Certificates

ulams issues a PDF certificate automatically when a learner finishes a course, that is, when every active topic of the course is complete. The certificate is made from a PDF template designed in the admin panel and rendered by the platform’s PDF service.

How a course gets its certificate

When a learner finishes a course, ulams looks for a PDF template for the “course finished” event:

1. the template assigned to this course in its Certificates tab, if there is one;
2. otherwise the default template for that event, if one exists. New installations get a default certificate (A4 landscape with a QR code).

The certificate is stored together with the template as it was at that moment, so later changes to the template do not change certificates already issued.

Pick the template for a course

1. Make sure the template exists. Certificate templates are created and designed by someone with template permissions in Configuration → Templates (see Templates): a PDF template for the course-finished event, designed in the visual pdfme designer.
2. Open the course editor’s Certificates tab (/courses/list/<id>/certificates).
3. Select one or more templates in the selector.

Below the selector, each selected template lists the Generated PDFs: one row per learner who received the certificate, with Download per certificate and Download all PDFs as a zip.

Note

The Certificates tab is hidden when an administrator turns certificates off for the platform (setting disable-Certificates) or when your role lacks the permission.

What a certificate can show

In the designer, a field named after a variable is filled with its value, and variables typed into fixed text (Issued by @VarAppName) are replaced in place. The course-finished event provides, among others:

Variable	Value
@VarUserName	The learner’s name
@VarCourseTitle, @VarCourseSubtitle, @VarCourseId	The course
@VarCourseActiveFrom, @VarCourseActiveTo	The course dates
@VarCourseCategories, @VarCourseCategoriesWithBreadcrumbs	The course categories
@VarContinuousCertNumber, @VarAnnualCertNumber	Running certificate numbers
@VarCertificateId, @VarCertificateVerifyUrl	A unique ID and a verification address (encoded as a QR code in the default template)
@VarAppName, @VarToday	The platform name and the date

The designer lists the full set for the event. A course-finished template must contain @VarCourseTitle in its title section to be valid.

Caution

The verification page that @VarCertificateVerifyUrl points to is not built yet, so the QR code leads nowhere for now.

Learners

In the legacy learner app, learners download the PDF from the course finish page and from their profile’s course list. The reference front shows a certificate preview on the course finish page (/learn/<course id>/finish); a PDF download there is not built yet. See the learner guide.