RDS KNOWLEDGE BASE
Sign-in Reconciliation
The Sign-in Reconciliation activity allows organizations offering live, in person training to manage and report on participation of the live event within the LMS. This includes the ability to issue certificates based on attendance and to have those certificates stored in the users’ My Certificates block.
Sign-In Reconciliation for live events is a standard activity option in courses on the Refined Training Platform.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Enabling Live Event Sign-In Reconciliation
Administrative set up
Before a Sign-In Reconciliation can be added to a course, an administrator must specify one or more physical locations where their events occur.
Go to Site Administration>>> Plugins>>> Activity modules>>> Sign-in Reconciliation:
When you click on the Sign-in Reconciliation link, the Event Locations page will display:
Click on Add Event Location:
Specify the city or event location Name (for examples: Washington, DC or The Hyatt Regency, Burlingame, CA) and select the Time Zone of the location from the drop down menu. Click on Save changes.
 | The time zone will display on the course page as part of the iconic display for the activity always indicating the time of the event in accordance to the location. |
Adding the Sign-in Reconciliation activity to a course
On the course page where you want to add the Sign-in Reconciliation for a live event, click on Add an activity or resource and scroll down to Sign-in Reconciliation:
Complete the required fields and select a certificate which can be emailed automatically to participants depending upon certificate settings. If you are issuing certificates as part of this activity the certificates must be created before the meeting is created. This is of greater importance when using the back up and restore functionality to ensure the settings are properly restored.
| The certificate must first be created on the course page for it to be available as a drop down option within the Sign-in Reconciliation activity. |
Next select the size of the standard icon, or select the option to use a custom icon, and the Icon Position on the page (left, right or center); you can also add Extra HTML to enhance the iconic appearance and provide additional information to the end user.
This is how the standard icon will display:
If you select a custom icon, an additional option will appear below in the Custom Icon field allowing you to add or drag and drop your custom icon image:
| The recommended standard size for the icon is 120px by 120px. A higher density image will display better, 100 dpi or more but not more than 300 dpi. |
Reminders for Live Events
The live events that are created as activities can be link the LMS calendar allowing Refined Reminders to be sent to participants at specified intervals.
Using Groupings with Live Events
For recurring events, you can save time by setting up multiple instances of the event within the course which can be held at different locations and/or times. You can also designate a Grouping to be associated with each event, allowing your participants to be grouped together by event to facilitate the management and reporting of participant data, all under one course:
The grouping name will display on the administrative view of the course page and certificates will respect the grouping assignment.
Managing attendance
With Editing on, you will see some additional icons associated with Sign-In Reconciliation along with the usual activity icons. These additional icons allow for checking and modifying attendance records, downloading the list of participants, uploading the attendance results, and reviewing the participant Participation form that highlights users who failed to meet the completion criteria:
Once participants are enrolled into the course, their names and user ID numbers will appear on the Attendance list for the event. To access the attendance list click on the green Check Attendance Icon:
| If a Grouping is associated with the event, only members of that Grouping will appear in the list and only that Grouping will receive certificates and reminders sent out by the LMS about the event. |
There are two options available to indicate attendance, issue certificates and specify credits received.
The first option is to select an option for all attendees click on the check boxes at the top of the Attended and Certificate columns, this will enable all the checkboxes in that column for all attendees in the list. Inserting a number of credits in the top field in the credit column will award everyone in the list the same number of credits. To alter individual records you can unselect or clear individual boxes for the attendees who did not meet the criteria selected. Save changes before navigating away from the page. Once the attendance for the event has been added, an Admin or course Teacher can modify the records when required.
The other option is to download the users in a CSV file format, update the csv file with the results and then upload to the activity. This is useful so to enter attendance details at the event even when internet is not available at the live location, click on the down arrow with editing on and a CSV spreadsheet will open:
Save the file with a unique name. To mark an attendee present, put a 1 in the attended column; a zero means they did not attend. If they met the criteria to receive a certificate for the event (such as attending for a set number of hours), put a 1 in the ifcert column; a zero means they did not meet the criteria and will not be issued a certificate. Finally, enter the number of credit hours (one or two digits only) earned. Partial attendance can be indicated by some number less than the credit number you originally designated for the event.
After the event, click on the up arrow to upload the completed attendance CSV file. This file will automatically populate the Attendance list and issue a certificate to attendees who met the criteria for the certificate (if you selected a certificate to be automatically emailed).
Reviewing attendance
If you want to see who in the list of attendees did not meet the criteria for the certificate or for successful attendance at the event, click on the Sign-in Reconciliation form icon, which is the last icon on the right:
Participants whose names appear in black type have attended the event and met the criteria for successful attendance. Participants whose names appear in red have either not attended or did not earn sufficient credits.
Revising attendance
If upon reviewing the Sign-in Reconciliation form, you notice a mistake, you can go back to the activity, click on the green check icon, or update the csv file and edit the attendance for one or more participants.
You can click on the top check box under Attended and Certificate to mark all participants present or to indicate that all participants earned the certificate. The top box under Credits allows you to give all participants the same number of credits. Clicking on these boxes a second time removes all records and credits for everyone.
Click on Save changes. The administrator will then need to issue the certificate manually, by using theLog in as feature to log in as the user(s) and access the certificate inside the course.
Restrict access via Completion Conditions
The attendance results from the live event can be used to unlock subsequent content, such as certificates, quizzes and presentations. As with other Activities, in the Restrict Access section, select the live event by name from the drop-down list next to the Activity Completion Condition and then select must be marked complete. Then select the preferred option for Before activity can be accessed. Save and return to course. 
| Once a participant is marked as having attended, if his or her attendance is revised to not attended, they will still be able to access restricted content. |
Reporting on the Live Event
To create a report on the attendance at the live event, go to Site Administration>>> Reports>>> Flexible Sign-In Reconciliation:
It is a flexible report because you can filter by User Filters (see section 'Reporting with Profile Fields' in this link for more information on User Filters), a Course Filter or an Activity Filter:
The unique filter in this report is the Activity Filter, which allows you to filter by the Sign-In Reconciliation Name, the Event Locations, the Groupings or the Event dates:
To select multiple Event Locations or Groupings, use control-click.
The displayed report shows the Event Location, Course name, Event name, Date of the event, participant’s Name, whether they Attended, whether they earned the Certificate, and how many Credits they obtained:
You can Display or Download the report (as an Excel file) from the set-up page but you can’t download the report from the Display page.