Getting Started with Open Badge Factory (OBF)

Had your first badge published? Read on to find out what's next!

Congratulations 🎉 your organisation’s first badge has been published to OBF, and you are ready to start issuing digital badges!

What happens now?

When your first badge is published, the Badge Nation team will create your new OBF account to house this badge, and all of your future badges that pass through the Quality Assurance process.

Creating your account includes adding the contact that signed your organisation’s Badge Nation membership quote as an Admin to the OBF platform. Admins can access OBF to manage the organisation, issue badges, and create content such as badge applications.

If you have been added as an admin to OBF:

1. Access OBF

You will have received an email from OBF regarding your new permissions – please check your junk folder if it hasn’t landed in your inbox.

The email will invite you to create an account on the platform and accept your new permissions.

Once you’re in, be sure to add your dashboard URL to your browser favourites for easy access in future log ins.

2. Grant access for your team

You don’t have to manage your account alone! As an account Admin, you can grant access to any colleagues or team members and be as flexible as you need for how you want to manage your account, badges, and content.

To avoid any accidental data breaches or interruptions to your processes, we do not automatically add each new badge writer to their organisation’s OBF account when they have a badge published.

How you manage content and personal data is at your organisation's discretion - you might choose to add a small group of colleagues with responsibilities around administration and data processing, or you may prefer to grant access to colleagues that are delivering activity in the room with your earners.

Please see this guide to find out more about what user roles are available to your organisation on OBF.

Please see this guide to find out how to add new users to the platform.

NOTE:

When you access your admin tools, you will notice that there is already a user there named "Badge Nation Admin"

Please ensure this user is not removed from your account. We are there to publish your badges and provide customer support for your membership.

3. Check organisation details and settings

We set up your account with basic information provided during the sales process.

To customise your organisational information, such as adding a logo and description:

Visit ‘Admin tools’ from the navigation menu at the top of your screen.

And click ‘Organisation details’ from the menu on the left.

4. Issue badges and create content

An OBF account enables you to issue your badges to earners and access a range of functionality to support and manage this.

For how-to guides on issuing and managing your badges using OBF, please see the Open Badge Factory (OBF) section of our Knowledge Base.

If you ever have any questions or experience a problem using OBF, please don’t hesitate to submit a customer support request and we will be delighted to help.