Reassignment Process: Oblige To Retake vs Certificate Expiration

A user may be reassigned to a course or curriculum in 3 different ways:

A manager manually reassigns the course/curriculum
The course/curriculum is reassigned due to the course/curriculum settings (certificate expiration)
The course/curriculum is reassigned due to an automated reassignment rule (oblige to retake or OTR rule).

For ease of tracking assignments, expirations, and user progress it is recommended to use one method across the whole academy. When selecting the best option, consider:

The population that you want to be impacted
The certificates that will/won't be awarded
The way you want possible future edits to be handled
The Compliance dashboard, in case your course/curriculum has been marked as Compliant.

Population Impacted

Benefits	OTR Rules	Certificate Expiration	Comments
Reassign course/curriculum for only assigned users, not for the dropped-out users.	X		Use the oblige to retake rules if you want only the currently enrolled/assigned users to get obliged to retake the course/curriculum. In the case of certificates, if you have defined that the course progress will be reset when certificates expire, this will also affect the unenrolled/unassigned users.
Can be configured to reassign course/curriculum to only users that completed the course.	X	X
Can be configured to reassign course/curriculum to all enrolled users.	X		OTR rules allow you to reset the progress for users who haven't completed the course/curriculum.
Can be configured to reassign course/curriculum to only users who have not completed it yet.	X

Certificates

Benefits	OTR Rules	Certificate Expiration	Comments
A certificate can be awarded.	X	X
Send reminder notifications for expiring/expired certificates.		X	If certificates have a specific expiration period, you can schedule notifications to be sent to the members of your academy.
The certificate can be set to expire. Note: Expiration can result in reassignment but does not have to.	X	X

Considerations and Impact Related to Future Edits

Benefits	OTR Rules	Certificate Expiration	Comments
Easily modify the configuration.	X	X*	Example: A 12-month Oblige to Retake needs to be updated to either 24 months or 6 months.
Adjust settings so expiration dates on certificates for completed courses are removed retroactively.	N/A	X*

*For example, if a certificate is set to expire in one month, you can change it to expire in zero months, removing the expiration date. In this case, any past completions that were removed from the certificate’s expiration will also be restored. This feature can only be used to remove the certificate expiration date, not to make it earlier or extend it. Also, it restores completions for users who have expired due to the certificate expiration.

Other

Benefits	OTR Rules	Certificate Expiration	Comments
Usable with Compliance Dashboard.		X	Use this option if your course/curriculum has been marked as a compliant one.