Candidates book an exam through a registration process. The process determines whether the booking is a first-time registration or a retest, which exams the candidate can book, what form they complete, and what happens at checkout and after confirmation. Exam notices are the email templates you use for registration messages.
What It Controls
A registration process is either:
- Register — for a candidate who has not taken the exam, or whose last sitting was not a fail within the exam's retest window.
- Retest — for a candidate whose latest sitting was a fail within that exam's retest window. A retest process charges the sitting's retest fee instead of its normal fee.
Certifications offers candidates only the processes that match their exam history. A process also defines:
- Which exams it covers — every exam, or a chosen list.
- The registration form the candidate completes, with an optional contact-details step before it.
- Checkout settings, using either your Rhythm account's Certifications defaults or this process's override.
- A confirmation email, sent after the paid registration is complete.
An exam notice is an email template you create with a name, status, subject, and body. You can include merge fields for the contact, application, exam, sitting, and registration. Notices are used for reminders, admission letters, and the pass and fail letters selected on an exam. Application and expiration date merge fields populate only when the exam registration is linked to a certification application; without that link, those fields display empty. To receive a copy of a notice you send to a candidate, add your address in the notice's Cc field, then resend the notice from the candidate's exam registration.
An exam registration and an exam activity are different records, so they use different statuses. A registration can be draft, registered, passed, failed, no show, cancelled, or credited. An activity can be draft, processed, under review, or verified. Credited applies only to a registration, never to an activity.
Where to Find It
Go to Certifications › Setup › Exams › Registration Processes for processes, or Certifications › Setup › Exams › Notices for notices.
- Create Exam Registration Process or Create Exam Notice opens a blank form.
- A row's Edit icon opens that record for changes, and Clone starts a copy.
Prerequisites
- You need the permission your administrator grants for exam setup.
- The registration form you want to use must already exist among your exam registration forms.
- If the process should collect contact details first, the contact form must already exist.
The Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type (process) | Register, Retest | Register | Decides which candidates see this process based on their exam history |
| Restrict to certain exams (process) | On, off, with an exam list | Off (all exams) | Limits the process to the exams you choose |
| Application Form (process) | Any active exam registration form | None | Sets the form the candidate completes |
| Show Contact Form (process) | On, off | Off | When on, collects updated contact details before the registration form. Use this to collect or confirm a candidate's first and last name during exam registration. Built-in name fields added through a field group on a registration form built from scratch have been reported not to appear on the registration page, and Show Contact Form is the available way to collect that information |
| Override Checkout Settings (process) | On, off | Off | When on, uses this process's checkout settings instead of your Rhythm account's defaults |
| Confirmation Email (process) | On, off | Off | When on, emails the candidate after their paid registration is complete |
| Name, Subject, Body (notice) | Text, text, HTML with merge tokens | Blank | Defines a reusable email notice |
| Status (process and notice) | Active, inactive | Active | Only active processes and notices are offered |
Dependencies and Precedence
- The exam catalog names a pass letter and a fail letter for each exam. Those letters are exam notices you create here, then choose on the exam's catalog entry.
- A registration process needs a registration form before you can save it. You design that form separately in web forms, including the control that lets candidates pick a sitting. If you need to explain that scheduling happens outside Rhythm, add a text component above the exam-offering selector so candidates see your instructions before they choose an offering.
- A separate account-level setting controls whether Portal candidates can book several exams at once. That switch only hides or shows the multi-exam option on the Portal's registration page and does not affect the Console.
- Course registration forms can use a specific post-registration redirect route. Exam registration forms do not have that same option.
Change Impact and How to Revert
Warning
Setting up a retest process does not guarantee that a failed candidate will see one. Your Rhythm account does not have to include any retest process, so a candidate inside the retest window has nothing to use if no retest process exists.
- Restricting a process to certain exams narrows who can use it right away. Candidates whose exam is no longer on the list stop seeing that process.
- Rhythm will not delete an exam, notice, testing facility, or registration process while another record still uses it. Deactivate it instead when you want to stop new use without breaking records that already point to it.
- Turning off a process's confirmation email stops that email for new paid registrations from then on. It does not resend or recall anything already sent.
Permissions
You need the permission your administrator grants for exam setup to create, edit, or delete exam registration processes and notices.
Validation and Errors
- A registration process requires a name, an identifier, a type, and a registration form.
- If you restrict the process to certain exams, you must choose at least one exam.
- If Show Contact Form is on, you must choose a contact form.
- If you turn on a confirmation email, that email needs a subject and body.
- An exam notice requires a name and a well-formed email with a subject and body.
Tip
Use Preview in a registration process's confirmation email or a notice's editor to send the current, unsaved content to any address. The preview uses a real registration you choose to fill in merge fields. Organization and membership merge fields render empty in a notice preview, even though they fill in when the notice is actually sent.
Warning
Addresses you add to test a confirmation email are saved on the process. If you forget to remove them, they keep receiving a copy of every future confirmation for every registrant, not just the test send.
If the testing information page on a registration form appears blank when you expect US or Canadian attestation fields, treat it as a separate issue from any candidate-identifier field work you have in progress. Contact Support if the fields still do not appear. If a pass notice's date fields come through blank, check the full registration and application flow, including whether a real, linked certification application exists, rather than only the notice template's merge fields.
Related
See "Related" in the sidebar for the exam catalog and testing facilities, the Certifications settings record, and how Rhythm sends email.