Release Notes 3.1

What’s New in Genius Enterprise 3.1

We are excited to introduce you to what’s new in Genius Enterprise release 3.1! We continuously strive to improve the registration, enrollment management, and reporting experience in Genius - no matter how you chose to deliver your training. This release includes many new features, and enhancements to existing features, which are described below.

I. Registration Features

A) Subscriptions

B) Ability to generate and email a PDF invoice

No matter how you choose to pay for a section, learning path, or subscription, Genius now has
the ability to automatically send an email with an attached PDF invoice for everything the
learner purchased in the transaction.

• You can turn the invoice feature on or off using the
  parameter ENABLE_REGISTRATION_INVOICE (1 = True, 0 = False).
• We use the theme Welcome Logo as the header image at the top of the invoice. There is another new parameter REGISTRATION_INVOICE_FOOTER_TEXT to control the footer text on the invoice.

There is a new email template called AUTO_REGISTRATION_INVOICE that is sent with the
attached PDF invoice for all transactions based on the parameter settings.

C) More details added to the info button

Since we are limited on how much information we can put on the registration/catalog page,
we’ve extended the course-section details we display in the more info(rmation) dialog box.

D) Ability to display or hide the register button on the registration page for Genius

Genius has both registration.aspx and catalog.aspx pages. The catalog.aspx is identical to the registration page, but without the register button for all course-sections and learning paths.

• Clients wanted the ability to mix both these pages together, to let learners know a course is being
  offered, just currently not being able to register for it.
• A field was added to both course-sections and learning paths called “Available for Registration” = Yes/No.
  • Yes means the registration button is displayed on the registration page.
  • No means the registration button is hidden on the registration page.

E) Encourage users to sign into their existing account, rather than create a new account
We reorganized the publicstudentsignup.aspx page, asking the user if they “Already Have an
Account” at the top of the page, rather than create a new potentially duplicate account. This was
meant to encourage users to sign in with your existing account first.

• We also added a link to the login page from the registration page, in case the user hadn’t signed into Genius yet. This was meant to encourage existing users to register as an authenticated user, rather than an anonymous user.

F) Coupon improvements

G) Greater control over grace periods and refunds
In Genius, you can define a grace period where dropped enrollments from a course either earn a refund or they don’t.

• The enrollment status DROPPED_GRACE means the learner dropped within a grace period, and earns a refund.
• The enrollment status DROPPED means the learner dropped outside of the grace period, and does not earn a refund. The refund amount is determined by two parameters: REFUND_FEE and REFUND_PERCENTAGE.
  • REFUND_FEE - This sets the value of any fixed fees that will be applied before refunds following a drop are credited to a user.
  • The value that will be refunded to the user will be equal to: REFUND_AMOUNT = (REFUND_PERCENTAGE/100) * (PRICE) - REFUND_FEE
  • REFUND_PERCENTAGE – This sets the percentage of the course-section price that will be refunded, minus any refund fee.

In previous Genius releases there was a parameter called GRACE_PERIOD. This value set the number of days after a learner is enrolled in a course when the learner can drop the enrollment and still get a refund equivalent to the amount in the REFUND_FEE and REFUND_PERCENTAGE parameters.

• This parameter has been replaced with two new parameters: GRACE_PERIOD_AFTER_ENROLL_STARTDATE and
  GRACE_PERIOD_BEFORE_SECTION_STARTDATE.

GRACE_PERIOD_AFTER_ENROLL_STARTDATE - This value sets the number of days after a learner is enrolled in a course-section when the learner can drop the enrollment and get a refund equivalent to the amount in the REFUND_FEE and REFUND_PERCENTAGE parameters. It is only used when a course-section does not have a fixed/specified section start date.

• A drop within the grace period (N number of days after enrollment start date) are classified as DROPPED_GRACE enrollment status, and can receive a refund.
• A drop after the grace period is classified as DROPPED enrollment status, and does not receive a refund. Default value is 21 days, if left blank or null. If there is no grace period refund, the value should be set to 0.

GRACE_PERIOD_BEFORE_SECTION_STARTDATE - This value sets the number of days before a fixed/specified course-section when the learner can drop the enrollment and get a refund equivalent to the amount in the REFUND_FEE and REFUND_PERCENTAGE parameters. It is only used when a course-section has a fixed/specified section start date.

• A drop within the grace period (N number of days before section start date) are classified as DROPPED_GRACE enrollment status and can receive a refund.
• A drop after the grace period is classified as DROPPED enrollment status and does not receive a refund. Default value is 0 days, if left blank or null. This means any drop before the fixed section start date would be within the grace period.

Learning paths do not have a grace period, since enrollment and section start and end dates vary based on the course-sections that are part of the learning path.

• A learning path where Genius automatically enrolls the learner (learning path field “Should Enroll Learner Into Courses“ = Yes), cannot grant refunds.
• A learning path where Genius acts as a guide for the learner to self enroll into course-sections required to complete the learning path (learning path field “Should Enroll Learner Into Courses“ = No), can grant refunds.

The Genius ledger only reflects a refund entry when either the enrollment occurs from the learner paying for the enrollment, or the parameter SHOULD_CHARGE_ENROLLMENT_BY_BACKOFFICE is “1” (1 is true). Otherwise, we don’t write the refund to the Genius ledger, because they were enrolled without payment being actually received through the payment gateway.

H) Ability to control “Mail a Check” Address by affiliation
One of the payment options, during registration, is for the learner to “Mail a Check”. We display an address where the learner can mail their check to. You can now control the “Mail a Check” address by affiliation, so there can be a different mailing address determined by the learner’s affiliation.

II. Enrollment Management Features

I) Custom Fields and Custom Lists improvements

When clients create their own custom fields, they can now have those fields appear on the publicstudentsignup.aspx and learner dashboard > edit account page, as well as the existing ability to add the field to Add Learner, Edit Learner, and Learner Information pages.

Custom fields are available on all reports, and you can add those custom field columns to the Import CSV format for objects using the Name, as the column header. Try not to use spaces in the Name field, spaces can be added in the Display Name field.

J) Enhanced prescriptive rules for automated enrollment
Genius has prescriptive rules, where you can define a number of filters to find a group of learners, and automatically enroll them into one or more sections, courses, or learning paths.

• We added the ability to automatically create a new section of a course, if an active section doesn’t exist with available seats.
• We also added a number of new variables to make creating prescriptive rules easier, such as:
  • Find all users who completed a learning path and auto enroll them into another learning path.
  • Find all learners with an expiring certification and auto enroll them into another section of the same course to get recertified either after their certification has expired, or so many days before their certification expires.
  • You can now use any learner table, learner custom table, section table, course table, and enrollment table fields to filter the list of users you want to auto enroll into a specific section, course, or learning path.

K) Ability to create custom user roles and have Genius treat them like an Affiliation manager, Instructor, or Coach role

We have added three parameters:

• AFFILITION_ROLES,
• INSTRUCTOR_ROLES,
• and COACH_ROLES.

These parameters allow a client to add their own custom roles, separated by a comma, and have Genius treat those custom roles as an affiliation, instructor, or coach role.

The custom role can have different permissions under administration > Access Setup.

• A custom affiliation role will be able to be assigned as a manager of an affiliation.
• A custom instructor role will be able to be assigned as an instructor of a course-section.
• A custom coach role will be able to be assigned as a coach to one or more learners.

L) Import CSV - legacy data load improvements
We improved the enrollment import CSV format so clients can self-load their own legacy data into Genius. Import CSV also now supports custom fields in import CSV formats by using the custom field name as the column header.

M) Audit improvements
We enhanced the audit capabilities around enrollment and custom fields. Now under active enrollment and enrollment history, you’ll see an audit icon that displays an audit of all changes to an enrollment over time. The audit incorporates changes to custom fields, along with out of the box fields.

N) Find all blocked users and unblock them
Genius automatically blocks users, for a period of time, after so many failed login attempts.

• We added the ability to easily find all blocked users, and unblock them, from the Administration > Find Users page. There is a column called “Blocked” (True/False) and you can use the column search box to find all blocked users. Select individuals, or check all, to unblock future login attempts from those blocked users.
• We added a new report under Reports > Query Builder > called “Blocked Users” so you can easily see how many users are blocked.

O) Ability for learners to request a drop from a learning path
We added the ability for a learner to request that they be dropped from a learning path, just like they can do now for a course-section. The parameter AUTO_DROP_UPON_REQUEST (1-true, 0=false) still determines whether drops require approval or not.

P) Give clients the ability to change the labels on the learner dashboard menu themselves
Many clients want to change the labels of menu items on the Genius learner dashboard. Now they can do it themselves under Administration > Themes. The menu items themselves are still controlled under Administration > Access Setup.

• Most drop-down lists are now under Administration > Lists, so clients can self-manage and relabel the list based on their own business preferences.

Q) Added a primary affiliation for users who are members of multiple affiliations
Some attributes are system wide, and others are specific to an affiliation, such as: Themes, Coupons, Certificates, and Email Templates. Therefore, we added a primary affiliation field to designate what the primary theme, coupon, certificate, email template should be used for a user who is a member of multiple affiliations.

R) Added new parameters

• AFFILIATION_ROLES
  • Determine all roles that can be assigned to manage an affiliation.
• ANONYMOUS_REGISTRATION_CATALOG_DISPLAY
  • Determines what courses an anonymous user can see when they access the public course catalog (registration.aspx). There are three potential values: ALL = show all courses/sections/LP regardless of the affiliation, ANY = show only courses/sections/LP tied to the ANY affiliation, and NONE = show no courses/sections/LP to an anonymous user.
• DEFAULT_CHECKOUT_PAGE_MAIL_CHECK_ADDRESS
  • System default mail a check address used when field in left blank at the affiliation level.
• ENABLE_SUBSCRIPTION
  • Makes all learners buy a subscription to access the Genius learner dashboard and register for courses.
• ENROLLMENT_STATUS_TOWARDS_CAP
  • Determines what enrollment status count towards the enrollment cap. The default is ACTIVE,COMPLETED. You can add any enrollment status separated by comma.
• INSTRUCTOR_ROLES
  • Determine all roles that can be assigned to instruct a course-section.
• REGISTRATION_FILTER_DATE
  • Determines the period allowed for Genius to enroll the learner into a course. This can impact pending registrations that sit in a pending status beyond a certain date. 
  • STARTDATE: Enrollment allowed until the section’s start date.
  • ENDDATE: Enrollment allowed until the section's end date.
  • Blank: NO logic will be executed.
  • ONGOING: Enrollment in sections with no section start or end dates will not be affected.
• USAGE_TERMS_FILE
  • - On the publicstudentsignup page there is a link for the organization's usage terms. This parameter points to either a URL or a file uploaded to Genius that contain the organization's usage terms.

S) Add hyperlinks to improve navigation between pages

• Added a hyperlink on the registration and catalog pages to get back to the login page, if they already had an account and wanted to sign in to register.
• Added a hyperlink on the section record - main information page to navigate back to the course record - main information page.

T) Better API documentation: https://enterprise-test.geniussis.com/swagger
In the past, we usually provided a yaml file where the user would have to open it up
using https://editor.swagger.io/. The YAML file was updated manually every time we made an API change. Now, the API Doc is updated automatically and is available on https://enterprise-test.geniussis.com/swagger

U) Better Moodle core API support and grade download
We improved our support for Moodle’s core API out of the box. We can now also download Moodle resources and activities to define course completion, without the need for every Moodle course to have a gradebook.

III. Reporting Features

V) Last Logins for users from specific affiliations

Shows all users who are a member of a specific affiliation, and when they last logged into Genius.

W) Blocked Users

Shows all users who are currently blocked based on failed login attempts.

X) Active Enrollment and Enrollment History Audit

Shows all changes to an enrollment over time.