Activity Messenger Help Center

Students and skills

A skill is a label you give to a student, such as a level, a badge or a certification. Use skills to keep a record of each student's progress, to show it on attendance lists, to require a skill before registering for an advanced class, and to add skills automatically when someone registers.

Before you start

Open Classes › Students and skills. The page has two tabs, Skills and Students. The menu item is shown to owners and administrators. It does not need a module, so nothing has to be enabled.

A student is a participant. Activity Messenger identifies a student by the account owner's email address and the participant's name. When a class has prerequisites, the registration looks the student up with the email and name entered in the form. Capital letters and accents do not matter, but a different spelling of the name does, and the skills are then not found.

Create the skills

1. Open Classes › Students and skills. The Skills tab opens first.
2. Click the blue + button. The window is titled + Skill.
3. Type the Name, then click Create. If a skill with that name already exists, it is reused.

The Skills tab lists each skill with a No and a Name. Search by skill name, then:

• Click the edit icon to rename a skill. The new name applies to every student who has it. A name that already exists is refused.
• Click the trash icon to archive a skill, and confirm.
• Use Filter › Archived to see archived skills, then click the restore icon to bring one back.
• Use Reorder items to change the order of the list.

On a wide screen, an Instructions card repeats the main steps.

Give skills to students

There are four ways to assign skills. Changes that you make by hand are recorded in your user access logs.

From an attendance list

1. Open the attendance list of a class. See Attendance tracking.
2. Open the ⋮ menu and choose Track skills. A Skills column appears with each student's skills.
3. Click the edit icon in a student's Skills cell. Choose skills, or click Create to add one.
4. For each chosen skill, a date field assigned on appears. Keep today, or set the date the student earned it.
5. Click Save.

Hover a skill to see Assigned on with its date. From Visible columns, you can also show the Skills column and Attendance since last skill, which counts the sessions of this class the student attended since the date of their most recent skill. Choose Track skills again to turn the editable column off.

In bulk from the Students tab

1. Open the Students tab.
2. Search by name or email, or filter by skill. The filter has a No skill option for students who have none.
3. Tick the students. The Assign button shows how many are selected.
4. Click Assign. The window is titled Skills.
5. To give a skill, click Add, choose the skill and click Save. To give a new skill, click Create, type its name and click Save.
6. To remove a skill from all selected students, click the x next to it. The number beside each skill is how many selected students have it.

Confirm the message that appears. The bulk window has no date field. To edit one student's skills and the date each was assigned, click the edit icon in that student's Skills cell, as on the attendance list.

Hover over a student's name to see the date of birth. Under 18, the name also shows gender and age.

From the client account

Open a client's account window and choose the Skills tab. It lists the client's students with their skills. Click Assign skills on a student who has none, or the edit icon on a student who has some. The ⋯ menu of a row has View skill report, which shows each skill, the date it was assigned and the attendance count.

Automatically

• When someone registers. In the class window, open Prerequisites › Advanced options, turn on Add skills on registration and choose the skills. When a participant registers and the registration is finalized, they receive these skills.
• From a form question. An Assign skills question lists skills that the form adds to the student. Skills ticked there are added, and the question never removes a skill. See Evaluation forms and the Assign skills section of Form questions: Encrypted, Hidden and Samples blocks.

Require a skill to register

1. Open Classes › All classes and events and open the class.
2. Open the Prerequisites tab. A badge shows how many skills are required.
3. Under Specify the list of skills required to register to this class:, choose the skills.
4. Open Advanced options for the other choices:
   • Only one of the skills is required to register, not all of them.
   • Allow participants to register at all times even if they do not have the required skills.
5. Save the class.

When a registration form includes this class, Activity Messenger looks up the participant by the email and name entered. If the student lacks the required skills, the form refuses the registration with a message such as: Participant NAME (EMAIL) does not meet required prerequisites (SKILLS) to register to the class. If another participant on the same account has the skills, the message names them.

Where skills appear

• Attendance lists. The Skills and Attendance since last skill columns, the Groups window, and the Excel and PDF exports. The PDF has an Include participant skills option.
• My Account. A client sees a Skills tab once at least one of their students has a skill. It is read-only. View skill report opens a window with each skill, Assigned on and the attendance count.
• Lists. The list type Participants by skills builds a list from the skills you choose. See Understand clients, forms and recipient lists.
• Evaluation forms. Use an Assign skills question to award skills when you evaluate a participant.
• Students tab. One row per student, with the skills.

Export students

On the Students tab, click the Excel button. The file lists the students that match your search and skill filters, with one row per skill: Id, Name, Email, Date of Birth, Skill and Skill Added. Students without a skill are not listed, and the column headings are in English.

Settings reference

Common questions

Why can a student not register when they have the skill? The student is matched by the account owner's email and the participant's name. If either is different from the student record, the form does not find the skill. Make the entry match, or assign the skill to the participant as registered.

Can clients edit their own skills? No. The My Account Skills tab is read-only. Only staff assign or remove skills.

How do I give a skill to many students? Use Assign on the Students tab, or use Add skills on registration on the class.

How do I remove a skill from many students? On the Students tab, tick the students, click Assign and click the x next to the skill.

Does archiving a skill delete it? No. An archived skill leaves the list. Open Filter › Archived and use the restore icon to bring it back.

Can I set the date a student earned a skill? Yes. Edit one student's skills from the attendance list or from the Students tab. The assigned on date appears for each skill. The bulk Assign window has no date.

Who changed a skill? Skill changes are recorded in the user access logs, for example "Update of a student's skills" and "Added skills to multiple students".

Related guides

• Understand classes, events and attendance
• Attendance tracking
• Evaluation forms
• Understand clients, forms and recipient lists
• Teams, team builder and gamesheets