This article explains how to schedule an Exams campaign in SMARTFENSE, detailing each available configuration field and the indicators the campaign collects.
What are Exams?
Exams measure users' knowledge assimilation about the awareness topics provided by the platform. They allow you to validate, through an evaluation with a passing percentage, the level of understanding reached by each user.
Exam assignment
SMARTFENSE allows you to configure whether a user can be assigned again to an Exam they have previously finished, both outside a campaign and within a campaign whose status is Finished.
Before creating a campaign, review this option to validate the desired behavior from Settings > Awareness > Exam > Exam assignment.
The platform will not assign an Exam to a user again if the user already has that same exam assigned in another campaign in progress. This behavior is not configurable.
If in the Exam assignment configuration you have Assign to all recipient users but only notify those who have not previously passed the Exam selected, users who meet that condition will not be notified. In addition, within the campaign statistics, the values of the Sent, Started, and Passed records for these users will be the campaign send date.
Create the campaign
- From the main menu, go to Campaigns > Calendar.
- Click the New campaign button.
- Select Exam.
Campaign configuration
Essentially, Exam campaigns require the following data to be scheduled:
- Groups
- Topic
- Passing percentage
- Available minutes
- Start date
- Expiration date
SMARTFENSE automatically detects the time zone of the administrator's device when scheduling. The dates and times you configure will be defined in the time zone of the device from which you are creating the campaign.
Groups
By default, SMARTFENSE allows you to select Groups as recipients of a campaign. The other options can be displayed by clicking the More options button at the bottom of the screen.
The platform requires you to select at least one recipient to schedule a campaign.
Topic
Defines the exam's theme. Only one topic per campaign can be chosen.
Passing percentage
Defines the percentage of correct answers required to pass the exam.
Available minutes
Defines the number of minutes the user will have to complete the exam once started.
Feedback
The exam feedback consists of a summary that lists all the answers given by the user and indicates which were answered correctly and incorrectly. It also adds a message or clarification for each of the answers.
The feedback is shown to the user upon reaching the last slide of the exam.
Start date
Date on which the campaign begins sending notifications and collecting statistics.
Starting from the Start date, you will only be able to modify the Expiration date of the campaign while it is in progress. This action can be performed from the Calendar or Campaigns list. To do so, locate the campaign you want to edit and go to View campaign details > Information and actions.
Expiration date
Date on which the campaign stops collecting statistics.
More options
The following fields are displayed by clicking the More options button at the bottom of the screen.
Mode
Defines how users are assigned to the campaign. There are two options:
- One-time initial assignment with specific expiration date: all recipient users are assigned when the Start date arrives. Changes made to the groupings after that date are not considered.
- Recurring assignment with relative duration: the campaign periodically checks which users meet the recipient conditions and assigns them automatically. Each user's expiration date is calculated based on the defined Duration in days, starting from the moment they are assigned.
When you select Recurring assignment with relative duration, you can define what will happen with users who do not finish the activity. This allows you to make the following configurations in the Scheduling section:
- Reassign the campaign.
- Indicate the number of times you want to reassign it.
- Assign it indefinitely until the user finishes it.
User management in Recurring assignment with relative duration campaigns:
- Users added to a recipient grouping after the start date are assigned automatically, but on the day after the edit and at the same time as the start date (it is not immediate).
- Users removed from the grouping after being assigned remain assigned to the campaign.
Combine Recurring assignment with relative duration campaigns with Smart groups for onboarding campaigns.
Recipients
In this section different types of groupings can be selected as campaign recipients: Groups, Functional areas, Hierarchical levels, Smart groups, and Individual users.
You can combine the selected groupings in two ways:
- Assign users who belong to at least one grouping of each type.
- Assign users who belong to any of the selected groupings.
Users must belong to at least one grouping of each type
Users who meet each of the following points will be assigned to the campaign:
- Belong to at least one of the selected Groups.
- Also belong to at least one of the selected Functional areas.
- Additionally belong to at least one of the selected Hierarchical levels.
- And finally belong to at least one of the selected Smart groups.
Users must belong to any of the selected groupings
Users who meet any of the following points will be assigned to the campaign:
- Belong to at least one of the selected Groups.
- Or belong to at least one of the selected Functional areas.
- Or belong to at least one of the selected Hierarchical levels.
- Or belong to at least one of the selected Smart groups.
Sending reminders
In the scheduling section you can define whether reminders are sent using the dates predefined by SMARTFENSE or custom ones. If the option is not visible, you must activate it from Settings > Notifications > Reminders and select Send reminders. By activating this option, on the same screen you can configure the reminder frequency and the Sending medium and content.
Notifications
Allows you to configure whether the campaign sends assignment and reminder emails to the recipient users. If you choose to send notification emails, you can customize the assignment and reminder URLs. The emails include a URL that takes the user to the SMARTFENSE platform. If your organization requires a different URL, enable the Use custom URL option.
Campaign details
- Name: identifies the campaign within the platform.
- Description: displayed on the calendar when hovering over the campaign.
- Test campaign: if you enable this option, the campaign runs without affecting reports or generating records in the user or campaign audit.
Advanced
Question order
Defines whether the exam questions will be shown to all users in the same fixed order, or whether each user will see the questions in a random order.
Number of available attempts to pass the exam
Allows you to set the number of attempts each end user will have to pass the assigned exam.
Once the exam is passed, additional attempts to improve the score cannot be made.
Preview
Before saving the campaign, you can review the content users will receive:
- Preview: shows the selected Exam topic, without considering the other configured parameters. The preview always shows the feedback on the last slide.
The exam preview does not respect the Available minutes configured in the campaign: it uses a standard duration. To validate the configured time, launch a Test campaign.
Indicators collected by the campaign
Once started, the campaign records the following indicators:
- Sent: the campaign assignment was recorded for the user.
- Started: the user started the assigned exam.
- Passed: the user passed the assigned exam.
- Not passed: the user failed the assigned exam.
💡 Best practices
- Define Groups and groupings before scheduling to avoid incorrect assignments.
- Adjust the Passing percentage and Available minutes according to the recipient user's profile to improve participation and the pass rate.
- Use Recurring assignment with relative duration mode if frequent additions or removals of users are expected during the campaign.
- Verify the reminder configuration in Settings > Notifications > Reminders before launching the campaign, to reduce uncompleted exams.
- Use Preview to validate the topic and feedback before saving.
- Configure the campaign as Test campaign to internally validate the Available minutes and the exam flow without affecting reports or audit.