When managing training that includes expiring certifications, you may encounter a situation where marking a course as complete immediately triggers its reassignment. This behavior is expected and may occur depending on the configured certification and reassignment settings.
This article explains how course certificate expiration settings and completion dates interact and how to properly manage records for existing certifications.
Scenario: Course Instantly Reassigned After Manual Completion
You manually mark a course as complete for a user, but the course is instantly reassigned.
This could happen because of the following configuration:
The course is set to Award a Certificate upon Completion.
A Certificate Expiration Period is defined (e.g., 12 months from the completion date).
The course setting “Reassign course when certificate expires” is enabled.
When the completion date you enter is in the past and already beyond the certificate expiration period (for example, you enter August 14, 2024, while today’s date is after August 14, 2025), the system interprets the following:
The user has successfully completed the course and earned the certificate.
The certificate has already expired.
Since the course is configured to reassign upon expiration, the system automatically reassigns it to the user. This new assignment overwrites the previous completion status. However, the earlier completion record remains visible in the user’s Total completions view within their dashboard.
Recommended Approach: Managing Existing Certifications
If you intend to record that a user holds a valid certification and wish to prevent immediate reassignment, ensure that the completion date you enter is still within the certificate’s validity period. When marking a user as complete, select today’s date or another date within the active certification period (i.e., before the certificate expiration date). This ensures the certificate is valid and avoids triggering an automatic reassignment.