Every certification in Rhythm has a status, an optional status reason, and dates that mark important points in its history. This article explains what each one means and what Rhythm does not enforce.
The Four Statuses
A certification always has exactly one of these four statuses:
- Active — the holder is currently certified.
- Inactive — the holder is no longer certified.
- Suspended — the certification is frozen, so the holder cannot start a new application against it.
- Retired — the certification behaves the same way as Inactive.
These four statuses are fixed, so you cannot add another one. If you need to capture more detail, use a status reason.
Any Status Can Change to Any Other
Rhythm does not limit which status can come next. If you can edit a certification, you can choose any of the four statuses on the certification’s edit form, and Rhythm saves the change regardless of the previous status.
A few parts of Rhythm set certification status for their own reasons:
- Activating an approved application sets a certification to Active.
- A billing run's drop action sets a certification to Inactive when it lapses.
- Staff can set any of the four directly, at any time, from the certification's own edit form.
Because Rhythm does not restrict status changes, it also does not keep a status history on the certification. The record shows only when it was last modified, not what the status used to be or who changed it. If you need to explain why a certification has its current status, use a status reason. If you need to know who or what made a specific change, your account's audit log can still help because it distinguishes an automatic status change made by Rhythm's certification fulfillment logic from a status change a staff member made directly in the Console.
Status Reasons Explain a Status
A certification can have one status reason at a time, chosen from your organization’s defined list. Keep these details in mind when you use reasons:
- The reason must already exist in your organization’s status-reason list; you cannot type a new reason directly on the certification.
- On the certification's edit form, the Status Reason list is not filtered by the status you have chosen. You can pair any reason with any status, so Rhythm will not stop you from choosing a suspension reason while the certification’s status is Active.
- Changing a certification's status does not clear or update its reason. The reason stays exactly as it was until someone changes it by hand, even if it no longer matches the new status.
Tip
If a certification’s status and reason do not seem to match, that is not a data error. Rhythm does not enforce a relationship between them; someone simply has not updated the reason after a more recent status change.
If the certification behind an application is deleted, the application's own status reason can stay fixed at whatever it was before the deletion. There may be no way to change it afterward, so it can continue to show an old reason instead of one that reflects, for example, expiration.
Certification Activities and Applications Have Their Own Statuses
A certification's four statuses are separate from the status on a certification activity or an application. Keep that distinction in mind when you troubleshoot.
A certification activity, such as a self-reported continuing education item, moves through one of four statuses of its own: Draft for a submission started in the Portal or Console and saved for later; Processed for one successfully submitted for review, which is also the default once someone submits it; Under Review while staff are actively reviewing it or have put it on hold; and Verified once staff have reviewed the submission and its supporting materials and found them legitimate and complete. These four activity statuses are built into Rhythm, and your account cannot add to or change them. Staff update an activity's status by hand as it moves through review. The status label is only an internal workflow marker, so it does not decide whether credits from that activity count toward a certification application's credit requirement. Once the credits from an activity have been processed, they count toward the requirement regardless of the activity's own status.
A certification application moves through its own separate set of statuses, including Draft, Pending Approval, Missing Requirements, Approved, Rejected, Activated, and Expired. Using the wrong status, or confusing it with a certification's or activity's status, can disrupt how your association's application workflow behaves.
The Dates That Govern a Certification
A certification has seven dates: Certification Date, Term Start Date, Expiration Date, Renewal Date, Reinstatement Date, Lapse Date, and Termination Date. Each date records a different milestone in the certification’s history, and staff can set any of them directly on the edit form.
Keep these two rules in mind when you work with certification dates:
- Rhythm does not check that the dates make sense together. You can save an expiration date that comes before the certification date, or any other combination that would look wrong on paper. Rhythm will still save it. The only date-specific rule Rhythm enforces is that the Certification Date must be a date only, with no time of day attached; Rhythm refuses a value that includes a time.
- An expiration date passing does not, by itself, change a certification's status. Rhythm does not monitor expiration dates and change certifications to Inactive on its own. That status change happens only when a billing run’s drop action runs and acts on the certification. See How a Billing Run Selects Its Records and How a Billing Run Carries Out Its Planned Actions. Until a drop happens, a certification can be past its expiration date and still show as Active.
These seven dates each mark a different milestone, so choose the right one rather than treating them as interchangeable. The Certification Date, for example, reflects when the certification itself was activated or awarded, not when a related course or exam was completed. If you need a date tied to course completion, look for it on the course registration instead of using the Certification Date as a substitute.
Grandfathered Certifications
A certification can be marked This is a grandfathered certification and should auto renew. Use this for a holder who should not be held to a newer certification requirement, typically because they qualified before that requirement existed. Grandfathering lets their certification keep renewing without being measured against rules introduced after their grandfathered certification date. When this option is marked, the certification's 360 page shows this banner: "This is a grandfathered certification and will automatically renew when the certificant renews their other certifications."
That banner describes the intent, not a guarantee. For the automatic renewal to happen, the other program the holder renews must be set up to carry grandfathered certifications forward, and it must list this certification’s program among the programs it covers. If the renewing program is not configured that way, checking the box here does nothing, even though the banner still appears.
Warning
The grandfathered banner on a certification's page describes what checking the box is meant to do, not whether the other program is actually set up to honor it. Confirm the renewing program's own configuration before relying on the banner.
When a grandfathered renewal takes effect, it changes only the certification’s expiration date. The certification’s status, renewal date, and number stay as they were. A grandfathered certification can also bypass a criteria requirement that was added after its grandfathered certification date, so a holder is not held to a rule that did not exist when they qualified.
Related
For the day-to-day work of finding, creating, editing, or deleting a certification, see Create, Edit, or Delete a Certification. For how billing runs update status and dates in bulk, see How a Billing Run Selects Its Records and How a Billing Run Carries Out Its Planned Actions.