Certificates

Certificates in Valamis are awarded to users who have completed certain learning paths or participated in specific training events.

Certificates can be permanent or have an expiration date. In the latter case, notifications can be sent to the user in a set number of days before expiration.

Enabling Certification

To award certificates for your content, enable the Certification setting in the details of the learning path or training event.

A new certificate template will be created for each new event or learning path.

If you have Open Badges enabled, you can also award them in addition to a Valamis Certificate by selecting External credentials and your corresponding badge provider, e.g., Accredible.

Users can then decide whether to claim the Open Badge after completing a learning path or training event.

Achieved Certificates

When the user achieves a certificate, it is added to their Achieved Certificates on the Dashboard, and their Learning Transcript. 

If you click on a certificate, you'll see more details about it and can print it out. 

Certificate Expiration Tracker

A Certificate Expiration Tracker tool is helpful with managing the expiring and expired certificates.

Just choose a date range from which to gather the certificate data.

You have the option to notify any single user by clicking the bell icon next to them. Alternatively, you can notify all users by clicking the Notify all button.

Certificate Templates

In Certificate templates, you can access all existing certificates and edit the details:

1. Title 
2. Description
3. Visual template for printing. There is a default Valamis template, but advanced users can customize it.
4. Validity period - Permanent vs. Expiration date
5. Expiration warning period- defines at what time in advance the users should be notified about expiring certificates.
6. Open Badges integration

Creating custom visual templates (for advanced users)

When creating a new certificate in Training events or Learning paths, you may use a non-default visual template. To use a custom print template, you need to upload a ZIP file of a specific structure by selecting + Add template in the Certification setting.

You need to be familiar with XSL-FO markup.

The root of the archive should contain:

1. config.xml
2. index.fo - file with XSL-FO structure
3. image folder - you can use an absolute path to the images in index.fo from this folder

Variables that you can use in index.fo:

• username
• expirationDate
• achievementDate
• certificateTitle (title from the template)
• originTitle (title from Training event or Learning path)

Also, you can use variables with localized translations (locale will be taken from the user):

certificateLabel=Certificate

certifiesLabel=This certifies that

achievedLabel=Achieved

dateLabel=Awarded on

validLabel=Valid through

Useful links:

• Check how your index.fo will look in pdf format here
• A tutorial for formatting in XSL-FO