Creating and printing badges and certificates

The below article is only applicable to the Badges and certificates module. It is not connected to SpotMe's more recent onsite logistics solution - Onside check-in and badge printing 

Use the Badges and certificates module to generate dynamic and personalized badges and certificates.

You can use an uploaded background image for the design, edit the formatting and layout, and insert your participants' user information. You can also generate and add QR codes that contain all the attendee information and that can be scanned onsite.

Once done, you can export the generated badges and certificates and PDFs that are ready to be printed.

App user badges

Badges can be provided to participants to allow them to access a venue or a session. They can be personalized to have their own design, and contain information such as the user’s name, surname, country and profile picture.

A QR code can also be included on the badge that includes all the attendee's information, and can for example be scanned on site in order to register the attendance of the attendee at session. This same QR code can also be used by participants to exchange business cards.

App user certificates

Personalized workspace or session attendance certificates can be delivered to participants. These can be created in Backstage, sent via email to participants, and/or downloaded directly from a page within the app.
Participants can also be asked to perform certain actions prior to downloading their certificate, such as filling a form.

QR codes for posters or exhibitors

Backstage users can create QR codes that are linked to posters and/or exhibitors within the workspace, via shortlinks. When app users scan the QR codes, they will be redirected to the poster or exhibitor's page in the app.

Overview

The Badges and certificates module is configured using two elements in Backstage:

• Templates that determine the design of the final result (badge, certificate or QR code).
• Print jobs that determine the physical (paper) or virtual (image/pdf) print-out of the template.

To design the badge or certificate, you will need to upload a template .png file to Backstage.
Only .png format is supported. The template can be in landscape or vertical orientation, and the dimensions can be modified before printing.

Important: Backstage does not support special characters. Please ensure that all participant names, poster/exhibitor titles are written without special characters (without Cyrillic characters or accents), otherwise their names and titles will not display properly when printing.

Creating participant badges

Follow the below steps to create a badge print:

1. In Backstage go to Badges and certificates > Prepare a print.
2. Enter the Template name of the badge you want to create.
3. Select Participant badges from the three available options.
4. Click on Proceed.
   
   
5. In the Template Upload tab, select your .png image and upload it via the “Upload” button.
   We recommend that you use images that have a minimum of 300 PPI (use 600 PPI or more for an even better resolution):
   
6. Click on Proceed.
7. In the Template design tab, use the text, image and QR Code options to customize your badge:
   

• Add text: Enter any text you want to see on the badge, as well as the participant details that you want to include. You can use metadata here so that personalized information gets pulled directly from the attendee's user profile. Here you can also edit the font, color and size of the text. 
• Add an image: Add the profile picture of each participant.
• Add a QR code: Add a QR code for each participant, that is generated here and includes all the attendee's information.

Tips: Use the text function to add the metadata you want to display.
After adding the text, click on the second icon starting from the right and choose which information you want to display. All words wrapped in {{{ and }}} will be replaced with the field values of the metadata you created on Backstage.

When your template is ready, click on Proceed to move on to the Print layout tab.

Printing badges

In the Print layout tab, you can customize the layout of your print.
There are two different methods: One for printing less than 500 badges, and one for printing 500 badges and over.

Less than 500 badges

1. Choose the Paper size, Orientation, Grid and Margins.
2. In the Data field, select Print for: Every item from data source, to print up to 500 badges.
   If you want to print over 500 badges, please refer to the More than 500 badges section below.
3. Use the Print preview window on the left to check how your template looks.
   You can always edit it by going back to the Template design tab.
4. Once the print is ready, select Print.

In the View print job tab, you can download the PDF or export the print statistics. 
You can also view all the templates that you have prepared in the Print jobs tab.

More than 500 badges

1. If you want to print more than 500 badges, in the Data field, select Print for: Items matching certain criteria.
   When using this option you can target badges to a specific group of users:
   
   To do so, use the metadata that you already created in Backstage in order to group users.
   For example, here we are using the user metadata Mailertarget, when it equals 1.
2. Click on Print once you have set up your target users.

Important: Targeting badges only works with metadata that is set as text or numbers.
“Boolean” and other options are not supported, so make sure to adapt your metadata using text or numbers before printing your badges.

Creating participant certificates

1. In Backstage, go to Badges and certificates > Prepare a certificate.
2. Enter the Template name of the certificate you want to create.
3. Select Certificates for participants from the three available options.
4. Click on Proceed.
   
5. In the Template upload tab, select your .png certificate template file and upload it by clicking on Upload. We recommend that you use images that have a minimum of 300 PPI (use 600 PPI or more for an even better resolution).
   
6. Click on Proceed.
7. In the Template design tab, use the text and image options to customize your certificate:
   
   

Tips: Use the text function to add the metadata you want to display.
After adding the text, click on the second icon starting from the right and choose which information you want to display. All words wrapped in {{{ and }}} will be replaced with the field values of the metadata you created on Backstage.

When your template is ready click on Proceed.

Creating certificates

Less than 500 certificates (printed/paper or virtual)

In Print layout you can customize the layout of your print:

1. Choose the Paper size, Orientation and Margins.
2. In the Data field, select Print for: Every item from data source, if you want to print up to 500 certificates. If you want to print more than 500 certificates, please refer to the More than 500 certificates section below.
3. Use the Print preview to see how your template looks.
   You can always edit it by going back to the Templates section.
4. Once the print is ready, select Print.

The below View Print Job tab will open. In View Print Job you can download the PDF, export the print statistics and generate a personalizable link:

1. The Generate a personalizable link option creates a shortlink that allows you to download any participant’s certificate without entering each participant's profile.
2. Choose the title of the certificate, then, replace the "Participant's identifier" text at the end of the link with the actual participant ID (you can export the full list of participant IDs from Backstage) in the Users module.

All the certificates downloaded using this link will be named according to the title that you chose beforehand, as shown under the generated link.

You can view all the templates that you have prepared in the Print Jobs tab:

More than 500 certificates (printed)

For printed certificates, there is a limit of 500 certificates.

1. If you want to print more than 500 certificates, in the Data field, select Print for: Items matching certain criteria.
   
2. When using this option, you can target certificates to a specific group of users. To do so, use the metadata that you already created in Backstage in order to group users.
   For example, here we are using the user metadata Mailertarget, when it equals 1.
3. Click on Print once you have set up your targets.
   

Important: Targeting certificates only works with metadata that is set as text or numbers.
“Boolean” and other options do not work. Make sure to change your metadata before printing your certificates.

More than 500 certificates (virtual)

For virtual certificates, unlike for printed certificates, there is no limitation on the number that can be generated.

However, you will still need to target the print job to a field that has less than 500 instances to prevent an error. You can target to your own Last Name metadata, or any other metadata field that has less than 500 instances of the same value.

Once this is done, you will link the virtual certificate to a page in the app as described below. Then all the users (regardless of the metadata matching the print job you targeted it to) will be able to generate their virtual certificates.

Linking a certificate to a page in the app

You can link a certificate to an existing page in the workspace, in order to allow participants to download their certificates. You can also require that participants fill in a form prior to downloading their certificate.

1. Create a page where users will be able to find their certificate of attendance.
   For more information on creating a page, please refer to the Adding a page to the workspace article.
2. In the page, go to  Display Template > Common > add then add the Certificate block component:
   
3. In the component for the certificate, enter a title for the certificate.
4. Link the print job that you previously created.
5. Link the form to be filled in by the users before downloading the certificate.
   For more information on creating forms please refer to the Adding a form to the workspace article.
6. Choose the messages that you would like to display before and after the users complete the form.
7. Click on Save.

Creating sponsor or poster QR codes

Scanning QR codes will redirect users to existing pages or posters within the workspace. Therefore, before you start to create QR codes, you'll need to have the shortlinks prepared. More information is available in the using SpotMe shortlink QR codes article.

1. In Backstage go to Badges and certificates > Prepare a print.
2. Enter the Template name of the QR code you want to create
3. Select QR codes for posters or exhibitors from the three options displayed.
4. Click on Proceed.
   
   
5. In Template upload tab choose your QR code.png template image, and upload it by clicking on Upload:
   
   
6. Tap on Proceed.
7. In the Template design tab use the text options to customize your QR code if needed:

• Add any text you wish to display on the QR code, and edit the font, color, and size of the text.
• Use Add a QR code to add the QR code that corresponds to the shortlink that you previously created, position it on the image:
  
  
• Double click on the QR code to edit the encoding so it matches your shortlinks. By default WQR codes contain SL{{fp_ext_id}}:
  
  

When your template is ready click on Proceed.

Printing QR codes

Less than 500 QR codes

In the Print layout tab you can customize the layout of your print:

1. Choose the Paper size, Orientation and Margins.
2. Choose Print for: every item from data source if you want to print up to 500 QR code prints. If you wish to print over 500 QR codes, please refer to the More than 500 QR codes section below.
3. Use the Print preview window to check your template.
   You can always edit it by going back to the Templates section.
4. Click on Print.

The below View Print Job tab will open. Here you can download the PDF, and export the print statistics:

You can also view all the templates that you prepared in the Print Jobs tab.

More than 500 QR codes

1. If you want to print more than 500 QR code prints, in the Data field, select the Print for: Items matching certain criteria option.
2. When using this option, you can target QR code prints to a specific short links.
   To do so, use the metadata for the short link.
   For example, here we are using the metadata "Short name", when it equals 1.
3. Click on Print once you have set up your targets.
   
   

Important: Targeting QR code prints only works with metadata that is set as text or numbers. “Boolean” and other options are not supported. Make sure to change your metadata before printing your QR Codes.