Each topic, article and pathway in Tribal Habits can have a Certified Date assigned to it.
A certified date represents the period for which the learner is 'certified' in that topic, article or pathway. When an enrolment reaches a certified date, either:
The enrolment can 'expire' and the learner is no longer certified
OR
You can enable 'recertification' which will automatically trigger a retaken enrolment for the learner to complete the enrolment again and obtain a new certified date (to maintain their certification).
So re-certification is a process that triggers an automated 'retake knowledge' enrolment when an explorer is within a specified number of days of their certification expiring.
Re-certification is commonly utilised by organisations that require employees to complete certain training (often compliance-related training) periodically. This might be safety training every 12 months or privacy training every 3 years and so on.
Example
Let's say you have a topic that has a certified date of 365 days after conquering and a 14 day re-certification period. The timeline for explorers in this topic would be:
An explorer is enrolled in the topic.
The explorer completes the topic on, for example, February 1st 2021.
The explorer's certified date is the date of completing the topic + 365 days, making it February 1st 2022.
Fourteen days before the explorer's certified date, a 'retake knowledge' enrolment is triggered for them (i.e. January 14th 2022, in this case).
The explorer is then assigned a new 'current' enrolment, with new notifications and due dates.
Their previous enrolment is retained and marked as 'lapsed' (with all their data and training history retained). See this article for information about enrolment statuses.
The explorer conquers the topic again and the process repeats.
So how does 're-certification' work?
To enable 're-certification', follow these steps.
Access the relevant topic, article or pathway.
On the Settings Tab in the Certification panel, click 'Edit Certification'.
First, set a 'certified date' setting. This is the period which the explorer will be certified for upon completion of the topic, article or pathway. This can be set as either:
Date of enrolment + x days. This is the recommended setting for most situations, as it ensures learners stay on a set re-certification cycle regardless of how long it takes them to complete the training.
Date of completion + x days. An alternative setting. Note that if the explorer takes a long time to complete the training, this can extend the certification period beyond what might have been originally intended.
Specific date. An alternative setting which applies a fixed certified date regardless of the date of enrolment or completion.
Second, activate re-certification by selecting 'Yes' and entering how many days before the certified date an explorer should be required to complete their re-certification (i.e. be re-enrolled into the current knowledge or enrolled into the next knowledge). Typically, your re-certification days would be similar to the initial due date, giving the explorer the same period of time to conquer the topic.
Third, select the next certification.
Retake this knowledge. The explorer will recomplete the same topic, article or pathway again. If the topic or article has been updated to a more recent version, then the explorer will complete the latest version.
Enrol in other knowledge. In this option, the explorer will be 'moved' to a different topic, article or explorer. For example, you may have duplicated last year's training and updated it in a completely separate module. This allows re-certification to move the explorer to this new module. You can learn more about using 'Next Certification' in this article.
Click 'Save'.
TIP: Certified dates are applied only at the time of completion!
When a learner completes knowledge which has a certified date activated, the certified date is calculated at that moment. If you change or enable certified dates settings after learners have already completed training, then nothing happens to the enrolments that are already completed. If you wish to apply certified dates to those completed enrolments, you will need to update already completed learners with a certified date manually or via CSV bulk upload (using the -UPDATE code).
What triggers the re-certification process?
Re-certification will only trigger for explorers who meet three conditions.
TIP: If you feel like re-certification should have occurred and is not occurring, then this list is a good place to start troubleshooting.
First, the learner must have completed the knowledge.
A learner cannot ‘re’ certify in something they never certified in originally!
Second, the learner must have a certified date for that enrolment.
Remember: Activating a certified date AFTER completion will not apply any date to already completed enrolments. So you may need to update old enrolments if certified settings are changed.
Third, the learner must be enabled for recertification.
Deactivated learners are not recertified!
Individual learners can be excluded from recertification process in each topic, article and pathway too (see below).
And of course, the topic, article or pathway must have its re-certification setting enabled!
COMMON MISTAKE! Do not enable re-certification in a pathway AND in the topics / articles in that pathway.
When you are enabling re-certification for a pathway, then it is important that you only enable re-certification in that pathway itself. DO NOT also enable re-certification in the topics or articles which are in that pathway.
When a pathway re-certification occurs, it creates a retake enrolment in the pathway AND in the topics and articles in that pathway. So there is no need to also have re-certification settings in those topics or articles. In fact, if you do enable re-certification in those topics and articles too, then you might trigger 'double re-certification' issues! And we definitely don't want that!
COMMON QUESTION! So, when should I use a pathway for re-certification, or instead enrol explorers into individual topics/articles with their own re-certification?
This is a great question. Lets consider a common scenario of a compliance pathway containing, say, 5 compliance topics. How could you manage re-certification?
Option 1 - Enable re-certification in the pathway.
In this case, the pathway will manage re-certification. This means the certified date for the pathway will be used to trigger retake enrolments in all 5 topics at the same time.
So this is a good option when ALL 5 topics definitely require recertification. Its also a good option when ALL 5 topics have the same certification cycle (period of time). Its also a good option when its OK (or preferred) to have explorers complete the retake of 5 topics at the same time (e.g. you want all compliance training done in a specific month of the year).
Option 2 - Enable re-certification in the topics and articles.
In this case, each topic and article needs its own re-certification settings enabled. They can all be different too - perhaps no recertification for some topics, 1 year for others and 5 years for some.
So this is a good option when not all 5 topics require recertification, or the topics are on different recertification schedules or you prefer to spread out the work involved in completing recertification over different periods of time.
Note, if you use this option and enable topics and articles to manage their own re-certification, then you can still group these topics and articles into a pathway! Just don't enable re-certification in that pathway!
What happens when re-certification is triggered?
A re-certification enrolment is the same as 'retake knowledge'.
The existing enrolment is marked as lapsed and its history and data is retained.
A new enrolment is created and marked as current.
Any existing due date, certified date and notifications will be triggered.
The explorer will see the new enrolment on their dashboard, but will no longer be able to access the old enrolment (although it will remain as part of their training history).
TIP: It's important that learners are notified when re-certification occurs - else they will not know to return to your portal and complete the training. When re-certification occurs, and the retake enrolment is triggered, this will send the enrolment notification for that topic, article or pathway. So its important the enrolment notification is enabled! If it is not enabled, then no notification will be sent.
How can I prevent re-certification for individual explorers?
First, any explorer who is deactivated is automatically removed from re-certification.
Second, you can manually remove selected explorers from re-certification by viewing the 'Enrolments' tab of any topic, article or pathway. If re-certification is enabled, you will see a 'Re-certify' column with Yes/No options for each explorer. You can then select explorers using the checkboxes in that table and use the bulk actions to Allow or Prevent recertification above the table.