What Is an Enrollment Key?

An Enrollment key is an easy-to-use credential implemented by admins to allow prospective learners to create accounts in your portal, and enroll into courses. Enrollment Keys can be used in a variety of ways depending on what is suitable for your needs. They can be created and distributed to new Users to have them set up their own accounts, adding them to a predetermined department. Alternatively, it can be a way to enroll Users into specific learning content, minimizing the manual work enrolling each User into learning content. They can also be set up to do all of the above tasks, simply by distributing a unique key Name.   

How to Set Up Enrollment Keys

Enrollment Keys can be found, and managed, through the Enrollment Keys report found under the Users Tab. 

When adding an Enrollment Key, there are a number of options that you can choose from to set one up. These options will affect how the Enrollment Key is used, and what results the use will have for Admins and Learners. Below is a table of the options under the General tab, and their function:

• Name: This is the name that you will use for reference when looking at your Enrollment Keys report. This name will not be shown to Learners, and can only be seen by Admins with access to enrollment keys, so you can make it as unique as necessary.
• Department: Selecting a Department from the drop-down list will ensure that any new accounts created with the Key are added to the selected department. Note: If you have a Blended Billing Model, a tool tip will state whether the Department you've selected has Internal or External Billing applied. Please ensure you have selected the correct Department and the Department has the expected Billing Type.

• Courses that will be provided to users of the key: The description is fairly straightforward here - any courses chosen by clicking on the Add Courses button will be added to the User's enrollments. 

• Username: You can check the box next to either Email Address, FirstName.LastName, or User Input to determine how the User's username will appear. User Input 
• Start Date: The date picker will allow you to choose what date Users can begin using the Enrollment Key. Any attempts to use a Key before this date will result in an error message. 
• Expiry Date: The date picker will allow you to choose what date the Users can no longer use their Enrollment Keys. Any attempts to use a Key after this date will result in an error message. 
• Number of Uses: Adding a number into this field will determine how many uses an Enrollment Key is limited to. Please Note: The number of uses includes both successful, and unsuccessful redemption where the User did not complete the process fully. 
• Language: The User's default language can be set from the language options available in the drop-down menu.
• Messages: By default, the Send new user email option is disabled, however you can choose to enable it by checking the box. This will send out your portal's default Message Template unless you choose to enable the Use Custom Template toggle. Doing so will allow you to adopt any changes as necessary. 

In the fields tab you can define the data you want to collect from your Learners as part of the registration process. Beside each field is a drop-down that allows you to choose between Optional, Required, Hidden, Locked or Read Only. Optional and Required are fairly self-explanatory, but we'll look at Hidden, Locked and Read Only with a bit more detail. Hidden fields mean that the field is not visible to the learner, but this data is still available to Admins within the Users Report. Locked and Read Only fields will be visible to the Learner however, the user will be unable to update the data within the field itself. If you are using custom user fields, those will also appear as options in the Fields tab too. 

User Redemption

There are three methods to redeem an enrollment key:

• The first method is by clicking the signup button on the Absorb login page and physically entering in the key. In this case, the key may be provided to the users on a piece of printed promotional material, or shared with supervisors via email to allow them to share with their staff. Please Note: Some organizations have chosen to hide the Signup button in their portal setup. To re-enable this, an Admin can go to Manage Templates then choose Public Dashboard, click Add Tiles and add the Enrollment Key to Container of their choice.  
• The second method is by using a Direct Link URL. These links might be included in an email, placed on your website, or can be embedded in the “Sign Up” button on your Absorb Learner login page.
• The third method is by redeeming an Enrollment Key through a tile on the Learner dashboard. If your Learner dashboard doesn’t already have this tile, you can always request it by contacting Absorb Support. Please Note: When an existing Learner redeems an Enrollment Key, it is for course enrollment purposes only. The other Learner management aspects of the key - such as department assignment - do not apply to existing users.

Once the key is redeemed, the Learner is taken to the registration page where they can enter in their personal information, and create their account. The information they can enter will depend entirely on how you have the fields set up under the tab of the same name.

Fields

Under the Fields tab, you will find a list of all the available default, and custom fields in your portal. When using the Enrollment Key associated, any New Users will be required to fill out the forms as set up under this tab. The first three - Username, First Name, and Last Name, cannot be manipulated as they are required by Absorb. The rest of the fields can be made Hidden, Locked, Optional, Read Only, or Required, as determined by an admin. Below are the differences between the options available for each:

• Hidden: Learners will not be able to see this field, however admins will be able to in the Users Report. A use case for this field option would be to keep private notes 
• Optional: This will make the field visible by learners and admins, but is not required when creating an account. Use this option to take in information that they User may want to provide, but it non-critical to your organization.
• Locked/Read Only: Learners will be able to see the field, but will be unable to change the data within it. Admins will be able to both see, and update the data. This option can be used to provide Users the ability to see the information that will be held on their profile, but keep them from altering it. 
• Required: This will make the custom field visible to both learners and admins, and will be required when creating or updating user information. This option should be selected when admins must have the information provided upon account creation. 

The order in which custom fields show up is completely dependent on the order in which they are created in their Portal Settings. Changing the order of a custom field is not possible. You will need to delete custom fields (and with that any data associated with them), and then recreate them in the order that they need them to show up.

Related Admin Permissions

Below are the Required Role Permissions the Admin will need to use this feature and access the data to be populated.

Please note that your environment may use customized Role(s), Permissions, or a combination of both to perform these activities. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact your local System Administrator to review your current permissions. 

Required Role Permissions

*Admin only require access to the kind of Course that they are creating Enrollment Keys for.

Suggested Role Permissions