Certificates

Learners earn a certificate when they complete a course or a learning path. This guide covers managing certificate templates and configuring which courses and paths issue a certificate.

Prerequisites

Manage certificate templates

A template defines what appears on the certificate — the title, body text, and signatory. The default template is used by any course that doesn’t pick its own.

1. Select Templates in the admin sidebar. The Certificates tab opens first. (The old /admin/certificates address, and the Certificate templates links in the course and learning-path editors, redirect here.)
2. Click + New template and fill in:

3. Click Create template. The first template you create becomes the default automatically.
4. Click Preview at any time — including before saving — to open a sample PDF with your current wording, your logo, and your brand colour.

To change the default, click Set default on any other template. Exactly one template is the default at a time.

Delete is offered only on templates with no issued certificates (issued certificates must keep their template for the record).

Body text and variables

Body text is the sentence printed under the learner’s name. Click + Add variable above the field and pick a variable from the list to drop in its placeholder at the cursor; it is replaced with the real value when the certificate is generated.

The same date is printed in the certificate’s footer. Single braces ({learnerName}) work too, so a hand-typed placeholder is never printed literally.

Two things adapt to what you write:

• If you leave the body text blank, the certificate uses the standard wording — “This certifies that” → name → “has successfully completed” → course title.
• If you write a full sentence (e.g. “Awarded to {{learnerName}} for completing {{courseTitle}}.”), it replaces that standard wording. The stock lead-in is dropped, and if your sentence already names the course, the separate course heading is dropped as well — so nothing is printed twice.

Long names, titles and sentences shrink and wrap automatically to fit the page.

Branding on the certificate

Certificates follow the organization branding set in Settings → Branding — no extra configuration:

Notes:

• The logo must be a PNG or JPG file. SVG and ICO logos cannot be embedded in a PDF — if your logo is one of those, upload a PNG version for certificates to use it.
• The teal accent (the rule under the title and the underline beneath the learner’s name) is a fixed EmbayLMS design signal and is not themed per organization.

Configure certificates on a course

1. Open the course and go to the Settings tab. On a published course, click Start new version first — the settings panels are editable only on a draft.
2. In the Certificate panel:
   • Toggle Issue a certificate on completion on or off (it is on for a new course).
   • Choose a Template, or leave it on Tenant default.

Changes save immediately. A learner who completes the course (all required modules) then receives the certificate, listed on their Achievements page under the Certificates tab.

Issue a certificate by hand

Completions that never went through the completion engine — records imported from a previous LMS, enrollments an admin marked complete — have no certificate. Issue one from either place an enrollment is listed:

• The course’s Enrollments tab: on a row whose status is Completed and that has no certificate, click Issue certificate.
• The learner’s profile under Users, in its enrollments list: same button on the completed row.

1. Click Issue certificate.
2. Leave the Certificate template on Course default (or the tenant default), or pick another template for this learner only.
3. Confirm. The certificate number appears on the row, the PDF is generated on demand through the normal download, and the learner is notified; the certificate appears on their Achievements page right away.

Re-issue. When a certificate was revoked, the row offers Re-issue certificate instead. The revoked certificate stays on record (its number is what the old PDF prints and what the verification page reports as revoked); the new one gets a new number. A row with a valid certificate offers nothing — there is one valid certificate per enrollment.

Revoke. Open the learner’s profile under Users and choose View or revoke certificates (shown to roles that hold certificate:revoke). Their Achievements page opens on the Certificates tab in admin view: click Revoke, enter a reason and confirm. A revoked certificate cannot be un-revoked; the verification page shows it as revoked, with the revocation date. To give the learner a valid certificate again, re-issue it (above). See Certificate verification & revocation.

Configure certificates on a learning path

1. Open the learning-path editor (Learning Paths → edit a path).
2. Tick Issue a certificate when the path is completed and choose a Template (or leave it on Tenant default).
3. Save.

A path certificate is issued automatically when the learner completes every required course on the path. It appears on their Achievements page with a Learning path badge and is downloadable as a PDF, just like course certificates.

Troubleshooting

Need help? Contact your EmbayLMS onboarding team or open a support ticket.