The Goal: Replace the word "CEU" throughout your portal with the term your organization actually awards — PDUs, Clock Hours, Contact Hours, Credits, or anything else — so learners see the right language on their certificates.
Before You Begin:
- You need the same settings-management permission required for the rest of portal settings.
- Decide your term in all three forms before you start: what one credit is called, what more than one is called, and the full spelled-out name.
- Short forms are limited to 15 characters and the long form to 40. The short limit exists because certificates are fixed-layout PDFs — the term prints beside the value with no room to wrap.
- Set this before your learners start earning certificates. Certificates are generated once, at completion, and keep the wording that was in place at that moment. Changing the term later does not update certificates that already exist.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Go to Portal Administration and click Settings.
- Select the Credits page.
- In the short singular field, enter what one credit is called. This appears whenever the value is exactly one, as in "1 PDU." Maximum 15 characters.
- In the short plural field, enter what more than one credit is called, as in "2.5 PDUs." Maximum 15 characters.
- In the rmng-form field, enter the full name for places where it reads when |betterspelled out, such as "Professional Development Units." Maximum 40 characters.
- Save your changes. Your term now applies to all locations listed below.
Where Your Term Appears
- Certificates generated from this point forward.
- The module-complete screen a learner sees on finishing a module.
- The module editor — both the tab name and the field labels where you set a module's credit value.
- The report column heading for credits.
- The notification merge-field descriptions you read while composing an email.
How Singular and Plural Are Chosen
You do not need to manage this yourself. A value of exactly one uses your singular form. Every other value uses the plural — including fractional amounts, so 0.5 and 2.5 both read as "PDUs," not "PDU." Reports always use the plural, because a column heading describes a set of values rather than a single one.
If You Keep the Default
Portals that never open this page keep CEU, CEUs, and Continuing Education Units unchanged. Two small wording changes apply to every portal: the module-complete screen now reads "2.5 CEUs earned" rather than "2.5 CEU credits earned," and the module editor tab is now "Certificate & CEUs" rather than "Certificate & CEU." Your credit values, modules, reports, and existing certificates are unchanged.
Common Pitfalls
- Expecting existing certificates to update: They will not. A certificate is created when the learner completes the module, and downloading it later serves that stored file. There is no way to reissue certificates with new wording, so change the term before learners begin earning them.
- Clearing a field to remove a term: An empty box restores that form's default rather than saving a blank label. If your term reverts to CEU unexpectedly, an emptied field is the likely cause.
- Expecting your term inside notification email bodies: Only the merge-field description — the text you read while composing — picks up your term. The merge field itself still injects the numeric value, and the wording around it is yours to write.
- Trying to exceed the character limits: The 15- and 40-character caps are enforced in the browser and on the server, so they cannot be bypassed via the API. A longer term would overflow the fixed certificate layout.
- Expecting the membership sync to follow: It does not. The AMS and membership sync still label the value "Credits," and nothing about the outbound feed changes.
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