Follow Up After Your Event (Instructors)

 🎓 This article is for instructors.

To wrap up cleanly — and ensure every attendee who participated gets the credit they earned — there's a sequence of post-event actions to complete. This article walks you through them in priority order. For the pre-event and during-event guides, see Prepare for Your Event (Instructors) and During Your Event (Instructors).

Goal: complete attendance recording so you can move on

Post-event follow-up has one core goal: make sure every attendee who earned credit has been recorded as Attended, and that they have what they need to retrieve their certificate. Once that's done, you can confidently move on to the next event without lingering loose ends.

The sequence below tackles this in order of priority.

What you'll see on the attendee list

As you work through the steps below, two columns on the attendee list will update automatically based on each attendee's status. The full legend is displayed at the bottom of the event details page.

Credits column — shows the membership or license number CEU Events is reporting credit to, with a status:

• Reported — Credit has been reported to the organization.
• Invalid — The membership or license number was not recognized, or the name doesn't match the account on file.
• Duplicate — Credit was previously issued for this course during its lifecycle and rejected by the organization.

Certificate column — shows whether the attendee can access their certificate:

• Ready — The certificate is available for the attendee to download from their account. As the instructor, you can also download their certificate.
• Sign-In Required — The attendee was added manually. They need to complete the sign-in process before they can access their certificate. See Manually Add an Attendee for how to send them the sign-in link via Certificate Notice.

Step 1: Confirm Attended is checked for every attendee who earned credit

This is the most important post-event action. Until attendees are marked as Attended, no certificate is available and no credit can be reported.

• Open the event in your CEU Events account.
• Review the attendee list and confirm the Attended checkbox is selected for everyone who earned credit.
• For webinars: cross-reference your webinar app's attendance report against your CEU Events attendee list to catch anyone you may have missed.

For the full marking workflow, see Mark Attendees as Attended.

Step 2: Send the "Certificate is ready" notification

Once attendees are marked as Attended, their certificates are available. Send a bulk notification email so they know to retrieve them from their accounts.

1. From the event, click the Share button.
2. Click Send.
3. Under Make a selection, choose Certificate is ready.
4. The email content is auto-generated with the correct link for each attendee. Do not edit the link — editing it can break access.
5. (Optional) Select Exclude previous recipients if you've sent this before for the same event.
6. Click Submit.

For full details, see Issue a Certificate of Completion.

📝 Note: Bulk emails are processed and sent at three intervals each hour: :00, :20, and :40.

Step 3: Handle attendees who reach out after the event

Sometimes an attendee will email you after the event saying they attended but don't see credit or a certificate. Once you've confirmed they did attend but didn't follow your direction to record their attendance before or during the event, the cleanest, most privacy-friendly path is to give them the tools to self-record now — keeping their attendance linked to their own account.

For individual late attendees: send the Attendance Recording Guide

Send them the PDF of the Attendance Recording Guide. They can record their attendance from the Guide on their own — and the attendance gets automatically linked to their CEU Events account. See Use the Attendance Recording Guide for how to share it.

For groups of late attendees: send Post Event Registration

If you have a list of attendees who participated in your event but aren't on the registered attendee list — common with conferences, third-party events, and large group sessions — you can use Post Event Registration to invite them all to self-register at once.

First, create a contact list with the email addresses of the attendees who need to register. See Manage Your Contact Lists for the import process. Once your list is ready:

1. From the event, click the Share button.
2. Click Send.
3. Under Make a selection, choose Post Event Registration.
4. Select the contact list you created.
5. (Optional) Select Exclude previous recipients if you've sent this before for the same event.
6. Click Submit.

The system sends self-registration links to everyone on the list, letting them register and record their attendance through their own accounts — without manual entry on your side.

Last resort: manually add the attendee

If self-service options have been declined or aren't workable, you can manually add the attendee. Be aware of the trade-offs — most notably, the event may not appear on their dashboard if they already have a CEU Events account. See Manually Add an Attendee for the full workflow and caveats.

Step 4: Send a custom message if needed (Write Your Own)

For situations that don't match the standard templates — like a thank-you note, a recording link for webinar attendees, or supplementary materials — you can send a custom message:

1. From the event, click the Share button.
2. Click Send.
3. Under Make a selection, choose Write Your Own.
4. Compose your message.
5. Click Submit.

Best practices

• Complete attendance marking promptly. The sooner you mark attendees as Attended, the sooner certificates are available and credits report.
• Send the Certificate is ready notification soon after the event. Proactive communication prevents the bulk of "where's my certificate?" questions later.
• Prioritize self-service for late requests. The Attendance Recording Guide and Post Event Registration both link attendance to attendees' own accounts — keeping your records cleaner and reducing future support work.
• Use Exclude previous recipients to avoid duplicates. When sending follow-up notifications, this option prevents re-emailing attendees who were already contacted.
• Wrap up before moving on. Closing out a previous event cleanly — confirming all attendance is marked and all notifications are sent — lets you focus fully on the next event without lingering loose ends.

Troubleshooting

• An attendee says they're not on the attendee list. First, double-check by searching the list. If they're truly not on it, send them the Attendance Recording Guide for the event so they can self-record. See Use the Attendance Recording Guide.
• An attendee already has a CEU Events account but says they can't see the event. This usually means the event wasn't linked to their account. Have them go through the Attendance Recording Guide steps — recording their attendance will link the event to their account automatically.
• A manually added attendee says the event isn't on their dashboard. This is expected if they already had a CEU Events account when you added them manually. Direct them to email support@ceuevents.com so the team can link the event to their account.
• The Certificate is ready email isn't reaching attendees. Confirm enough time has passed — bulk emails send at :00, :20, and :40 each hour. Ask the attendee to check their spam folder and verify the email on file in their account is correct.
• You sent a Post Event Registration email but attendees say they didn't receive it. Confirm enough time has passed — bulk emails send at :00, :20, and :40 each hour. Also verify the email addresses in the contact list you selected are spelled correctly. See Manage Your Contact Lists to update the list if needed.
• Still having trouble? Contact CEU Events support and we'll help.