01
Certificates are files, not records
A PDF proves someone passed once. It does not know whether it is still valid, which version of the training it covered, or who approved it.
Certification Management
Every certification, one verified record.
Sublime LMS keeps a single registry of who holds what: certifications earned inside the platform, credentials earned outside it, their validity, their approvals, their history and the evidence behind each one. Verifiable by ID, exportable for audit, mapped to skills.
Built forL&DCompliance & QualityHR & People OpsSecurity
- Internal and external certifications
- Verifiable IDs and full history
- Approvals, expiry and export
Certification recordSecure Software DevelopmentInternal · training v3 · annual
VerifiedHolderPriya Nair
Issued14 Mar 2026
Valid until14 Mar 2027
Certificate IDSUBL-SSD-PN-2026
EvidenceTraining 100% · Assessment 92%
Approved byA. Menon · 14 Mar
Skills verified by this certification
Secure Coding · L2Application Security · L2Data Protection · L2
Previous: SUBL-SSD-PN-2025 · issued 14 Mar 2025 · preserved in history
The problem
Nobody can answer "who is certified?" in under a day.
Certificates are issued as PDFs and then scattered: the LMS profile, the inbox, a shared drive, the HR file, a vendor portal. None of them agree, and none of them can be verified.
LMS profilePDF · 2019 template · no expiry fieldUnverified
Inbox"FW: FW: certificate" · 3 versionsUnverified
Shared drive/HR/certs · last edited 2024Unverified
HR fileScan · date unreadableUnverified
Vendor portalLogin expired · owner leftUnverified
Chat thread"Approved, looks fine" · no dateUnverified
02
External credentials are invisible
Vendor and industry certifications live in email. Their expiry is a surprise, and their existence is a rumour.
03
Verification is a phone call
A customer or auditor asks whether a certificate is real. Someone goes looking for the original.
04
History is overwritten
Renewal replaces the old certificate, and the trail of what was valid when disappears with it.
The record
Define, earn, verify, track, renew, keep.
One record per person and certification, written to at every step and never erased.
Define the certification
Not assignedCriteria to earn it, validity period, who approves it, and which skills it evidences.
Earn it, or upload it
In progressTraining and assessment inside Sublime, or an external credential uploaded with its expiry date.
Approve
Awaiting approvalWhere a sign-off is required, the record waits in Awaiting Approval and names the approver.
Issue with a unique ID
CompliantA verifiable certificate tied to the person, the training version and the evidence behind it.
Track to expiry
Expiring soonValidity counts down in the matrix. Expiring Soon triggers renewal; Expired is visible to everyone who needs to know.
Renew and keep the history
RenewedA new certificate is issued. The previous one, its approval and every status change stay on the record and in the export.
Active certificates1,284
Awaiting approval6
External tracked212
HolderCertificationTypeValid untilStatus
PNPriya NairSUBL-SSD-PN-2026Internal14 Mar 2027Verified
MIMaya IyerAWS Solutions ArchitectExternal30 Nov 2027Tracked
ARArjun RaoSUBL-ISA-AR-2026Internal2 Feb 2027Verified
SKSana KhanSUBL-SSD-SK-2026Internal—Awaiting approval
RJRahul JoshiISO 27001 Lead AuditorExternal12 Oct 2026Expiring soon
Verify by ID · SUBL-SSD-PN-2026Issued 14 Mar 2026 · training v3 · approved by A. Menon · valid
ValidFilter: Engineering · all typesExport per person · per certification · per period
Inside the product
The registry your auditor wishes you had.
- 1Internal and external in one list
Certificates Sublime issued sit next to credentials uploaded from vendors and industry bodies, with the same expiry logic.
- 2Awaiting approval before issue
Where a sign-off is required, nothing is issued until the named approver confirms. The approval is on the record.
- 3Verify by ID
Every certificate carries a unique ID. Anyone who holds it can check holder, issue date, version and validity.
- 4Export by person, certification or period
The registry is the audit report. Filter, export, done.
Capabilities
Anatomy of a certification record.
Each part of the record is a capability. Together they replace the PDF, the spreadsheet and the inbox search.
Issue criteria and approvals
Training, assessment, attendance or upload, plus an optional named approver before issue.
Unique verifiable ID
Anyone holding the ID can confirm holder, issue date, version and validity.
Validity and expiry
Per certification, with Expiring Soon and Expired computed, not typed.
Training version linkage
The record names the version of the course or policy the certificate covers.
Exemptions and overrides
Granted with a reason, attributed, and logged on the record.
External certification tracking
Vendor and industry credentials uploaded with expiry, approved, and tracked like the rest.
Certification → skill mapping
A certification is verified evidence of specific skills at specific levels.
Certification history
Every previous certificate, approval and status change stays attached. Nothing is overwritten.
Employee certification dashboard
Each person sees their own certificates, expiry dates and renewal paths.
Audit and reporting export
By person, certification, department or period, with the evidence behind each line.
Why This Is Different
A certificate is a file in a folder. Or it is a record.
The same organisation, the same Privacy & Data Security certificate. Watch an administrator issue, track and verify it in a traditional LMS, then in Sublime LMS.
lms.legacy-platform.com/courses/418/gradebook
PRIV-01 · Privacy & Data SecurityGrades
Search Students
Search Assignments
Final grades are recorded here. Certificates are not part of the gradebook.
PRIV-01 · Privacy & Data SecurityFiles
- Home
- Syllabus
- Modules
- Grades
- People
- Files
- Pages
- Assignments
- Quizzes
- Discussions
- Settings
Upload Files
Certificates_2026
PRIV-01 · Privacy & Data SecurityFiles
Certificate IDs, expiry dates and file locations are maintained by hand in this spreadsheet. The LMS has no field for any of them.
Inbox
Please verify certificate – Meera Joshi (PRV-0417)Priyanka Sethi · Internal Audit · Today 9:14Our auditor needs confirmation that the attached…
RE: RE: Which certificate is current?HR · YesterdayThere are three PDFs for Kabir in the folder…
Certificate template v7 – updated logoComms · MonPlease reissue anything created before…
FW: Expired? Hana SuzukiPharmacy lead · Last weekHer certificate says 2025 but the tracker…
Please verify certificate – Meera Joshi (PRV-0417)
Hi Devika, our auditor needs confirmation that the attached Privacy & Data Security certificate for Meera Joshi is genuine and still valid. Could you confirm the issue date, the expiry date and who approved it?
cert_meera_joshi_v2_FINAL.pdf · 412 KBCertificates
Completion certificates issued to learnersSearch courses, learners…
517Issued this year
9Pending approval
28Expiring in 30 days
74%Completion rate
Search learner, course or ID
Course · AllStatusScoreIssued12 certificates| Learner | Course | Score | Issued | Status | Actions |
|---|
Certificate previewC-2026-0517
Sublime LMSCertificate of Completion
This is proudly presented to
Meera Joshi
has successfully completed all required coursework and assessments for
Privacy & Data Security
Devika Rao
Training Administrator · approver94%
Final scoreIssued · Jun 3, 2026Expires · Jun 3, 2027ID C-2026-0517
Verify this certificate
MJ
Meera JoshiRegistered Nurse · Oncology · m.joshi@meridianhealth.example
All certifications validOverviewCoursesCertificationsActivity
Current certifications
Privacy & Data SecurityC-2026-0517 · issued Jun 3, 2026 · valid until Jun 3, 2027 · renews every 12 months
ValidBLS RecertificationC-2026-0498 · issued Mar 10, 2026 · valid until Mar 10, 2027
ValidAWS Solutions Architect – Associate ExternalEXT-AWS-2026-0931 · uploaded Sep 28, 2026 · expires Sep 28, 2029
Pending approvalPrevious cycles
Completed cycles are kept on record — renewals never overwrite them.
Privacy & Data Security · Cycle 1issued Jun 1, 2025 · valid until Jun 1, 2026 · 91%
C-2025-0402BLS Recertification · Cycle 1issued Mar 14, 2025 · valid until Mar 14, 2026 · 89%
C-2025-0311
Certificate verified
This certificate is authentic and was issued through Sublime LMS.
Certificate IDC-2026-0517
StatusValid
Issued bySublime LMS · Meridian Health
Issue dateJun 3, 2026
Expiry dateJun 3, 2027
Authenticity key7F3A-91C2
Verified onOct 7, 2026
This public record confirms the certificate identifier exists in the Sublime LMS issuing register. For the full transcript, contact the issuing organisation.
01
Training ends in a grade
The learner passes the final assessment and the gradebook records 94%. The LMS has done its job. Everything that turns this into a certification happens somewhere else.
The certificate is a file
A PDF is generated from a template, named by hand and uploaded to a folder. Different names, different versions, and no ID the system knows anything about.
Tracking lives in a spreadsheet
IDs are typed, dates are copied from PDFs, and the file is wherever it ended up: the LMS folder, an inbox, the HR drive. Expiry is a column someone remembers to fill.
Verification is a folder search
An auditor asks whether a certificate is genuine and still valid. Someone opens the folder, compares a PDF to a spreadsheet row and replies by email.
Same training. Same certificate. Different system.
A file in a folder becomes a verifiable record with a lifecycle.
Approve once. The ID is issued for you.
Every completion flows into one registry. Where sign-off is required, the certificate waits in Pending until the named approver confirms; then a unique ID is issued automatically. External credentials sit in the same list.
The certificate carries its own record
Issue date, expiry, score, approver and ID are printed on the certificate and stored on the record. Download it, or send the verification link.
Verify by ID, instantly
Anyone holding the ID can confirm the holder, issuer, issue and expiry dates and the authenticity key on a public page. No phone call, no folder.
Every cycle, preserved
Internal and external certifications live on one learner record with approvals and expiry. Renewals add a new cycle; previous certificates stay on record with their IDs and dates.
01 / 08
Ask us your hardest certification question.
A 30-minute walkthrough of the registry, verification and export, with your certifications.
What you can hold us to
A record, not a file.
Verifiable by ID
Every certificate carries a unique ID anyone can check for holder, version and validity.
Internal + external
Credentials earned elsewhere are tracked with the same expiry, reminders and renewal path.
History kept
Renewal never overwrites. Every prior certificate, approval and status change stays on the record.
Skills attached
A certification is also verified evidence of specific skills at specific levels.
Trusted by learning teams atPillar AcademyNorthArc UniversityBeacon BootcampsQuanta L&DHelio Coding
Design partner · ZionStar · certification → skills
Secure Software Development certificationDevelopers · QA · annual · verified ID per holderIssued
→ Secure CodingSkill evidence from the certificationLevel 2
→ Application SecuritySkill evidence from the certificationLevel 2
→ Data ProtectionSkill evidence from the certificationLevel 2
History & audit foundation: completeTracking dashboard: complete
Case study
Certifications that double as skill evidence.
ZionStar's five compliance programmes issue certificates with six- or twelve-month validity. Each one is a verified record with a unique ID, an approval and a full history, and each one feeds the skills layer that follows.
- The certification history, audit and reporting foundation and the employee certification tracking dashboard are the first pieces live.
- A Secure Software Development certification becomes verified evidence of Secure Coding, Application Security and Data Protection at Level 2.
- Renewals issue new certificates while the previous ones stay in the record, so compliance work becomes skills evidence without re-entry.
How it works
From PDF folder to registry in four steps.
1
Define certifications
Criteria, validity, approver and the skills each certification evidences. Import the ones you already issue.
2
Earn or upload
Internal certifications are issued on completion. External credentials are uploaded with expiry and approved.
3
Track and verify
The registry shows every holder, status and expiry. Anyone with an ID can verify a certificate.
4
Renew and export
Renewals keep the history. Exports answer the audit by person, certification or period.
Questions credentialing teams ask
The details that matter.
Can employees upload certifications earned elsewhere?
Yes. External certifications are uploaded with their issuer and expiry date, optionally approved by a named person, and then tracked in the same registry with the same reminders and renewal path as internal ones.
How does verification work?
Every certificate Sublime issues carries a unique ID. Anyone holding the ID can confirm the holder, issue date, the training version it covers and whether it is currently valid, without contacting your team.
What is the Awaiting Approval state?
Some certifications require a sign-off before issue, for example a manager confirming a practical assessment or an admin accepting an external upload. The record waits in Awaiting Approval, names the approver, and records the decision when it is made.
Does renewal replace the old certificate?
No. Renewal issues a new certificate with a new ID. The previous certificate, its approval and every status change remain on the record and in any export.
How do certifications relate to skills?
Each certification can be mapped to skills at a proficiency level. Earning it becomes verified evidence of those skills, which feeds the skills profiles and gap dashboards that follow in the roadmap.
Can we export for an audit or a customer questionnaire?
Yes. Filter the registry by person, certification, department or period and export the result together with the evidence behind each line: training completion, assessment result, approval and issue date.
Built for certification teams
One registry. Every credential.
See internal and external certifications, approvals, verification by ID and audit exports in a 30-minute walkthrough.