/in /by

Setting up Uncanny Automator Uncanny Automator is an optional, free plugin for Uncanny Codes that is highly recommended because it unlocks a huge number of code redemption options. If Automator isn’t installed, Uncanny Codes will prompt you to install it automatically if you attempt to generate Automator code types. To install it yourself, just navigate to Plugins > Add New as an administrator and search for “Uncanny Automator”. Install it and activate it to unlock Automator code types and recipes. Creating an Automator recipe for code redemption When you create an Uncanny Codes batch that uses the Automator code type, the system will automatically direct you into a new recipe when you generate the codes. You can also create a new recipe from scratch that triggers actions when a code from a particular batch is redeemed. In both cases, the key to linking code redemptions from a batch with specific actions is this logged-in trigger: A user redeems a code from a batch Make sure you choose the correct code batch from the drop-down list and don’t forget to name your recipe with something meaningful and identifiable (as you will likely have many different recipes). Once the trigger is set up, […]

Using Codes with WPForms

March 16, 2021 /0 Comments/in /by

Add a code field to a WPForms form The Uncanny Codes 4.0 release adds native support for forms built with WPForms, a hugely popular forms plugin with about 4 million installs. Our plugin integration adds a new “Uncanny Codes” field to the form building interface that allows any form to be turned into a code redemption form. To get started, create or edit an existing form in WP Forms. Look for the Uncanny Code field  in the Standard Fields section on the left side of the page. Add the code to the form just as you would any other form field. If a code field is required, remember to check the Required box for the Field Options. Important notes Codes can be used in both regular forms and registration forms, but please note that for code redemption to work in a regular form the user must be logged in. Redemption forms should be hidden from anonymous users for this reason, because when codes are redeemed they must be mapped to a user. Registration forms that include a code field can be used by both logged in and logged out users though. Remember that redeeming codes does not have to be tied to registration. […]

Using Codes with Formidable Forms

March 16, 2021 /0 Comments/in /by

Add a code field to a Formidable Forms form The Uncanny Codes 4.0 release adds native support for forms built with Formidable Forms, a powerful form building plugin for WordPress. Our plugin integration adds a new “Uncanny Codes” field to the form building interface that allows any form to be turned into a code redemption form. To get started, create or edit an existing form in Formidable Forms.  Look for the Uncanny Code field  in the Standard Fields section on the left side of the page. Add the code to the form just as you would any other form field. If a code field is required, remember to check the Required box in the Field Options.   Important notes Codes can be used in both regular forms and registration forms, but please note that for code redemption to work in a regular form the user must be logged in. Redemption forms should be hidden from anonymous users for this reason, because when codes are redeemed they must be mapped to a user. Registration forms that include a code field can be used by both logged in and logged out users though. Remember that redeeming codes does not have to be tied to registration. […]

Selling Codes with WooCommerce

March 14, 2021 /0 Comments/in /by

Overview Uncanny Codes 4.0 and later allow you to sell codes directly to customers. This means administrators can generate large batches of codes, associate a product with those codes, and when users purchase the product they receive the codes for use by themselves or other people. This functionality is useful as a substitute for gift cards, promotional gifts, selling accounts to organizations or really anything where codes grant access to something. Set up WooCommerce products for code sales Selling codes does require the use of WooCommerce, the most widely used ecommerce plugin for WordPress. WooCommerce must be configured before codes can be sold. To set up a WooCommerce product to sell codes to end users, perform the following steps: Generate the code batch you want to sell before creating a new product. In the Products menu for WooCommerce that appears in /wp-admin/, choose Add New to create a new product. Set up the product as you normally would for other WooCommerce products. See https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/managing-products/ for additional help. In the Product data drop-down list, choose Codes for Uncanny Automator. Make sure you set a Regular price for each code. The user will be charged this times the number of codes (the quantity) that they purchase. In […]

Uncanny Groups 3.10: Easier classroom management

February 17, 2021 /2 Comments/in /by

There’s one thing in our Uncanny Groups plugin that I felt had been a gap for some time, not just in our plugin but in WordPress in general: Why do users always need a valid email address to set up an account? The answer is straightforward, of course, it’s an identifier and allows users to reset their passwords independently. But in many K-12 classrooms, manufacturing and industrial environments, students simply don’t have email addresses. This makes using LearnDash and our plugins exceedingly difficult. We did offer a workaround for CSV imports; files can include a password column and this password would be set for new users, allowing administrators and Group Leaders to create users that didn’t actually need an email address. With this approach, account info (email and password) could be set up and given to students directly so that setting up a password by email confirmation wasn’t needed. Privacy concerns aside, this at least offered a path for students without an email address to use LearnDash and our plugins. CSV files are hard to work with though and outside the technical abilities of many Group Leaders. Enter Uncanny Groups for LearnDash 3.10. Password field in Add Users New in […]

Tin Canny 3.6: Microlearning for LearnDash xAPI & SCORM courses

February 16, 2021 /0 Comments/in , /by

It’s time for a new Tin Canny update! Version 3.6 adds support for microlearning using Single Page LearnDash courses, more flexible user details in reports, new column sorting options, a more visible X icon for modules in a lightbox and more. Single page xAPI & SCORM LearnDash courses Today’s Tin Canny 3.6 release adds support for something LearnDash and Tin Canny users have been wanting for years: the ability to build standalone courses with Articulate Storyline, iSpring, H5P and other module types without having to use LearnDash lessons and topics. What does that mean? Well, with most (non-WordPress) LMS platforms, you can upload self-contained zip files and that uploaded module becomes the entire course. A user sees the course name, launches that uploaded course in a new window or lightbox, and that’s it — no digging into lessons or topics first, it’s just the course. LearnDash, however, normally requires that courses be structured into a hierarchy of WordPress posts that requires at least one “lesson” beneath a course. The SCORM or xAPI file would then be uploaded inside the lesson or topic, so students would have to click through a “course” level first that sometimes served no purpose. Tin Canny […]