Two Methods to Creating Access Codes for Assessments
EPIC has two ways of creating Access Codes so that a respondent can complete an assessment. Most EPIC administrators are familiar with the first, primary method where a respondent’s name and email address are loaded into EPIC and the system sends an email to the respondent.
The second method is to create an “extract file”, which is a downloadable list of Access Codes. Instead of loading respondent information
What are Extract Files for?
A set of blank Access Codes is useful when you don’t know who, exactly, will need a code. This might be for a training class that doesn’t require registration. Or for classes where it’s desirable to complete assessment during class, as a group.
How do you create an extract file?
The functionality for creating Access Codes via an extract file has to be enabled for the account. Once it is, the option will appear when using the Create a New Report/Issue Access Codes option from the Manage Reports menu. If you have an EPIC Account with us and want this function enabled, just let us know.
However, even if this function is enabled, the option doesn’t appear when you create Catalyst assessments. Support for extract files was never implemented for Catalyst.
What happens next?
The system will send whatever email you entered an email for each Access Code created. You can delete these email messages, as we won’t be using them!
To get a list of the Access Codes created, go to the Manage Your Account menu and select Pending Credits Report. Enter the search criteria that will select just these records and then download the report as an Excel file. That will get you a list of the codes that you can use to print the Access Codes for your learners.
Keep in mind that the codes won’t show up on that report right away. This is due to the way that EPIC stores data. It may take a few hours for the system to make the codes available via that report.
See the article, Data Warehousing in EPIC to learn about this and how to get around this if you need the codes right away.
Cue the hack!
There is a workaround to create blank Access Codes for Catalyst. Here’s how to do it:
Go to the Manage Reports Menu and choose Create a New Report/Issue Access Codes, as you normally would, and proceed to create a Catalyst assessment.
Important: On the Select Organization screen, the organization you enter will be assigned to all of the codes you are about to create.
You can enable add-ons, like Management and Agile EQ, if you want. Choose folder and subfolder as you normally would.
Next, you will need to add one respondent in the Email and Name fields.
It doesn’t really matter what you enter for the name and email, but I would suggest using one of your own email addresses, because that address will receive the same number of invitation emails as the number of codes you want to create.
As for the name, we usually enter something like, “(your name)”. The respondent will enter their own name when they complete the assessment.
Before you click the “Add” button, change the quantity to the number of codes you want to create. This is the key to the hack! Then click “Add” and then check the “I confirm…” box and then click the “Assign Access Code” button.