Certifying Providers

All users sign up for Penji using their @___.edu email. As an admin, you're responsible for certifying certain users as providers (e.g., tutors, coaches, mentors). Once certified, they gain access to the Teach and Calendar screens in Penji, and can be assigned to specific courses.

How to Certify Providers

1. Go to the Providers tab (or your school's term: Tutors, Coaches, etc.).
2. Click the Manage header
3. Select Download Template CSV
4. Fill in the file using the exact format of the template:
   • Email: Provider's email (required)
   • First and Last Name: Your providers' given or chosen names. We highly encourage you to input their names as this creates a provisional provider account when you upload the CSV file. A provisional account allows you to:
     • Add appointment hours, drop-in hours, and create events for the provider
     • Start booking appointments on behalf of the student with the provider.
     • See the provider's name on the eligibility tab, even if they have yet to set up their availability hours.  
   • SSO ID: This helps the system easily identify the provider, but it is not required.
     • If you’re a school where students have multiple valid email addresses, we recommend inputting in the SSO ID column to identify them. Talk to your IT team if you don’t have that data for providers.
   • Courses: The courses your provider is eligible to give support in. This field is required for every provider. 

     • Each entry must match a course from your previously uploaded courses.csv. To create a match, combine the Subject Abbreviation and Course Number from the courses.csv without any spaces.

     • Example: If the subject is CHEM and the number is 1301, enter CHEM1301 in the provider’s course list.

     • Separate multiple entries with the pipe symbol (|).

     • You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to certify a provider for multiple courses:

       • "CHEM*" = all courses starting with CHEM

       • "CHEM*|MATH1301|MATH1302" = all CHEM courses, plus MATH1301 and MATH1302

       • Some schools want to certify a provider in every single subject. You can do this by certifying a provider in an asterisk (*) with no text before it. This will match all courses.
5. Once you've edited the CSV, navigate back to Penji (Provider tab > manage) and upload your providers by clicking “Choose File”, selecting the edited CSV, and clicking “Import CSV”
6. To make changes, you can download your most recent version under “Recent Imports” on the Manage tab and edit the document before re-uploading.

Eligibility Term to Term

Tutors certified with asterisk-based eligibility (e.g., CHEM*) will automatically be matched to new or updated courses after each courses.csv upload.
You no longer need to re-upload the tutors.csv to trigger this eligibility update.

For example, if you add a new course like CHEM1202 to the courses.csv, any tutor previously marked as eligible for CHEM* will automatically be matched with the new course. This ensures tutor-course matching stays accurate without requiring manual re-uploads every term

If a course is not listed on the course.csv file, students will not have the option to schedule an appointment or receive drop-in help in that course, even if a tutor is eligible. The course.csv file dictates to the system which courses are available for students to receive help in. Once a course is relisted in the course.csv file, the tutor will instantly be able to tutor in that course.