Custom Software & AI Development
24 badge types in three months — 52,000 recipients, no registration failures
NASFAA issued certification badges through a third-party platform: a separate site, a separate login, administration awkward enough to be a constraint, and registration failing at the exact moment a member claimed what they had earned. We built badging into the website and CMS NASFAA already runs. Staff configured 24 badge types within three months, more than 52,000 recipients were onboarded without a registration failure, and the recurring license stopped.
52,000
Recipients onboarded without a registration failure
24
Badge types configured in three months
0
Recurring platform license fees
The problem
What they were dealing with
Certification is one of the main reasons people join an association, and the badge is the part they actually show other people. It ought to be the least troublesome thing on the site.
This one lived somewhere else. Badges were awarded through a third-party platform running as a standalone site, so a member who had just earned a credential was handed off to a different place with a different login in order to see it. NASFAA's own site — where that member does everything else — had no idea the badge existed.
It was also hard to run. Administering badges took more effort than it should have, and that quietly constrains what an association is willing to offer — every additional credential has to be worth the trouble. And registration, the moment a member actually claims something they have earned, was a recurring source of failures. That is the worst possible place for one: a member who cannot claim their badge does not conclude that the badging vendor is at fault. They conclude that the association's site is broken.
Two costs sat behind all of that. Recipient data had to be maintained outside NASFAA's own systems for the platform to work at all, which meant the same records being kept in step in two places. And the capability was rented rather than owned: a license fee that recurred every year regardless of how little of it was being used.
Constraints
What made it hard, and what we did about it
- Challenge
- Badges lived on a separate site behind a separate login, so earning one meant being handed off somewhere else to look at it
- What we did
- Badging built directly into the website and CMS NASFAA already runs, using each member's existing site sign-in
- Result
- Members view, share and download their badges without leaving the site — and can see the ones they could work toward next
- Challenge
- Administering badges on the old platform took enough effort to be a constraint on what NASFAA could practically offer
- What we did
- Administration moved into online tools NASFAA staff run themselves, so adding a credential does not need us or a change request
- Result
- 24 badge types configured in the first three months, by NASFAA's own staff
- Challenge
- Registration kept failing at the exact moment a member tried to claim a credential they had earned
- What we did
- Claiming rebuilt as part of the members' own signed-in experience, resolved against the membership record that already identifies them, over a secure real-time integration
- Result
- More than 52,000 recipients onboarded since launch without a registration failure
- Challenge
- Recipient data had to be maintained outside NASFAA's own systems, and the capability was rented on a recurring license
- What we did
- Built on NASFAA's own platform and licensed to them outright, following the Open Badges standard so credentials stay portable
- Result
- Badge data maintained once in the system of record, no recurring license, and badges that stay verifiable outside NASFAA's own site
How it ran
The approach
The useful question was not how to integrate better with the badging platform. It was whether the association needed one at all, given that it already ran a website, a CMS and a membership system which between them held everything a badge requires.
Results
What it produced
52,000
Recipients onboarded without a registration failure
In the first three months after launch, across every badge configured
24
Badge types configured in three months
Set up by NASFAA staff through the admin tools rather than by us
0
Recurring platform license fees
The system is owned outright by NASFAA
Within three months of launch NASFAA had configured 24 badge types and issued them to more than 52,000 recipients without a registration failure.
The 24 is easy to read past. A certification program is shaped by what its software makes practical — when adding a credential costs an afternoon rather than a project, the catalog grows to the size the organization actually wanted. Two dozen badge types in a quarter, configured by the association's own staff, is what that looks like.
The 52,000 matters for a different reason. Scale alone proves little — any platform would have issued badges to a membership that size. Doing it without a registration failure is the claim worth making, because registration was precisely where the old system kept breaking, and because the member who cannot claim their credential blames the association rather than its vendor.
The recurring license ended with the migration, and the capability now sits inside the estate NASFAA already owns and already maintains — which is also where the member records it depends on were living all along.
What the client gained
Beyond the numbers
One site, one login
A member who earns a credential sees it where they already are, in the account they already have. No second destination and no second password at the exact moment they want to show somebody.
A catalog that can grow
24 badge types in a quarter, set up by NASFAA's own staff. When adding a credential costs an afternoon rather than a project, the program stops being shaped by what the software makes practical.
Claiming that works first time
Registration resolves against the membership record that already identifies the member, so the step where the old platform kept failing is now the step that needs no support.
Staff run it themselves
Badges and recipients are administered through online tools, so issuing a new credential does not join a development queue.
Data maintained once
A secure, real-time integration with the membership system means recipient records stay in the system of record instead of being kept in step by hand somewhere else.
Owned, and still portable
Built on NASFAA's own platform and licensed to them outright, to the Open Badges standard. The annual fee stopped, and owning the system did not mean trapping the credential inside it.
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