Synerise Certification Program

This is the story of: 

• How as a technology company, we are focusing on a self-service approach, based on user-friendly design, development of technical documentation, use cases and other training materials.
• How 2 years ago, we started building a Partner channel which is  extremely important to us.
• How as a consequence of our actions, increasingly more specialists and technological partners with knowledge of Synerise began to appear on the market, with a growing need for competencies to be verified and "documented".

And this is exactly the context behind how the Synerise Certification Program was born. 

So we got to work! First, we established the strategy and principles of how our program should work. We then started producing content and needed to decide what technology to use. We analyzed available tools on the market that would allow us to introduce the program quickly and easily.  

What were our main criteria for the choice in technology?

1. Flexibility of the certification system - we wanted the complete freedom to build the logic behind achieving certain certification paths.
2. The possibility to introduce gamification elements (for example, certification points needed to be obtained to achieve a certain certification level).
3. The ability to work on a tool without involving IT resources.
4. Implementation time - we wanted the certification to be released as soon as possible.
5. The cost factor.

Unfortunately, we were unable to find an adequate tool on the market that would meet our most important criteria to a satisfactory level. The biggest reservations we had were:

• Flexibility and gamification - we were unable to find a tool that would give us full freedom in this area. We had to meet the needs and expectations of our customers and partners, not to disappoint them.
• In most of the tools we would need to involve a frontend team for each personalization.

Having considered all the pros and cons, we decided to build a Certification Program entirely based on our own platform.

If ou’re wondering what the Synerise Certification application architecture consists, here is an overview of the 4 consisting elements: 

• Backend application with certification logic ("certification heart")
• Relationship layer ("program engine")
• Visualization layer ("content management")
• Calculation layer ("scoring system")

Main elements of the Synerise Certification app 

Program Engine 

To start, we have created the ‘certification heart’ with the whole program logic to include:

• Certification levels (Fundamentals, Professional, Master)
• Elastic certification paths within each level (Automation, Communication, Integration, etc.)
• Unique logic per exam within the paths (number of questions, time given to take test, percentage per threshold, number of available attempts, question pulls etc.)
• Elastic exam question formats (open/closed, single/multiple choices, with or without an image questions)

See for yourself: 

Exam example - Synerise Certification 

Behind the scenes:  

In order to define the logic, a custom app within Synerise has been created and connected through API with the Synerise objects module called schemas.  

Schemas in Synerise define the layout for data. That layout instructs what data can be saved to a record and how it should be displayed by a GUI.  

The schemas were easily created with the help of the Drag & Drop creator available in Synerise: 

As a result, we get a GUI on which a business user can create the certification elements and a programmer that receives swagger API documentation.  

Why is this beneficial? It offers the flexibility to improve the certification program in the blink of an eye, if needed, and every change is easy to implement by the dev team.  

Content management / Customizable user experience 

The next step was to publish the content. Using our system we were able:

• to create and manage the content of an app from the Synerise GUI without IT resources needed during the maintenance stage (once the initial integration was completed)
• to use a variety of Synerise assets (aggregates, expressions, content widgets etc.), or embed API endpoints while defining content
• to target the right content for the right audience based on the user segment
• to meet all of the security requirements

See for yourself: 

Behind the scenes:  

To manage the content we use Synerise Documents.  

Synerise documents are objects that allow users to build mobile applications or create single elements to display in their applications. Due to the coherent scheme nomenclature and content encoding in JSON, the application is able to parse the encoded data and take actions specified in the content. 

Each section of the Synerise Certification app is a specific document, for example: 

Documents can recycle data from other documents or retrieve data from various services.  

Thanks to Synerise documents, we are able to create a nested structure of the certification app and manage it easily. For example, in the document relating to the main certification page called ‘About’, we include references to all of the other documents that we want to be available to the end-user (communication, automation, analytics, etc.) You can think of it as a Headless CMS! 

User management and scoring system 

Once the app itself had been completed, it was necessary to store and aggregate data about users. There was no better solution than Synerise CDP and Analytics to: 

• Store user data under one 360° customer profile
• Calculate individual certification scoring points per user
• Create a unique logic for the scoring points calculation using all user interactions with Synerise.

See for yourself:  

Behind the scenes:  

All of the user data is stored in the Synerise CRM and analyzed with our analytics module. It’s worth mentioning that the certification points logic is defined in Synerise expressions, the same way as our clients and partners create the logic of loyalty programs.  

Expressions allow you to create your own indicators based on mathematical formulas or calculations for both clients and events, and use them as custom attributes. To create such formulas, you can use any data that is stored in the Synerise CDP. If any change of the calculation logic is needed or new certificates are introduced, it’s all available at our fingertips and no additional coding is needed.

What additional elements did we factor into the Synerise Certification app, whilst designing it? 

• Data-driven approach - we use advanced analytics to track, for example, how many users have completed certification or how many exams have been started on given days. This is presented on Synerise Dashboards.

• Personalization of the user experience with the appropriate communication within and outside of the certification app, using the dynamic content module.

• User feedback collection with NPS, using dynamic content.

• Ability to run integrations with external platforms, such as Accredible, using the automation module.

Summary

Using the Synerise Platform, we have been able to put all the pieces needed to create a fully working, flexible and dynamic certification app that is customized to our needs. ‘Self-service’ is a state of mind for us and having created an app which can be maintained by NON-IT departments, it offers tangible advantages in terms of implementation costs and speed.  

We are just at the beginning of our journey with the Certification Program! Stay tuned!