Certification
A certification is a qualification a person holds and may have to renew: a forklift licence, a first aid certificate, an internal auditor qualification, a boiler operator permit. You list them here with their renewal interval, and the employee record then says who holds what and until when.
What it is for
Some certifications expire, and the consequence of missing one is not administrative. A forklift driver whose licence lapsed is a safety finding. An internal auditor whose qualification expired invalidates an audit. The certificate is in a file, the expiry is in somebody's head, and the audit finds it before HR does.
This screen is the list of certifications, each carrying how often it must be renewed. Once the renewal interval is on the record, the question of what is about to expire can be asked of the system instead of a person.
It also connects to training. A Training Course that awards a certificate names the certification it awards, which is how attending the course and holding the certificate become the same fact rather than two records nobody reconciles.
A note on the two Certification screens. There is also a Certification screen in Organization and Setup. They are not the same list and they are not duplicates. This screen holds the certifications a person can hold, and it is the one read by Employee Certification, Training Attendance and Training Course. The screen in Organization and Setup records certifications at the organisation level, which is a different kind of record. For anything to do with an employee's own certificates, use this screen. The Certification Group list, by contrast, genuinely is shared between the two.
Every field, in plain words
Certification
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certification | The short code for the certification. | FORKLIFT | Required. Must be unique. |
| Name | The certification written out as it appears on the certificate. | Forklift Operator Licence | Required. Translations are kept per language. |
| Block | Retires a certification. | Leave clear. | Ticking it stops the certification being offered on new records. Employees who hold it keep it. |
Renewal
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Renewal Required | Whether this certification expires and has to be renewed. | Tick it on a forklift licence and a first aid certificate. Leave it clear on a qualification held for life. | If it is clear, the interval and unit below do not apply. |
| Renewal Unit | The unit of time the interval is counted in. | Y for year | Day, month and year are the units the system works in. Use the one that matches how the client states the renewal period. |
| Renewal Interval | How many of those units between renewals. | 2 | Two years for a forklift licence, one year for first aid, three years for an internal auditor qualification. Together with the unit, this is the renewal period. |
| Certification Group | The family the certification belongs to. | SAFETY - Health and Safety | Pick it from the list. See Certification Group. |
How to configure it
- Create the families on Certification Group first.
- Ask the safety officer and the quality manager what their people have to hold. That conversation gives you most of the list, and it is a better source than the HR files, which usually miss the operational permits.
- Create each certification. Code
FORKLIFT, nameForklift Operator Licence, groupSAFETY. - Tick Renewal Required where the certificate expires, then set the Renewal Unit and the Renewal Interval to match. Two years is a unit of year and an interval of two.
- Leave Renewal Required clear for a certificate held for life, and leave the interval alone.
- Save, then record who holds what on Employee Certification.
- Where a training course awards one of these certifications, name it on the course so that attendance and the certificate stay in step. See Training Course.
Scenarios
Our forklift licences expire every two years and we keep finding out late
Create the certification with renewal required, a unit of year and an interval of two. Record each driver's certificate on Employee Certification with its date. The list of licences expiring next quarter is then a report rather than a cupboard.
We run the first aid training ourselves and issue our own certificates
Create the certification here, then create the matching Training Course and name this certification on it. The course awards the certificate, so training attendance and the certification record describe the same event.
Some certifications never expire
Leave Renewal Required clear. A trade diploma or a degree-level professional qualification does not need a renewal interval, and setting one creates expiry chasing nobody wants.
What it is connected to
- Needs Certification Group to exist first.
- Employee Certification records which employee holds which certification. One employee holds a given certification once per company.
- Training Course names the certification a course awards. A course marked as awarding a certificate must name one.
- Training Attendance is where attending the course meets the certificate being issued.
- The Certification screen in Organization and Setup is a different record type and is not read by the employee screens.
If something looks wrong
- "Nothing is warning us that certificates are expiring" - check that Renewal Required is ticked and that the unit and interval are set. A certification with no interval has no expiry to warn about.
- "A training course will not save, it wants a certification" - the course is marked as awarding a certificate, so it must name one. Create the certification here first.
- "The same employee has the same certification twice" - one employee holds a given certification once per company, so the second entry will be refused. If it is a renewal, update the existing record with the new dates.
- "The certification list looks different on the Organization and Setup screen" - it is a different list. Employee certifications are maintained here.