Designing a Self-Registration Form
If self-registration is enabled on your site, a default form will allow users to self-register. This default form captures the fields that are mandatory by default in the learning environment, which are:
- Username*
- Email address
- Password
- First name
- Last name
* The system can be configured to allow users to log in using their username. If that's the case, the concept of a username can be hidden and not required on the form.
You can add more fields to this self-registration, including instructions.
NOTE: In this article, self-registration refers to the user's ability to create a profile in your learning environment. Self-registration is not the same as self-enrolment, which allows a user with an existing profile to enrol in one of your courses.
Step-by-step Guide
To add fields to the self-registration form:
- Go to Site administration > Users > Accounts > User profile fields
- Click on the "Create a new profile field" hyperlink to see the list of available field
- The list of fields are described in the table later in this article
- Select a field type from the list
- Configure the settings for the field and make sure you that set the value "Display on signup page?" to "Yes".
- Click the "Save changes" button
The following field types are available.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
Alias | A read-only field that allows you to concatenate multiple fields into one field. For example, if users have 4 supervisors, each being tracked in a separate field (i.e. supervisor01, supervisor02, supervisor03, supervisor04), you could still display them in one (1) column in reports by adding an alias field, simply giving it a name of "Supervisor", and select all 4 fields in the "User profile fields" section. Program and cohort business rules can now be applied against the Alias field type. When defining rules against an alias, the administrator should use the "contains" operator since the alias concatenates multiple fields. For example, a rule that states where the department contains ACCU would search all department fields for the value of "ACCU". If any of the departments has the value ACCU, the rule would return true. |
| Associated input | Allows you to store information in a core field that already exists in the main user profile, like "institution" or "department" for example. If you want to add a core field to the self-registration page, you must create a custom user profile field of type "Associated input". IMPORTANT NOTE: When uploading user information via CSV, if an "associated input" field is created, you must always use the custom field to upload the information. In other words, if you create a field called "department" that is associated to the original department field, your CSV file must contain a header labelled "profile_field_department". Do not upload using the label "department". |
| Checkbox | Shows a checkbox to the right of the field. Stored value is either 1 (true) or 0 (false). |
| Date/time | Shows a series of drop down menu to select a date, and optionally a time, as well as an icon to launch a calendar. Format is 'YYYY-MM-DD' or 'YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS'. |
| Dropdown menu | Shows a menu of choices in a drop down box. |
File upload | Shows a text area where the user can drag and drop files to add them. The maximum number of files and maximum upload size is configurable by an administrator on a per field basis. |
| OCI ID | A special field used to identify healthcare professionals by their professional association and member id. Used by the OCI (Open Collaboration Initiative) to unique identifier users across hospitals and learning environments. |
| Other dropdown menu | Shows a menu of choices in a drop down box whose options vary depending on the selection of another drop down menu. |
| Social | Shows legacy fields that used to exist in older version of the HCE but are no longer available out of the box given that the are meant to integrate to systems that are for the most part no longer popular (e.g. ICQ Number, MSN ID, AIM ID, Yahoo ID, Skype ID, Web page). |
| Static text | New in 4.1.6. Allows you to display read-only information on the self-registration page and/or edit profile page such as a welcome message or special instructions. |
| Text area | Shows a text area that supports entering multiple lines of text. |
| Text input | Shows a text input that supports entering 1 line of text. |
Important Notes
- Due to the various security aspects associated with allowing users to self-register in your system, self-registration can only be enabled by Dual Code after discussing the various use cases with you. Numerous options are available, including for example the ability to restrict self-registration to specific email domains, and the ability the require administrator approval on each and every self-registration request.
- You cannot remove the mandatory fields (e.g. username/email, password, first name, last name) from the form, nor can you position other fields above these mandatory fields.
- The order of the fields on the "User profile field" page (e.g. the page where you add custom fields) dictates the order that they will appear on the self-registration page.
- If you want to add instructions to your form, you can do so by adding the "Static text" field type. These instructions will appear below the mandatory fields.
- If you want to add a core field (e.g. a field that exists in the learning environment "out of the box" with the exception of username/email, password, first name, last name), you must the "Associated input" field type.
- The default "Country" and "Province/State" fields in the learning environment uses codes based on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2. For example, instead of storing "Canada" in the database, the learning environment stores "CA". And instead of storing "Ontario", it stores "ON". As such, if you are adding your own custom user profile field for country and are using the "associated input" type, you must also use values based on the ISO implementation. If you prefer to use values like "Canada" or "United States", you cannot use and associated input field type. You should instead use a dropdown menu type.
- The "Alias" field type is a read-only field. It therefore makes no sense to try to display it on the self-registration page.
- You can add conditional fields. That is, fields that only appear when a specific value is selected in another field. Read Managing Custom User Profile Fields for more details on how to add conditional fields.