Preconditions: To start designing certificates, you must be assigned as a Category Manager or Category User Manager in your designated course room (“Category”). In addition to the Category Manager, the Course Manager can also choose between certificate templates within a course.
atingi Certificates are one of two digital credential options which atingi offers; the second option are so-called “Open Badges”. Which of the two options you decide to use should be decided on the basis of which you think is more suited for your learners. For more information about Open Badges, ask your Account Manager or visit the Partner Support Center.
The atingi certificate is a simple, customisable, digital PDF, which is automatically issued to each learner who completes the course once it has been set up as an ‘activity’ into your course. The atingi certificate can be designed by the Category (User) Manager to fit your visual preference in terms of background image, logos, orientation (vertical/horizontal), shape (rectangular / square) and size, text font, dynamic text fields, etc. Of course, you can also use our atingi certificate template, which already has all automatic fields configured and is displayed in the atingi corporate design.
Learners can then download the certificate as a PDF and email or print it. It can also be verified by facilitators and admins of its authenticity via the ID number printed onto the certificate; the verification page lists all the details for the certificate so that you can manually verify the copy.
a) Designing the Custom Certificate Background Image
To create the background image of a custom certificate, you can use e.g., PowerPoint, Canva or Adobe Photoshop. For PowerPoint, make sure to first format the slide in a common format, e.g. A4 vertical, and then export the slide as a JPG/PNG, so that it is ready for upload.
The background image of your certificate should only contain all the elements that are not “dynamic”. This means it should not include elements such as the participant’s name or certificate issuing date, as those will vary each time the certificate is issued and be generated automatically by atingi.
As the certificate editing process can be time consuming, to reduce the amount of text elements you need to add via the template editor later, we recommend that you already add all the “non-dynamic” elements onto your certificate background image, such as graphics, project and partner logos and a certificate title (e.g. “Certificate of Completion”).
To ensure greater inclusivity for learners using a screen reader (e.g. for the visually impaired), ensure that the dynamic elements you add to your certificate template include all the key elements of the certificate. This is because screen readers can only read dynamic text elements aloud. Thus, at minimum, the following dynamic elements should be added:
- Full name of learner
- Course name
- Date of issuance
- Verification code or QR code
- Transition language between the dynamic elements (e.g. “[full name] has successfully completed the course“
or “[full name] has demonstrated proficiency in the following subjects”.
- Brief summary or list of the course content/modules (optional)
Ultimately, the dynamic elements should tell the full story of the learner’s achievement when read aloud. Instructions on how to add dynamic elements are found in the next section.
Lastly, please remember to add the atingi logo somewhere on your template! This is required for all public courses on atingi and you can ask your atingi Account Manager for a high-quality PNG File. Other than that, you are free to add logos or customize the design of your certificate as you wish.
Examples of certificate background images (only non-dynamic elements are shown)
b) Creating the Custom Certificate Template
To start creating a custom certificate template,
1. go to your course, turn editing on and select “Add an activity or resource”,
2. click on the activity “Course certificate”
3. click on “Manage Certificate Templates”
4. On the next page you see all available custom certificates from your category. You can choose and – if you like – edit those or set up a whole new template by clicking on “+ New Certificate Template”.
5. In the pop-up for the “New Certificate Template”, first enter the name you would like to give the certificate. Secondly, select your relevant Course category (if you assign “none”, the certificate won’t be linked to your course category).
6. Next, set the desired page width and height in millimetres (e.g. A4 vertical layout is 210x297mm) and click “Save”.
7. On the Template, to upload the background image, click on “add element” and select “image”. Here you can insert your pre-designed custom certificate image (see previous chapter). The automatic fields will be configured afterwards.
Note: It is very important to first upload the background image for your template – and ideally you should be certain that this background image is your final version. This is because every time you upload a new background image, it overlays any text elements you placed on the template. This implies that every time you upload a new background image, you need delete all the hidden text elements and then create all those text elements again from scratch just so that they show on top of the background image.
8. Upload your pre-designed background image via drag & drop, or by clicking on the purple folder icon (‘add’).
9. Tick the checkbox next to “use as background image” and click on “save”.
10. Now your background image will appear. Next, click again on “Add Element” and select “User field”.
11. The default selection for “User field” will be “full name”, but you can also select other user fields from the dropdown, if needed.
Select the “Font”, “Size”, “Colour” and “Text alignment”.
In “Element name”, feel free to enter ‘full name’ so that this element is clearly marked, because if you have other text elements later, that will help distinguish the different fields in your overview.
Click on “Save”.
Note: Especially if you are creating a certificate which is not in English language (aka with a different writing system or containing special characters), make sure to choose the font accordingly. For certificates in Vietnamese, German, Arabic, Chinese, Swedish, Hungarian, and Latvian the font “Free Serif” displays all characters correctly. For all other languages, if you notice that your font is not displayed as it should be, first try to change it to a different one and check if that solves the issue.
12. Your newly added field will appear somewhere at the top of the certificate with a little “+” sign above it. Simply drag the element into the desired location.
13. You can add a date to your certificate by going on “Add element”, “date”, choose date item “issued date”. Then, choose date format, font, and colour, and click “Save”.
14. If you want to add “Date” as a text next to that dynamic date field click on “Add element”, choose “Text” and enter ‘Date’ into text field. Then, select font and colour, click “Save”.
15. Move all fields into the desired position.
16. The “certificate code” allows admins, students, and others to verify the validity of the certificate via the ‘verify certificate’ feature. To add it, click on: “Add element” and “Code”:
17. Under “Display”, pick the way you would like to display the code. In this example, we are picking “Code only”. Pick the font and colour as usual and save.
18. You can now see the ‘code’ element displayed on the certificate and can move it into the desired position. You can also add another text element next to it.
In this example, we added some more text fields.
The certificate template is now done!
If you want to change the title, you can click on “Edit details” and save the new name.
When you go back to your course, you will find your new template in the dropdown:
c) Adding the Certificate Activity to your Course
The certificate module is an ‘activity’ that can be added to your course, just like any other. Go to the relevant section of your course where you would like to add the certificate activity. Usually this is the last section/module and you can rename it by clicking on the pencil icon next to the title, giving it a name like “Certificate” and press enter to confirm. Then, click on the small plus in the section to choose the certificate activity.
Note: The certificate should conclude your course and therefore only be issued after at least one final assessment has been passed (and/or the whole course has been passed).
In the previous chapters you already learned how to set up a custom certificate. If you are done with this or just chose to use the standard atingi certificate template, you now need to configure some more settings in the activity to make sure that the certificate is issued automatically after completing the course.
You should give the certificate activity a name, and if you like a description.
Unless you want to hide the certificate temporarily, set the availability to “Show on course page”. Usually, you also do not need to define user groups.
The most important setting is the access restriction because this determines under which conditions the certificate is issued. In general, we recommend using the “Course completed” access restriction. This means that all activities defined under “Course completion” must be completed before the access to the certificate is granted.
But please note that for this to work you need to configure the “Course completion” as well! Otherwise, no certificate will be issued at all.
Alternatively, you can also select the “Activity completion” restriction. However, for this you need to set a new ‘rule’ for each activity that should be mandatory to complete before the certificate is issued.
The other restrictions available in the list usually do not make sense for most courses.
After having decided on an access restriction, you need to configure the activity completion. Here, you have two choices: either you select “do not indicate activity completion” or “Show activity when conditions are met” and “view”.
If you decided for the “view” condition, make sure not to select the certificate activity when configuring the “course completion”. If you choose “do not indicate completion”, the activity will not appear in the course completion activity list, but it will also not appear in your activity report.
You do not need to change anything in “Tags” or “Competencies”. Click “Save and Display” to return to your course.
Please note that for the certificate it is especially important that everything is set up correctly when your course is being launched, because the template can not be changed after it has been issued one time. If you are sure that everything works fine, you can also enable the automatic sending of the certificate: