Certifications uses one settings record for your Rhythm account. It holds the checkout defaults for every Certifications order, along with optional settings for the Portal, multiple-certification discounts, and training providers. Until you save this record for the first time, Certifications applications, courses, and exams cannot take payment.
What It Controls
The settings record stores:
- The checkout defaults every Certifications order uses unless a specific process overrides them, including the business unit, merchant account, bank account, and related payment options.
- Two Portal options: whether members can print their own credit transcript, and whether they can register for several exams at once.
- The layout Portal visitors see when they browse programs.
- The multiple-certification discount, which lowers an application fee after someone pays full price for a set number of certifications.
- Training-provider billing, which controls which billing products are charged for a certification, renewal, reinstatement, course, or exam a provider registers on your behalf.
- Training-provider administration, including whether providers can manage their own contacts in the Portal and which forms they use.
- The saved queries training providers can run in the Portal.
When you save this page, Rhythm replaces the settings record with the values currently on the form. It also keeps saved values for options this form does not display, including the contact-role permissions grid. Turning off a section’s switch does not clear that section’s saved values; it only stops those values from being used.
Where to Find It
Go to Certifications › Setup › Settings. The Certifications Settings page opens with a stack of cards. Most cards have their own on/off switch, and a card’s options appear only when its switch is on.
Prerequisites
You need the permission your administrator grants for Certifications settings. Without it, the Setup menu still shows Settings, but you cannot open the page.
The Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allow users to print certification credit transcripts in the portal | On, off | Off | Shows or hides the transcript-printing button for members in the Portal |
| Allow users register for multiple exams at once in the portal | On, off | Off | Shows or hides the multiple-exam option on the Portal exam registration page |
| What should portal users see when browsing programs? | Rows and columns with logos, or a sorted grouped list | Rows and columns | Sets the layout of the Portal browse-programs page |
| Allow users to be invoiced/pay later for any item in their order | On, off | Off | Controls whether Certifications checkout offers Pay Later. When this is off, applicants never see Pay Later, regardless of the rest of your payment setup |
| Multiple Certification Discounts switch | On, off | Off | Turns on a lower application fee after a set number of full-price certifications |
| Training Provider Billing switch | On, off | Off | Turns on automatic billing for training providers when they register people |
| Training Provider Administration switch | On, off | Off | Lets training providers manage their own contacts in the Portal |
| Training Provider Query Access switch | On, off | Off | Lets provider staff run selected saved queries in the Portal. This appears only while Training Provider Administration is on |
| Checkout settings | Your business unit, merchant account, bank account, and related payment options | None | Provides the defaults every Certifications order uses unless a course, exam, or application process overrides them |
Dependencies and Precedence
- The checkout settings on this page are the fallback. When a specific application, course, or exam registration process has its own checkout override, that override takes priority for orders that use it.
- The contact-role permissions grid has its own page, but Rhythm stores it in this same settings record. You must save this page once before Certifications lets you open Contact-Role Permissions.
- Every Portal member signed in to your account can read the whole settings record, including your merchant account and bank account identifiers, when a Portal page needs it. Nobody can change the record from the Portal.
- The Search button label on the Portal’s certifications browse page is fixed text built into that page component; this settings page, and other configuration, cannot change it.
- The checkout text some administrators want to edit near the balance-due area of a certification application is built-in text, not something you can configure from here. If that text is configurable elsewhere, changing it would likely affect checkout pages generally, not only certification applications.
Change Impact and How to Revert
Warning
No screen in Certifications lets applicants, students, or candidates check out until you save the Certifications settings for the first time. The Portal application page says it cannot find your settings and stays on its loading panel, and other order paths are also affected. Save this page as your first Certifications setup step.
- The first time you save, Certifications creates the settings record from the values you entered. Each later save replaces the whole record with your current form, while keeping values for sections the form does not show.
- Turning off a section’s switch, such as Multiple Certification Discounts, Training Provider Billing, or Training Provider Administration, hides that section and stops it from being used. It does not erase the saved values, so turning the switch back on shows what was there before.
- Changing a checkout default, such as your merchant account, changes where every future Certifications payment that relies on it is deposited. There is no confirmation step, so review the change before you save.
Permissions
You need the permission your administrator grants for Certifications setup to open and change Certifications Settings. The individual cards, switches, and fields on the page do not have separate permissions; anyone who can open the page can change every card.
Validation and Errors
- If you have never saved this page and you open Contact-Role Permissions, that page tells you to update the base Certifications settings first and does not show the permissions grid until you do.
- Turning on Training Provider Billing requires a product for all seven fee categories on the page: certification, renewal, reinstatement, course, live exam, remotely proctored exam, and retest. This is required even if your account charges providers for only some of them.
- Turning on Training Provider Administration requires a form for creating contacts and a form for editing contacts in the Portal.
- Turning on Training Provider Query Access requires at least one saved query in the list. A row with no query chosen blocks saving even if the query card itself is switched off.
- If someone else saved the settings after you opened this page, Rhythm refuses your save and the error names the conflict. Reload the page and re-enter your changes.
- The multiple-certification discount amount, training-provider fee products, and training-provider contact forms are required once their section is switched on.
- Overriding checkout settings, whether here or on a process, can turn on donation prompting and then require you to choose a donation product. Have at least one donation product set up in your account before you turn on a checkout override that touches donations, because saving is blocked without one — even after you turn the donation prompt back off, if no donation product is available to select.
Related
See "Related" in the sidebar for contact-role permissions, the multiple-certification discount, training-provider billing and administration, and shared custom fields.