Certificates now offer a new option called Auto-issue upon completion found inside the Issue Options section of course certificate settings.  When selected, this new option issues a certificate when users meet the criteria for obtaining a certificate, if they have not already acquired it.  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Administrative set up

1. Enabling Auto-issue upon completion for the site

Before you can use this feature, you must enable it for the site.  Go to Administration>>> Site administration>>> Plugins>>> Activity modules>>> Certificate:

In the page displaying certificate options for the site, there are two settings to be aware of.  First, you must enable Auto-issue upon completion:

Second, select the role that will receive Auto-issued certificates.  The default role is Student, which ensures that Teachers, Limited Admins and users who do not have the Student role in the course do not receive certificates for courses they are teaching or testing. 

Click on Save changes before navigating away from the page.  Now certificates can be set up to Auto-issue certificates.

2. Scheduling the Auto-issue task

The default time that the Auto-issue task runs each day is 2:00 a.m.  This is when the system will automatically generate certificates for users who have met the criteria to earn a certificate, where the certificate was not already issued.

If you would like to schedule the auto-issue at a different time or more frequently, simply request that your Refined Specialist schedule this task for you.  

Setting up the certificate in the course

Create the certificate as usual.  In the Issue Options section of the certificate creation screen, enable Auto-issue upon completion for the certificate:

You will not be able to save the certificate unless you set one or more restrictions in the Restrict access section of the certificate creation screen:

In the example above, users must receive a grade in a Moodle quiz after a certain date and they must meet the Activity completion conditions set inside the Moodle quiz:

Usually Activity completion requires users to meet certain conditions, either Student must view this activity to complete it or Student must receive a grade to complete this activity or both. To mark the certificate complete when using the auto issue feature the activity completion setting must be set to Student must view this activity to complete it.

If you forget to set access restrictions, you will see an error message when you attempt to save the certificate:

Certificates set with the Auto-issue upon completion feature will be delivered using the method selected in the Delivery drop down. 

When certificates are set to deliver via email, the first run of the Auto-issue task will deliver all previously un-issued certificates to users. In addition, managers who are set to be notified when one of the users they are managing receives a certificate will also receive this notification upon auto-issuance of certificates.

Using Groupings with Auto-issue upon completion

Multiple certificates with Auto-issue upon completion can be set inside a course, all linked to the same or different activities.  Only those users in the specified groupings will be issued a certificate when the Auto-issue task runs overnight. 

First you must set up [[groupings]] in the course. (see section in linked article 'Common Module Settings').  Then, in the certificate set-up, select which grouping will receive the certificate:

Click on Save changes and return to course.  Add more certificates as needed, restricted to the other groupings.

Even if all users access the same activity, they will be emailed their grouping-specific certificate when the Auto-issue feature runs overnight unless they have already accessed them inside the course. 

Reporting

All certificates issued by Auto-issue upon completion appear in the Flexible Certificates/Completion report when filtered for by short name of the course. The certificate completions are also available using the report builder data source called Course Completion (by certificate).