Events and individual sessions that offer Continued Education hours (CEs) can be collected for registrants, reported on and merged onto certificates.
Attendees can earn CEs one of two ways:
- They can be earned at the time of event registration (by registering for a session, the CEs are automatically applied) or;
- They can be earned only upon session check-in onsite. This can be done using the Check-In Report or the ePly Mobile App to scan barcodes on attendee badges.
To switch between these two settings, click Reports from the left menu, then the standard Check-in report and click the blue Configure Report button. You can change this setting at any time in the future. The system will recover earned CEs for registrants if changing this setting after registrations have been submitted.
Form Setup
Next, create a field(s) for your event or sessions to associate CEs to. Check boxes, drop down lists and radio button field types support CEs. To add CEs to a field, open the field’s details page and scroll down to the List Items or Field Options section. On the ride side, input a numerical value under the Continued Education column. You can type a whole number or up to 2 decimal places. e.g. 1, 2.5, 3.25
Note that if check-in is required before earning CEs, the Enable check-in for this field checkbox must also be checked.
If you have too many field options (with or without CEs) on any given multiple-choice item to manually enter, you can add all of the field options at once by uploading an Excel file that contains the options you need. See the Mass Uploading Field Options feature at the bottom of a field’s details page or the Mass Uploading Field Options to a Multiple-Choice Item knowledge base article for more details. The mass upload feature is supported for drop down lists and radio buttons.
Reports
Reporting CEs can be accomplished by adding CE related columns to the standard Check-in reports or custom reports. From the standard Check-in report, click the Configure Report button and scroll through the fields listed under the Choose standard fields to include in this report configuration. Highlight the Continued Education field and click the right pointing arrow button to add the field to the report. The CE value shown in this new column is the total number of CEs earned for the registrant across all form fields.
If you have multiple form fields with associated CEs, change to the All Fields Check-In Report under the Choose which check-in report to display drop down list at the top of the standard Check-in report page. This check-in report will display earned CEs at an individual field level.
CEs can also be viewed on custom reports by adding the Continued Education field or the individual field(s) with associated CEs. If adding individual fields, you must select the Use Continued Education check box within the Column Options section to display the CE value instead of the field option’s value. Reminder, the Continued Education field, not the individual field(s), displays the total number of CEs earned for the registrant across all form fields. For general information about custom reports, see the Create a Custom Report article.
Certificates
Certificates can be created for your event or session(s) by using the Badge/PDF File Setup feature and merging the Continued Education field onto the certificate. Follow the same steps listed on the Create Name Badges article to create a certificate.