Certification Group

A certification group is a kind of company certificate - a quality standard, an environmental standard, a buyer compliance certificate. Certification picks one per line, which is how a certificate list says what each certificate is.

Where

Organization and Setup › Setup › Certification Group

Who uses it

The implementation consultant, once at setup

When

Before Certification

Needs first

Country, if you want to mark a primary group

What it is for

The company certificate list needs to say what each certificate is, and it should say it the same way every time. This is that list of kinds.

The one setting worth thinking about is Unique. Tick it where the company should only ever hold one certificate of that kind, so that a second one is an error rather than a renewal recorded twice. Leave it clear where several are normal.

This screen shares its name with Certification Group in People Directory, which groups the certificates your staff hold. They are two separate lists and neither sees the other. If a consultant is setting up forklift licences and first aid certificates, that is the People Directory one.

Every field, in plain words

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Certification Group	Your short code for the kind of certificate.	ISO9001	Required. It must be unique.
Name	The kind of certificate as it should read in a list.	Quality management system, ISO 9001	Required.
Certification Category	The broad family the kind belongs to.	ISO	Required, picked from a list. In the shipped configuration ISO is the only value, so there is one choice until the client asks for more.
Unique	Whether the company may hold only one certificate of this kind.	Tick it for a single standards certificate. Leave it clear where several are normal.	It records the intention. The certificate list does not refuse a second row today, so treat it as a note to the people maintaining the list.
Primary For Country	The country this kind is the main one for.	Pakistan	Optional, picked from the country list.

How to configure it

1. List the certificates the company holds today and group them by kind.
2. Open Certification Group and create one record per kind. Type the code, the name, and pick the category.
3. Tick Unique where only one certificate of that kind can be valid at a time.
4. Set Primary For Country where it applies.
5. Save, then go to Certification and record a certificate against the group.

Scenarios

"We hold a quality certificate, an environmental one and a buyer audit certificate"

Three groups, one per kind, each with a name a reader recognises. The certificate list then reads properly instead of being three numbers.

"Somebody recorded our quality certificate twice"

Tick Unique on that group so the intention is written down, and clear the duplicate row on the certificate record. The save will not stop it happening again, so this is a housekeeping rule rather than a control.

What it is connected to

• Read by Certification, where each line picks a group.
• Nothing else in PeopleNest reads it.
• Not the same thing as Certification Group in People Directory, which groups what your people hold.

If something looks wrong

• "The save says the code cannot be empty" - the Certification Group field is blank.
• "The save says it already exists" - that code is already used. Codes must be unique.
• "The category list only offers one value" - that is correct in the shipped configuration. ISO is the only category.
• "I ticked Unique and a second certificate still saved" - that is how it behaves. Unique is recorded, not enforced. Check the certificate rows by eye.