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April 2022 | Issue #114

Current Releases: SM 8.0.110 (4/4) | AW 3.5.068 (03/08)

View the webinar on these new releases!

Solutions to Common Registration Problems - 5/19, 2 p CDT

Update Webinar - 7/13, 2p CDT

ACEware Systems Newsletter

Information to Run Your Program

What Can Your Payment Gateway Do for You?

ACEweb’s payment module can be integrated with many popular payment gateway services, allowing customers to accept credit card payments as part of the online registrations process. These services are in the business of handling financial transactions securely, and they all offer full compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). ACEweb lets you take full advantage of their expertise by redirecting the end user to the payment gateway site for the actual payment. The user is then returned to your ACEweb site once the transaction had been entered so the registration can be completed and confirmation messages delivered. What’s more, once you have a gateway integration in place in AW, it can be extended to work with Student Manager (via a pop-up browser window) so you can also handle card payments in the back office.

We support around 20 different services, with Touchnet, Authorize.net, and PayPal’s PayFlow Link being the most popular. All of them handle the basic operation of accepting payments and getting the results posted into Manager, but some have optional features that can be enabled. Here’s a partial list:

Cashnet (Transact), Paywire OSBP, Commerce Manager, Touchnet Marketplace. All have options to break down registration payments on a course-by-course basis for accounting purposes. We’ve recently added an option to store (somewhat limited) course information in Authorize.net transaction records.
MySchoolBucks. Aimed at K-12 operations, this service also supports course-by-course tracking through its accounting module.
Bluefin. Offers secure connections to hardware devices, allowing you to use card readers in the back office.
Touchnet, Official Payments, MySchoolBucks, Cashnet. Support ACH electronic check payments. (In the case of Touchnet, full AW integration is still under development – hopefully available as part of our Conference Release.)
Elavon (Converge). Has augmented their legacy service with an API-based eCommerce product. The process.do option is still operational, but the new service is recommended for security and performance reasons.

In addition, many of these services have setup options to configure things like modes of operation, data categories tracked, or the user interface for the payment page. Talk to your tech (and to your payment service reps) to see if there are available payment features that might benefit your program.

Contributed by Stein Goering

Countdown to Annual Users' Conference

Have you registered?

Have you downloaded Whova?

Watched the Whova Attendee Guide?

Have you updated your profile in Whova?

Have you participated in the active polls? (There are two live - now!)

If you answered no to any of these questions, you still have time! Pre-conference sessions are filling quickly - don't wait till the last minute to get your registration(s) in. Only 53 days remain!

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire

Update ACEware Cloud Environment

We are exited about ascending course management and registration services to the cloud. Let's talk a bit about course generation features. The course setup wizard allows you to...

Select from in-person, online, or hybrid course types.
Set and enforce min/max registration numbers.
Assign multiple fees - with fee limits respected.
Add fee descriptions.
Determine one or multiple display groups.
Assign instructor(s) and role(s).
Automatic session generator.
Determine web display options (for your public versus contract courses).
Upload images for site, groups, & courses with a convenient browse, select, reposition, and save process.

More info will come in the May newsletter and a demonstration will be provided during the final conference session on June 10th.

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire

Requiring an Assessment Before Issuing a Certificate

We recently completed a custom project for Eastern Illinois University. In a nutshell, Stein and Cheryl developed a portal allowing students to:

View an instructional video (videos not hosted by ACEware, but we directed the student to the video(s).
Take a short assessment over the content (we used express registration pages for this).
Instantly see the results of their assessment (pass or fail).
If they fail, the student has the opportunity to review the video and retake the assessment.
If they pass, the student sees which questions they missed (if applicable) to note correct response(s), and is able to self-print their certificate of attendance right away.

We think this has potential for other customers who may require some type of assessment over content before a certificate can be received. What say you?

Would a feature like this be beneficial to you?

Yes!

Select

No.

Select

Not yet, but good to know.

Select

Tech Tip of the Month: Deduplicate Your Report Results

Have you found that perfect report, exactly what you were looking for, except it had one small, tiny problem: The courses were shown multiple times? Well, I have an answer for you! JUSTDOIT is a function that I believe we have touched on in the past, but I thought this would be a good time to remind everyone of what else it can do!

In the event that a report shows multiples of a result you can use JUSTDOIT to group them together! Here's an example that will dedupe course records by course code: JUSTDOIT([select * from (cursor5) group by COCRSE into cursor(cursor5)])

This is just one example; in addition to grouping by course code, you could group on values from register, pay, or names. If you would like to know more about the JUSTDOIT report function, you can go here or speak to your tech!

Contributed by Joseph Sotkovski

Report of the Month: Workshop Rosters

There is a misconception that with a workshop type course, you can't get rosters by the session and you can only get a roster for the course as a whole. I'm here to tell you that you can have your cake and eat it too!

Running a Name Roster from either the course or the Reports menu shows everyone who signed up for the whole course (without showing the individual workshops). But to get a listing by workshop of who is going, look no further than the default report in Workshops -> Rosters/Certificates. Below is what rolls out with the system for new installs, but your organization might have edited yours previously. Note the session information and the names for each person underneath. The report is designed to save paper by listing sessions one after another. You can set each workshop to print on its own page by going to Report -> Data Grouping inside the modify report screen and checking "Start each group on a new page" under the "wmcode" Group expression. That way you can have those rosters available for the workshop leader(s). Though, if you do want more details about the attendees, check out the 2-Up Roster Format additional report, which you should also have already. It displays addresses and such for the attendees.

There is much you can do in this report area. I can already think of a few other reports that you'll want/need and plan to visit those in future newsletters. In the mean time, run your workshops with Student Manager/ACEweb!

Contributed by Matthew Olson