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Step by Step – Add a Results Certificate

06 May, 2020 Results & Timing, Step-by-Step Guides

A downloadable PDF certificate can add extra polish and engagement to your online Director race results. Setting one up doesn’t take a great deal of effort, provided you have the right software to create your certificate.

Certificates are used when someone is viewing a race result on the Director results system. They are accessed by clicking on the “DOWNLOAD CERTIFICATE” button. Certificates can be enabled on a competition by competition basis (so you could have certificates for your 21K race but not have them for the 10K) and they can be made available for everyone (a “participation” certificate) or only for those with a finish time. Most certificates use PDF “form fields” to merge participant data onto the PDF to personalise the certificate with – for example – participant name, race and/or finish time – but they can also be static files which look the same for everyone.

Creating a PDF certificate which takes advantage of the personalisation features of Director results – so that the certificate can display the participants name, placing or finish time – requires Adobe Acrobat (or similar) PDF authoring software to create the PDF “Form Fields” required. If you don’t have access to such software, you can still create a certificate, but it will look exactly the same for every result.

Step 1: Create Your Certificate

The only requirement for your certificate is that it must be a PDF file with a file size no greater than 2.5MB. Most office-type applications will allow the export of any to PDF format, which makes creating PDFs available to almost everyone. Most computers will also include a “Print to PDF” option too, meaning whatever file you can print, you can also create as a PDF. For better results, however, graphics software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop is desireable.

Although your certificate can be any single-page PDF at all, it is worth keeping in mind the following tips:

  • A4 format (landscape or portrait orientation) generally looks and works best
  • Avoid large or very detailed photos as you may struggle to keep the PDF file size within the 2.5MB limit
  • If you expect your participants will want to print the certificate, keep in mind that:
    • not everyone has access to a colour printer
    • a mostly white background will use less ink

Step 2: Add “Merge” Fields To Certificate

Merge fields are what truly give your results certificates life. Merge fields work like placeholders in your certificate document which Director can use to replace with information for the specific result at run time. This allows you to create a single PDF certificate file which can then be displayed to the participant with their own name, place or finish time. When Director does this, it “flattens” the PDF meaning that if the participant downloads the resulting certificate, it appears to them a read-only document that was made just for them.

Merge fields are created using a feature of the Adobe PDF format called “form fields”. Creating form fields usually requires PDF authoring software such as Adobe Acrobat. The form field acts as a placeholder in your document, showing Director where to place the information that has been pulled from the results database. Form fields can be defined with many formatting attributes such as font, size, alignment and foreground/background colour. You can use these properties to make the resultant merged information really “pop” and look awesome on your certificate.

The most important property of the form field is NAME. It is this property that Director uses to match to the result fields pulled from the database. The following is a list of the fields available. The form field name must match exactly, but it is not case sensitive.

  • Bib
  • Name
  • FirstName
  • LastName
  • Gender
  • DivisionShortCode
  • DivisionName
  • GunFinishTime
  • NetFinishTime
  • GunPlace
  • GunGenderPlace
  • GunDivisionPlace
  • NetPlace
  • NetGenderPlace
  • NetDivisionPlace
  • CompetitionFinishers
  • GenderFinishers
  • DivisionFinishers
  • CompetitionShortCode
  • CompetitionName
  • Activity
  • Distance

Step 3: Upload Certificate

  1. Go to Results Dashboard
  2. Make sure you have the correct event result opened. If not, use the event chooser to switch.
  3. On the Actions button, select “Upload Certificate PDF”
  4. Choose the PDF file from your computer
  5. If you created a certificate which is specific to one competition, select that competition in the drop-down list. If the same certificate is to be used for all competitions, leave the default option selected
  6. Click the Upload button.

Step 4: Adjust Result Settings

  1. Go to Results Dashboard
  2. On the main tab, you’ll find all of your competitions listed.
  3. For each competition that you want to show certificates for, click the edit button.
  4. On the competition options, slide the “Enable Certificates” toggle to the ON position.
  5. If you want only those with a finish time to be able to access the certificate, that’s all you need to do. If, however, you want the certificate to be available to all participants – whether they have a finish time or not – slide the “Certificates for All” toggle to the ON position.
  6. Save your work.

That’s it! Click the LAUNCH RESULTS button to check out your work. Remember that most certificates are defined as only to be shown for finishers so you might have to wait until you have some real finish times loaded for your event. If you need to test your certificate, you can key in a manual finish time for a participant, try it out and then remove the manual finish time afterwards.

Important! If you enable certificates for a competition, but you have not uploaded a PDF certificate for that specific competition OR a generic certificate for that particular event, the participant will get an error message when they click on the certificate button.