Uncanny CEUs: Archive quiz results

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The Uncanny Continuing Education Credits plugin for LearnDash is perhaps the #1 tool for archiving LearnDash course records. Out of the box, LearnDash on its own can only track the current attempt for a course. If users retake a course after a progress reset, all records of earlier course activity, including certificates, is wiped out. Uncanny Continuing Education Credits (a.k.a. Uncanny CEUs) was born out of a need to keep a record of all course activity.

Introducing quiz record archives

We have archived LearnDash course records for years. The completion records could be included in transcripts to give a complete record of a user’s learning activity as well as in admin and front end reports. For compliance and other periodic training, these permanent course records were invaluable, but they were just that–course records.

With the release of Uncanny Continuing Education Credits 4.0, we’re adding support for quiz record archiving to the mix. Need to know how some students performed in final course quizzes 3 years ago? No problem. Concerned that our Quiz Question Analysis Report in Tin Canny has invalid results because it doesn’t captured archived quiz records? Not any more!

Generate historical records

Now that Uncanny CEUs can archive more than just quiz data, we had to rebuild some of the Settings page to support different data types. Here’s how things look now if you want to generated credit records, course records and quiz records:

Archive LearnDash course and quiz results

Generating results really is as easy as clicking a button. It can take a few minutes with lots of results, but in the end you will have a complete set of data that will survive course and quiz progress resets.

Of course, these steps are generally only needed when you first install the plugin. Once activated, Uncanny CEUs will automatically add all new course and quiz records to our special archive tables.

When historical results are stored, our plugin is recording a permanent record of quiz dates, scores, and answers to multiple choice questions.

Using historical records

Tracking the data is one thing, but how do you go about using it?

Archived quiz results are primarily for admin use, so once archived records have been stored, we add a new section to edit user pages in /wp-admin/ that shows these records. It shows up immediately beneath active quiz results in the Course Info section and looks like this:

Archive LearnDash quiz results

We also include quiz archive data in the Quiz Question Analysis Report.

There are a few important things to keep in mind:

  • While quiz records are stored in the archive as they’re recorded, each quiz attempt will only show up ONCE on the edit user page and reports. In other words, after completion, the attempt would show up with regular quiz results only. It is only after a course progress reset wiped out quiz records that the attempt would be moved and show up in the “Archived quiz results” section instead.
  • It is not possible to delete archived quiz results.
  • Quiz certificates are not retained, only quiz scores, dates, and multiple choice answers.

Other CEU additions

Don’t worry, there are other new features in the 4.0 release as well!

For anyone that works with multi-course certificates, access was always limited to email delivery and retrieving files from the web server. Now, for developers that need more flexibility and want to retrieve this certificate type with something user-facing, links to certificates are stored in user meta. Here’s how you can use them:

  • ceu_multicert_$certificate_id_course_$course_id = certificate path (certificate id and course id are actual certificate and course ids)
  • ceu_multicert_$certificate_id_course_$course_id_earned = current timestamp (certificate id and course id are actual certificate and course ids)
  • ceu_multicert_$certificate_id_earned = current timestamp (certificate id is actual certificate id)
  • uo-ceu-multicert-$current_time = possible array of all certificates generated
  • uo-ceu-multicert-linked-courses-$current_time = all courses linked to certificate
  • uo-ceu-multicert-certificates-$current_time = all certificates matching courses

$current_time and timestamps will be the same for all keys added above.

If you’ve ever wanted to show credit values associated in a course on non-course post types, you could pass in a course ID, but that made it very difficult to use in sitewide elements like a sidebar. In the 4.0 release we have added detection to the [uo_ceu_available] shortcode, so now if it’s used in a lesson or topic post type, it can look up the parent course and show the credit value for that course.

That covers the highlights of the Uncanny Continuing Education Credits 4.0 release. Make sure to check the changelog for a complete set of updates.

Award historical credits for LearnDash courses

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Our Uncanny Continuing Education Credits plugin has historically been our least popular plugin and not nearly as capable as some continuing education providers would like. Organizations in this space tend to have very specific requirements and outgrow general-purpose solutions quickly.

With the 2 most recent updates to the plugin, however, we have completely transformed what’s possible with our CEU product. The 3.1 release added the ability to track credits for anything, even learning activities that were not associated with LearnDash. And with our Uncanny Automator integration, we can simplify awarding credits even further, automating credit activity for live events, forum participation, purchases–if it can be captured online, Automator can almost certainly link it to credits in this plugin.

Capture historical completion records

There’s always been one big limitation in the Uncanny Continuing Education Credits plugin: it only starts tracking credits for new LearnDash course completions once it’s installed and credits are assigned to the course. For most sites, this meant a disconnect between users that completed courses before plugin installation and users that completed them after setup.

In today’s Uncanny Continuing Education Credits 3.2 release, we’re adding a very important new feature: the ability to generate credits for historical course completions. This means WordPress administrators can choose a LearnDash course, click a button, and have credits and completions tracked for users that completed courses before the course was assigned credits.

Generate Continuing Education Credits for LearnDash

Here’s how the new feature works:

  1. Edit a LearnDash course and make sure it has the credit value assigned that you want to award to students.
  2. Navigate to Uncanny CEUs > Generate CEUs in /wp-admin/.
  3. Choose a course from the drop-down list.
  4. Click the Add missing records button and credits will be added to student records.

There are a few important things to note when using this new tool:

  • Credits are only awarded for students that have a LearnDash completion record but no credits for that completion. It will not modify CEU values for existing users that already have credits assigned. In other words, if a course had a credit value of 2.0 assigned, a user completed the course and earned 2 credits, then you change the value to 3.0 and run the Generate CEUs function, the student will continue to have 2.0 earned credits, not 3.0.
  • Only courses with a credit value greater than 0 can be awarded credits. If you don’t see a course in the drop-down list, make sure it has credits assigned.
  • The batch generation of credits does not consider enrollment. This means that if the user has a historical completion but no credit, we will award credits even if the user no longer has access to the course.

We’re really excited to get this feature out and into the hands of our plugin users. We know that not having this feature limited the utility of this plugin, and between this update, full Uncanny Automator support and support for manually adding credits, the Uncanny Continuing Education 3.2 really is the most powerful continuing education product for WordPress.

Version 3.2 also adds some other important improvements and fixes. Check out the changelog for the full list.

Continuing Education Credits 3.0

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As part of our series of 3.0 releases for our LearnDash plugins, today marks the release of the 3.0 update for Uncanny Continuing Education Credits. While Pro, Tin Canny and Groups tend to get all the attention, the Continuing Education Credits plugin is one that has been invaluable for some of our own projects, especially for the permanent record it creates of LearnDash course completions. With the latest changes, we’re confident it will be an even bigger asset to sites offering continuing education credits and compliance training.

Here’s some of what’s changing in the 3.0 release:

  1. New Report Designs: We’ve completely redesigned both admin and front end reports so that everything is modern, responsive, and more intuitive.
  2. New Report Filters: Filter admin reports by date range, user or group. It’s even easier to get to the specific data you need.
  3. Gutenberg Block Support: We’re adding eight new Gutenberg blocks for shortcodes and reports to make it easier to incorporate credit reporting into the front end of your LearnDash site.
  4. Uncanny 3.0 Plugin Architecture: Now it’s even easier to get support right from your WordPress site and the control panel is aligned with our other plugins.

Uncanny Continuing Education Credits 3.0

The 3.0 release also includes a number of fixes and support for the new CEU column available in the Learner Transcript in the 3.0.1 Pro release. All things considered, it’s a big update to the CEU plugin and brings important efficiency and aesthetic improvements.

If you’ve considered Uncanny Continuing Education Credits in the past but weren’t sure how it might add value to your site, make sure to check out our recent post on building compliance and recurring training programs that leverage some of the key features in this plugin.

LearnDash Required Course Credits

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Two weeks ago we introduced Uncanny Continuing Education Credits, a plugin that helps LearnDash sites track, manage and report on CEUs and CPD continuing education credits for their learners. While a great plugin on its own, we felt like it was missing something at launch: the ability to set credit requirements. Sure, version 1 could report on credits earned and track annual credit totals, but there was no way to compare what someone had earned against what they should earn.

Today, in the first major update to the Continuing Education plugin, we’re adding an exciting new feature: Required Credits. With version 1.1, administrators can set and track credit requirements for individuals and groups. Credit requirements are really easy to set up and track.

Here’s a screencast explaining the new features and how they work:

In the front end, we’re adding new shortcodes to track how many days are left to earn credits against the rollover date ([uo_ceu_days_remaining]) and to look up how many credits a user still needs to earn ([uo_ceu_credits_remaining]) before the annual rollover date. These are great tools for helping your learners plan their training activities.

You can also send out email reminders to students that haven’t met their credit requirements. Just turn on reminders, set the number of days before the rollover date to send it, and even customize the email. Anyone that hasn’t met their annual requirements by the reminder date will receive an email.

LearnDash CEU Email Reminders

Finally, we’ve added a powerful new Deficiency Report to the plugin that will tell you exactly who hasn’t earned enough credits so that you can follow up with them. And that report, of course, comes with the usual search, group filter, and CSV export capabilities for easier analysis.

CEU Deficiency Report

That rounds out version 1.1 of the plugin. We’re excited about the new options this update provides for sites offering compliance and other types of annual training. Let us know how you’re using the Continuing Education Credits plugin in the comments!

Continuing Education Credits for LearnDash

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If you have a LearnDash site that offers any kind of continuing education or credit-based program, our newest WordPress plugin will make your life a lot easier. Uncanny Continuing Education Credits, our fifth public plugin for LearnDash, adds a comprehensive way to track course-based credit, report on it, and even award certificates for it.

With this plugin, every LearnDash course on your site can be assigned a credit value. Show earned and available credits in the front end. Track cumulative and course-level credit in the back end; records can also be exported to CSV files for analysis. What’s especially great is that earned credits never go away. Records are permanent. Credit records are designed to survive course changes, progress resets and even course deletions; your students never have to worry about changes to their credits. Because we keep records outside of LearnDash and they aren’t affected by progress resets, this makes the plugin extremely useful for programs that learners complete on a recurring basis, like compliance and certification programs.

learndash ceus

Where the plugin gets especially interesting is with our front end reporting. With some important steps to protect privacy, we’ve created a front end report that allows learners, managers, accrediting organizations and others verify course completion and credit records for students. No user account is required to query the CEU records and full completion details are published in the front end (as long as the person searching knows a learner’s name or email address).

For recurring training programs we add the ability to track credits earned since an annual rollover date. The admin report allows date and group filters and is an easy way to search large sets of continuing education records.

LearnDash CEU Admin Report

As an added bonus, we’re releasing the plugin with some new options for LearnDash certificate triggers: earned credits and completion of course combinations. It’s the first time an easy way to recognize completion of multiple LearnDash courses has been made available and can be a great asset for certification programs and sites with a large volume of courses. Certificates can be emailed as PDF files automatically to learners, Group Leaders and the site admin.

Since this is the first release of the Uncanny Continuing Education Credits plugin and it’s a limited feature set, we’re offering a 25% off discount until July 31. Use coupon code ceulaunch during checkout to claim the discount. Unfortunately, the coupon code cannot be used after the end of the month and is only valid for this product.

We hope you enjoy the new plugin! Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Also be sure to check out the product page to buy the plugin and the Knowledge Base for more information.