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Managing Curriculum Notifications

Activate, view, and edit curriculum notification emails and set properties for scheduled expiration notices.

Curriculum notifications are automatically generated emails that you can activate and customize. For example, you can activate a notification that is sent to users when they are enrolled in a curriculum.

Before you begin

  • Curriculum notifications are sent to the student using the email configuration that is selected for the organization, from the system administration email address. For details about selecting the email system for an organization, see Choosing an email configuration.
  • Curriculum notifications come from the Administrator defined by the AdminEmail and AdminName managed properties. See Managing organization notifications.

Curriculum notification types

There are six types of curriculum notifications. They are managed in the Manage Curriculums area by highlighting the specific curriculum and then clicking the appropriate notifications button. Notifications can be activated for the following events:

  • Enrolled in the curriculum – Notifies a student of successful enrollment in a curriculum. Contents: the curriculum name.
  • Removed from the curriculum – Notifies a student of successful removal from a curriculum. Contents: the curriculum name.
  • Curriculum is about to expire – Notifies students, instructors, and reporters that their access to a curriculum is going to expire. Contents: the curriculum name and the expiration date.
  • Curriculum is completed – Notifies students that they completed the curriculum. Contents: completion certificate attached.
  • Certificate is about to expire – Notifies students that their certification is about to expire. Contents: curriculum name and expiration date.

Note: The Curriculum is Completed notification is what drives a physical paper certificate to be created for a curriculum. The curriculum can use the standard certificate or one specific to it. To print a certificate specific to the curriculum, a PDF file named the same as the Curriculum ID must have been loaded on your server. See Creating custom certificates for more detail.

When curriculum notifications are sent

If the curriculum notifications are activated, four of the six notifications are sent immediately upon the corresponding action. For example, when a student is enrolled in a curriculum, the corresponding notification is sent immediately. This is true whether the instructor/administrator performs the enrollment or the user self-enrolls. It is also true if existing users are Auto-Enrolled, as well as future students that match the auto-enrollment rules.

The other two notifications are scheduled for distribution by setting up a managed property that tells CourseMill how many days from the curriculum date to send the notification. They are physically sent during the nightly Notification Maintenance run (Admin Tasks > Manage Scheduled Tasks > Notification Schedule). The administrator must set up the corresponding managed property for each:

  • Certification is about to expire – CertificationExpirationDays. The date the student gets the notification is calculated by taking the Certification Expires in Days field (entered on the Curriculum tab) and subtracting the number of days in this managed property. For example: Certification Expires in Days = 365 and CertificationExpirationDays = 30, so the notification is sent 335 days after completion.
  • Curriculum is about to expire – CurriculumAccessDays. The date the student gets the notification is calculated by taking the Student Must Complete in (days) field (entered on the Curriculum Details tab) and subtracting the number of days in this managed property. This is sent only if the curriculum is not yet completed. For example: Student Must Complete in (days) = 90 and CurriculumAccessDays = 14, so the notification is sent 76 days after enrollment. Once the student reaches 90 days, he or she no longer has access to the curriculum.

Note: The expiration date is not retained until the notification of the expiration is executed. This matters only if you are creating reports that include this field; it shows blank on the report until the notification goes out.

View the activity status of curriculum notifications

  1. Open the Curriculums/Courses side-tab and click Manage Curriculums.
  2. Select the curriculum ID and click Notifications. Alternatively, select the curriculum ID, right-click on the table, and select Notifications.

The activity status for each notification is displayed.

Activate or inactivate a curriculum notification

When a notification is active, members of your organization receive emails when the events occur.

  1. Open the Curriculums/Courses side-tab and click Manage Curriculums.
  2. Select the curriculum ID and click Notifications. Alternatively, select the curriculum ID, right-click on the table, and select Notifications.
  3. On the Notifications window, double-click the notification.
  4. On the next Notification window, enable the Active check box to activate the notification, or disable it to inactivate the notification.
  5. Click Change. The activity status of the notification is changed.

Edit the contents of a curriculum notification

You can specify the subject and body text of a notification. Default sample text is provided and can be customized to your preference.

  1. Open the Curriculums/Courses side-tab and click Manage Curriculums.
  2. Select the curriculum ID and click Notifications. Alternatively, select the curriculum ID, right-click on the table, and select Notifications.
  3. On the Notifications window, double-click the notification (or click the pencil icon).
  4. On the next Notification window, edit the text of the Subject and Message fields as necessary. You can insert the text-variables listed below in the subject and body.
  5. Click Save.

Variables are field names that are pulled from the database to personalize messages. Data pulled from the database is placed in the associated variable names, such as <#CURRICULUM_NAME#>. The emails use these text-variables, which are replaced with information specific to the user receiving the email. Select Help to view a complete list of available content variables and their exact spelling.

Curriculum notification text-variables

  • <#USER_ID#> – Student’s user ID
  • <#USER_FIRSTNAME#> – Student’s first name
  • <#USER_PASSWORD#> – Student’s password
  • <#USER_FULLNAME#> – Student’s full name
  • <#USER_LASTNAME#> – Student’s last name
  • <#CURRICULUM_NAME#> – Curriculum name
  • <#CM_LINK#> – URL to log in to CourseMill
  • <#END_DATE#> – Curriculum expiration date
  • <#PURCHASE_DATE#> – Date of the purchase
  • <#CURRICULUM_DESCRIPTION#> – Curriculum description
  • <#CURRICULUM_PRICE#> – Price of purchasing the curriculum
  • <#SHOPPING_CART_TOTAL#> – Total cost in the shopping cart

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