> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://academy.synap.ac/doc/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://academy.synap.ac/doc/getting-started/scheduling-your-first-exam.md). # Scheduling Your First Exam {% hint style="info" %} You must have created at least one Test before you can create an exam. Refer to the previous section '[Creating your First Test](/doc/getting-started/creating-your-first-test.md)' if you have not done this already. {% endhint %} Once you have created a Test, it is available to use in Exams. As mentioned earlier - a Test contains your questions, but an Exam is where you define things like the schedule, rules and enrol candidates. ### Creating an Exam Go to the Exams page and click Create Exam, this will take you to a "Set Exam" page which asks you to fill in some initial details. If you cannot see an Exams page or a Create Exam button, make sure you are logged in as an Admin, and that you are not currently in Study Mode.
Fill in the fields as follows: * Name: Give your Exam a name, e.g. "My First Exam". This name will be shown to candidates * Check "Direct User Registration" * Ignore other fields for now, Click Next We have chosen "Direct User Registration" because this allows you to manually enrol users for the exam once it is published. If it is not checked, then exam enrolment will be tied to a specific User Group - this can be helpful, particularly when dealing with large numbers, but for setting up a quick 'demonstration' exam, the Direct Registration is more flexible and allows us to focus on 'How to create an exam' without adding in the necessary steps for creating and managing a user group. #### Static Exams vs Dynamic Exams You should now see a page asking "What exam type are you creating" and you have the option of Static or Dynamic. For this example, we are going to pick a Static exam because it is simpler, but just to quickly explain the difference: * A **Static Exam** takes one Test as its source of questions, and also copies that Test's settings. In this model, the 'Test' you created earlier is essentially 'The content of the exam' * A **Dynamic Exam** takes one or more Tests as its source of questions. You then define rules on how questions should be selected, e.g. "Pick 10 questions tagged with Anatomy, and Pick 5 questions tagged with Physiology". Every attempt gets a randomly selected set of questions from those criteria, \*or\* you can specify a particular number of versions to generate.
Static Exams are simpler to set up, so we will use that option for this guide
#### Selecting a Source for your Exam You will now see a menu asking you to pick a test to act as the source for your exam. Select the test we created earlier, click Next and then click Finalize Setup to confirm. The Finalize step will load for a few seconds - in the background, Synap is creating a carbon copy of your Source Test so that the Exam gets its own copy of the questions. This means you can safely edit your Library test without impacting the integrity of this new exam. ### Options for Configuring Your Exam You should now be on the Exam Management page, which will have many different options. In this guide, we are only going to touch the absolutely necessary ones - but you can refer to our [Exams guide](/doc/exams/create-and-manage-exams.md) for a more detailed overview. Scroll down on the left hand menu until you see the Schedule option (in the Advanced group). Set your exam to be Indefinite (this means it will not have a scheduled close date), and then set the Scheduled Open Time to some time in the very near future e.g. 2-3 minutes from now. Then click Save.
Then, in the top left hand corner of the page click 'Go to Publish'. This will show you a summary of your exam configuration and rules. Scroll down to the bottom and click 'Publish'. ### Enrolling Candidates Your exam is now published! This means that it is live, and you can start enrolling candidates. In a direct enrolment exam, you can do this from the Attempt Management page (which you should be on automatically after publishing), and clicking the Register User button in the top right hand corner.
Search for yourself (by name, email address or ID), then click on your profile when it comes up. Click "Register into exam". When the window closes, the table should refresh and you should see yourself listed in the table. Congratulations, you have scheduled your first exam and enrolled a candidate! There are various options available for communicating this to candidates, adding time accommodations and more - you can view these by selecting the relevant row in the table, then looking at the actions menu on the left hand side. Again, for this guide we are not going to go into detail on this but feel free to explore or to refer to our [Exam Management](/doc/exams/create-and-manage-exams.md) guide.
### Taking the Exam as a Candidate If you followed the instructions above, then you will have enrolled yourself for the exam. This means that your admin account is registered to take the exam. If you want to take the exam to see the candidate experience, there are a few ways of doing it: 1. Email the Exam Registration email to yourself: The most 'representative' way for you to take the exam end-to-end like a candidate would, is to trigger the Exam Registration email, and follow the instructions. This will help you get a better understanding of exactly what candidates see before they even get onto the platform. To do this, select yourself in the attempts table, click Actions -> Send Registration Email. You will then see your status change from Enrolled to Notified. Check your emails and you should have an email from with instructions and a unique link to take the exam. 2. Switch into Study Mode (left hand menu -> Profile icon -> Study mode), go to the Exams page and access the exam from there 3. Copy the Exam Link from the Attempts menu (scroll to the right of the table) and paste it in to your browser When it comes to delivering 'real' exams, there are many other ways to register candidates and communicate the information to them - you do not need to use emails or any of the methods described above. --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter, and the optional `goal` query parameter: ``` GET https://academy.synap.ac/doc/getting-started/scheduling-your-first-exam.md?ask=&goal= ``` `ask` is the immediate question: it should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. `goal` is optional and describes the broader end goal you are ultimately trying to accomplish on behalf of the user. GitBook uses it to tailor the answer towards what is most useful for that goal. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.