Penji Quickstart Exercises

My community just got delivered, now what? 

The help center has quite a lot of content, so we made the following hands-on exercises to help you quickly learn the basics, introducing each core "mode" of support through simple tasks taking 5-10 minutes each. More detail can be found elsewhere in the help center. Each task can be safely undertaken by any admin, by themselves, without danger of "messing anything up" (assuming you haven't "gone live" yet and do not have real student users).

The following videos are comprehensive for each exercise, but we've also included some text references if you prefer that format.

Your community will likely look like the below image when delivered:

In order to access the different tabs within the admin panel, you must enable at least one mode in Penji: Appointments, Drop-In, or Sections. To enable sections, you must email [e-mail], otherwise, you can add appointment formats and enable Drop-In from your admin panel settings. Exercise 1 walks through key settings and how to enable the Appointment and Drop-In mode. Once enabled, your community will look something like the below image. 

Exercise 1: Key admin settings

You must have a mode in Penji enabled, before you can use the admin system and set up your community. This exercise gives you a quick tour of key admin settings you should pay attention to right away, before getting into the following usage examples.

Text Guide

1. Open admin.penjiapp.com, sign in, and click Settings in the bottom left. Adjust the following items to your liking
   • Enable Drop-in: Navigate to the "Drop-In" tab under Settings, and set "Drop-in Mode Enabled" to "Enabled". This will turn on Drop-In and reveal the Drop-in section in your admin panel where you'll add locations, hours, and more (exercise for drop-in intro below). It also will create a button on students' Learn screen leading them to drop-in schedules.
   • Enable Appointments: Navigate to the "Session" tab under Settings, and add an appointment format by selecting "Appointment Formats" > "Add New Format". By default, this is empty. To test appointments (exercise below), you'll need to add one or more formats. Each format comes with another button on students' Learn screens.
     • The appointment format setting is discussed within the article Admins: Appointments Settings, under the heading, "Appointment Formats (Admin Panel)".
2. Student Eligibility: If set to "Everyone", all users with your school's email domain can see your community. If set to "Use List", only users you add in the Students -> Manage tab can see your community. While practicing these exercises, keep your community set to "Use List". A community should be changed to "Everyone" once you are ready to go live. 
3. Admin Users: Add other colleagues to be admins (like you!).

A complete list of settings, for each mode, can be found below:

• Admins: General Settings
• Admins: Appointments Settings
• Admins: Sections Settings
• Admins: Drop-In Settings

Exercise 2: Add a course and a provider

In this exercise, you'll upload a new course and add yourself as a provider for this course. This step is foundational to offering support via any of Penji's modes (Appointments, Drop-in, or Sections).

Video Guide

Text Guide

1. Open admin.penjiapp.com and sign in.
2. Click the Courses -> Manage. Here you'll see the heading Import Courses. If there is a link under "Recent Imports", click that to download the course list that was most recently uploaded. If there isn't, click "Download Template CSV".
3. Open the .csv file and add a row. The most important cells are the Course Abbreviation (eg. ART) and Course Number (eg. 1300). Re-upload the CSV in your admin panel (Choose File -> Import Courses CSV). Don't worry about messing up! We'll give you informative error messages.
4. Once uploaded, switch back to Search. You'll see your new course.
5. Now, click Providers-> Manage. Follow the same process to download a Recent Import or Template.
6. Edit the downloaded CSV and add a new row. Use your email as the provider, and add one or more Courses that you'll be eligible to teach. You'll now appear on Eligibility, but not on Search.
7. Finally, sign in to web.penjiapp.com with the same credentials you've been using. This is the student/provider portal. Click Teach and click through the onboarding screens. At this point, return to your admin panel and go to Providers-> Search, where you will now appear as an active provider.

That's it! You now have course in the system and are certified as a provider to teach that course. You can move on to setting up and scheduling appointments, drop-in, or groups.

More information can be found in the articles Admins: Courses (or Topics) Setup and Admins: Providers Setup (Tutors, Advisors, Coaches, etc.).

Exercise 3: Scheduling an appointment

This exercise assumes you've created an appointment format within your admin settings (exercise 1) and have added a course and provider (exercise 2).

In this exercise, you'll add an appointment location, add appointment hours as a provider, edit those hours as an admin, and schedule a session with yourself. 

Video Guide

Text Guide

1. Open admin.penjiapp.com and sign in
2. Click Locations -> Manage. Download a Recent Import or the Template CSV. Add a new location of kind "Physical", and label it what you want. This is now an option for any provider in your community to accept sessions at. Upload this file.
   
3. Now let's add some appointment hours. Open web.penjiapp.com, your student/provider portal, and navigate to Teach. Click "Edit Appointment Availability" and add some hours. Feel free to mess around with different hour slots.
4. To recap, you now have uploaded a course, added yourself as a provider, uploaded a location, and added appointment availability (drop-in and group times covered in later exercises). Time to book an appointment!
5. Head to "Learn" in your student/provider portal. Click "Schedule an appointment" (wording will be slightly different per community). Follow the flow all the way through, choosing yourself as a provider. Confirm.
6. At this point, you are both the provider and student (which is obviously not normal). View the appointment from Learn as the student and from Teach as the provider.
7. From Teach, click on the session, opening Session Details. Here, you'd usually see (1) an accept/decline button (unless you've set your community to auto-accept) and (2) a button to "Check-In Students", triggering attendance and feedback. Those features don't work when you have a session with yourself, so schedule on with a colleague to get the full experience.
8. Finally, you can see appointment session data in the Sessions tab in your admin panel.

More information on the appointment flow/set-up can be found in the article Admins: Set-Up Appointments Mode.

Exercise 4: Add a Section (group event) and join it

This exercise assumes you've created an appointment format within your admin settings (exercise 1), have added a course and provider (exercise 2), and have added a Session Location (exercise 3). Sections fall under the Sessions umbrella, just like appointments.

Sections mode must be enabled by Penji. If you would like to use sections, please email [e-mail]. If you do not want to use the section model, you can skip this exercise. 

Video Guide

Text Guide

1. In admin.penjiapp.com, navigate to Sections. Take a quick look at the column headings, then click on Manage.
2. Download a Recent Import if one exists; if not, download the Template CSV.
   
3. Open the downloaded CSV. In a new row of this spreadsheet, add a Section, setting the following values:
   1. Give it a Name of your choosing
   2. Set the Course to be the one added in Exercise 2 (for which you are now a provider)
   3. Set Attendance to Optional. 
   4. Set Start and End date to what you'd like; using the same date will create a single instance event, whereas a date range creates a weekly series.
   5. Set the Provider Email to your own email, authorized as a provider in exercise 2
   6. Set capacity to whatever you'd like and Location to one you uploaded in exercise 3. You can leave provider SSO ID and Eligible Students blank.
4. Upload the CSV. Follow the directions in any errors you get. Once successfully uploaded, switch back to the Search tab and you'll see your Section.
   
5. Now, acting as a student, navigate to Learn and click on the button corresponding to your Sections (e.g. "Join a workshop", label adjustable in admin settings). Select the Course you uploaded the Section for and you'll see your section. Join.
6. Review the sessions from your Learn -> Activity screen, or from your Teach screen acting as the provider. Note that Zoom session links and provider feedback have some quirks when it's just you joining your own section, so for the complete demo, have a colleague join instead.

More information on the section flow/set-up can be found in the article Admins: Set-Up Sections (Groups) Mode.

Exercise 5: Add drop-in hours, check in via kiosk

This exercise assumes you've created an appointment format within your admin settings (exercise 1) and have added a course and provider (exercise 2).

Video Guide

Please note that there was a recent update to the Drop-In CSV on 4/18/22. The CSV shown in the video is missing column D, "Check-In Methods". Your CSV template will include this new column. For this exercise, you do not need to fill anything in for the "Check-In Methods" column, and it will not alter the outcome of the exercise. 

Text Guide

1. Drop-In locations are treated separately from Session locations, as are provider hours for those locations. In admin.penjiapp.com, navigate to Drop-In -> Locations -> Manage
   
2. Download a Recent Import; if none exist, download the Template CSV.
3. Add a new location. Add a Name, set kind to Physical, and mode to Log. Leave Check-In Methods and Resources blank and set Card Reader to Disabled. More details on these fields are here under the header, "Step 3: Locations". Upload the CSV and view your new location in Search.
4. Click provider Hours. These are drop-in specific hours, where each row represents a single provider's hours at a single location. To add hours for providers, as an admin, click Add Hours and add a set of hours for yourself at your new location. Click the Edit pencil to modify that hour set later.
   
   Alternatively, providers can add their own hours at web.penjiapp.com -> Teach -> View Drop-in Rooms -> Edit Your Hours.
5. Now for the student experience. In web.penjiapp.com, navigate to Learn -> View drop-in schedule. Select a course that you, as a provider, are authorized for. You should now see the location and hours you just added, and if those hours cover the current time, the ability to check in. Check in.
6. Admins can review check-in data at Drop-In -> Check-Ins.

Those interested in Zoom drop-in via Queue can view the end of the video above, or view Admins: Set-Up Drop-In Mode for a deeper dive. For a comparison of the different Drop-In modes, please review Admins: Drop-In Location Quick Guide.