managing certifications

Create a certification 

1. Click Coursesfrom the Site administration
2. Click Manage certifications.
3. The Find Courses page opens on certification view in edit mode. Click Add a new certification to set up a new certification.
4. Complete the Details
5. Click Save changes and the Overview tab displays. You have now created your certification; the next step is to add the certification content and certification assignments.

Add certification content

Here you set the learning content that learners will be required to complete to gain and maintain certification.

To add content to your certification (skip to step 4 if you already have your certification open):

1. Click Coursesfrom the Site administration
2. Click Manage certifications.
3. The Find Coursespage opens on certification view in edit mode. Click to open your certification.
4. Click Edit program contenton the Overview tab or click the Content
5. Under the Original certification pathsection, select Set of courses from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add.
6. Click through the course categories and select the course(s) you wish to add. If you're adding multiple courses, you need to select your courses in the order you wish them to appear in the set.
7. Selected course(s) appear in the current selection column, click the delete icon to remove the course from the certification selection.
8. Click Okto complete the course selection.
9. Give your set a name and complete the settings:
   • Learner must complete: Choose either One courseor All courses.
   • Minimum time required:This determines the minimum amount of time that users should be given if they are to have enough time to complete the course set. For example, if set to one week, then it is expected that the user should be granted at least one week to be able to complete the course set, and that it would not be possible to complete it in any time less than that.

This does not determine the maximum time allowed to complete the course set and setting this does not set a due date. It is used to generate exceptions when a completion date set in the Assignments tab is insufficient and is used to automatically set a sufficiently generous due date when resolving time allowance exceptions using the Set realistic time allowance action.

10. You can have one or more course sets. If you have more than one, you can choose the rule between them:
    • Or:Learners can either complete the learning in the first course set or the second course set. The learning of both course sets is available at the same time.
    • Then:Learners must complete the first course set before being given access to the second course set.
    • And: Learners must complete the first course set and the second set. The course sets will be made available to complete at the same time and do not have to be completed in order.

Follow steps 5-10 above as required if you need to add additional content.

11. Under the Recertification pathsection you have two options:
    • If you would like to use the same content as your original certification path, select Use the existing certification content. This will copy everything you entered into the original certification path into the recertification path.

Note that this copying only happens once; afterwards, if you make a change to one path, you will need to manually make the same change to the other path if you want to keep them the same.

• If the content is different, simply add additional sets of courses as required following steps 5 - 10 above.

12. Click Save changes.
13. A warning message containing the number of learners who are currently assigned to the certification that would be affected by changes is displayed. Click Save all changes. The content has now been added to your certification and you are ready to set the learner assignments.

Add Upcoming Certification block

This block can be added to the frontpage, a dashboard or a course page to quickly show when the learner's Certifications are due.

To add an Upcoming Certification block to a page:

1. Go to the page that you want the block to appear.
2. Select Turn editing on.
3. Go to the Add a blockarea and select Upcoming Certifications
4. Move the block to the location if needed.

Assigning users to multiple certifications which contain some matching course content

This scenario is not recommended when managing certifications due to the potential this creates for users needing to re-complete the course that is contained in both certifications.

Where two or more certifications contain some matching course content, assigning a user to one certification and then adding the same user to another different certification will result in an Exception being created for this user. (See Exception Reports).

These exceptions shouldn't be ignored/dismissed as they are a warning that user's with these exceptions may have course progress reset and may need to repeat the courses contained within more than one certification they are assigned to.

Assigning a user to multiple certifications which all have the same courses creates a likelihood for the overlapping of window opening dates and the archiving of course completions on certifications which are already in progress.

Add certification assignments

Certification assignment allows you to select the learners who need to complete the certification. You can select users by organisation, position, audience, management hierarchy, or individually. Once you have assigned learners to the certification, the system automatically takes care of course enrolment.

To add learners to your certification (skip to step 4 if you already have your certification open):

1. Click Coursesfrom the Site administration 
2. Click Manage certifications.
3. The Find Courses page opens on certification view in edit mode. Click to open your certification.
4. Click Edit program assignmentson the Overview 
5. Select how you want to add learners to your certification from the Add a new dropdown menu and click Add.

Click Set completion to set a completion date for each group/individual you have assigned to the certification. This will be applied to the applicable learners, giving them a due date. When setting a completion date you have two options: 

6. 1. Complete by:allows you to set a fixed completion date.
   2. Complete within:allows you to set a completion date relative to an event, the events include:
      • Date the learner first logged in.
      • Position start date recorded on the learners position tab.
      • The date the learner completed another certification.
      • The date a learner completed another course.
      • The date record in a profile field.
   3. Click Set fixed completion dateor Set time relative to event to save your completion criteria.

Prior to saving your changes, it is important that you are aware how assigning a completion date relates to a user's due date. Please see How certifications work for more information.

8. Click Save changes.
9. Click Save all changesin the confirmation box or Edit assignments if you want to make additional changes. Once the save is complete, a confirmation message appears at the top of the screen. Your certification assignments are now set.

Learning will be made available immediately to new users once they've self-registered. Audience membership as well as audience-based enrolled learning (i.e. course enrolment and certification/program assignment) will occur before new users first log into the platform.

For existing users, audience membership and enrolment will occur when the relevant cron runs.

Add certification messages

Messages allow you to set up automated emails related to your certification. The messages can be customised for the certification you are setting up or editing.

To customise your certification messages (skip to step 4 if you already have your certification open):

1. Click Coursesfrom the Site administration
2. Click Manage certifications.
3. The Find Coursespage opens on certification view in edit mode. Click to open your certification.
4. Click Edit program messageson the Overview tab or click the Messages
5. By default there is an enrolment message and an exception report message for each certification. To add a new message select the message type from the Add a newdropdown menu and then click Add.
6. When you add a new message you need to complete the subject line and message details to be sent. The message body can contain variables. There are two available variables:
   • %userfullname%: This will be replaced by the recipient's full name.
   • %programfullname%: This is replaced with the full name of the certification.
   • %setlabel%: This is replaced with the course set label, when the message relates to course sets.

The subject line can only be changed for the learner message. When sending notice to a manager, the manager message uses a default subject line.

7. Click Save changes.
8. Click Save all changesin the confirmation box, or Edit messages if you need to make additional changes. Once the save is complete a confirmation message appears at the top of the screen. Your certification messages are now complete.

Program messages 

When a learner completes a certification path, a new expiry date is calculated based on the recertification date method and the active period. As a result a new window opens date - or recertification window - is calculated from that. The recertification settings on the Certification tab lets you control how the those dates are calculated.Define recertification details

The following settings are used when making the calculations described above:

• Active Period:Determines how long a certification will be active before it expires.
• Recertification Window:How long before the certification expires the recertification window opens, giving learners time to complete the recertification path.

To define your recertification details (skip to step 4 if you already have your certification open):

1. Click Coursesfrom the Site administration
2. Click Manage certifications.
3. The Find Coursespage opens on certification view in edit mode. Click to open your certification.
4. Click Edit certificationon the Overview tab or click the Certification
5. Under Active Period, set Certification is active forby entering a value in the field and select either Day(s), Week(s), Month(s), or Year(s) from the dropdown e.g. '1 Year(s)'.
6. Under Recertification Window set the Period window opens before expirationby entering a value in the field and select either Day(s), Week(s), Month(s), or Year(s) from the dropdown e.g. '1 Year(s)'.
7. Choose a Recertification date. You have three options:
   • Use certification completion date: When a user completes one of the certification paths (original or recertification), the expiry date will be calculated based on the date that the completion occurred.
   • Use certification expiry date: Calculate the new expiry date based on the previous one. If there was no previous expiry date (for new assignments, and no due date set in the assignments tab) or the certification has expired, then the completion date is used.
   • Use fixed date: Choose a fixed date (i.e 2nd of February every year) 
8. Click Save changes. Your certification is now complete.

Capabilities that can edit

It is possible to assign a variety of editing permissions within the program functionality. Anyone with one or more of the following capabilities will see an Edit certification details button whenever they view a program. By clicking on this they will then see the Overview tab, followed by additional tabs based on the capabilities they have assigned to them as follows:

• totara/program:configuredetails:For the Edit tab.
• totara/program:configurecontent:For the Content tab.
• totara/program:configuremessages:For the Messages tab.
• totara/program:configureassignments:- For the Assignments tab.
• totara/program:handleexceptions:For the Exceptions tab (this applies even if there are no exceptions currently).
• totara/certification:configurecertification:For the Certification tab.
• totara/program:editcompletion:For the Completion tab (the completion editor must be enabled in site cofig).