A lot of L&D and compliance managers without a certification system in their LMS are experiencing a version of the same problem: someone on their team owns a spreadsheet that tracks who's certified, when it expires, and who needs a nudge. Sometimes it's a very large spreadsheet. Sometimes it's several spreadsheets. Sometimes, nobody's entirely sure which one is current, and even the most recent version is already outdated.

Sound familiar? Good news — there's a better way to handle this, and your LMS probably already has the tools to do it.

The core concept

When certification management is running through your LMS, here's what changes: you define the training requirement, set an expiration window, and the system takes it from there. It tracks completions, calculates expiration dates per learner, sends reminders on a schedule you control, and flags anyone who lapses.

Your spreadsheet doesn't disappear — but it stops being the thing your compliance depends on. Instead of being the source of truth that someone has to maintain manually, it becomes just another export when you need one. That's a really meaningful shift for the people who've been maintaining it.

The decisions that actually matter

If you're setting this up — or evaluating whether your LMS can handle it — here are the questions worth thinking through:

Rolling expiration vs. fixed calendar dates

Rolling means each learner's clock starts when they complete the training. Fixed means everyone expires on the same date regardless of when they completed it.

Rolling is cleaner for onboarding-heavy organizations — new hires get a full certification period from day one. Fixed is easier to audit — everyone's status resets at the same time, which compliance teams often prefer.

Neither is wrong! Know which one fits your organization before you build it out.

How far out do you start reminding people?

This one depends on how long your training takes and how hard it is to schedule. A 30-minute online course? Two weeks notice is usually plenty. A multi-day in-person certification that needs to be booked in advance? You might want reminders starting 90 days out.

Build your reminder cadence around the reality of your learners' lives, not an arbitrary number.

What happens when someone lapses?

This is the question most people don't think about until it becomes a problem. Does a lapsed certification have real consequences — regulatory, contractual, or otherwise? If so, you need a grace period policy before you need a grace period setting. Decide what your organization's tolerance is first, then configure accordingly.

New hires are a special case 👀

If someone completes a certification during onboarding and your system renews on a fixed annual date, they could be flagged for recertification just weeks after starting. Most LMS platforms have an exemption window for exactly this scenario — definitely worth using if you're on a fixed date cadence.

What good looks like

When this is working well, your compliance team can pull a real-time report of who's current, who's upcoming, and who's lapsed — anytime, for any certification, without asking anyone to update a file. Learners get reminders before they lapse, not after. Managers get visibility without having to chase it.

For regulated industries, the audit trail this creates is often just as valuable as the training itself. And honestly? The person who used to own the spreadsheet usually appreciates the change most of all.

How are you handling certification tracking right now? Especially curious from anyone in healthcare, government, or other regulated environments — what's your current setup, and what's the part that still causes the most headaches? I'd love to hear how others are solving this. 👇

TraCorp admin? The step-by-step setup guide is in our knowledge base: Create a Certification

One of the most common questions we get from admins building out their content library for the first time is some version of: "I want to group these courses together. Should I use a Learning Track or a Custom Bundle?"

Both group content. But they're built for different situations. Here's how to think about it.

The short version

• Learning Track: a curated group of courses assigned and managed together. The admin defines what's in it. You can set a completion percentage threshold and mark some content as optional, giving learners some choice in how they complete it.
• Custom Bundle: a package of content that functions as a single content item. Every piece of content in the bundle must be completed before the bundle is marked complete. No exceptions, no optional items.

They're not interchangeable. Each solves a different problem

When to use a Learning Track

Learning Tracks are your workhorse for structured, ongoing curriculum. Think of them as a playlist. You define the content, assign the track to a user group, and learners work through it. They're flexible and easy to manage over time.

Use a Learning Track when:

• You want to assign multiple courses to a group of learners as a package
• The content might change or update over time (tracks can be edited after assignment)
• You want learners to be notified when content in the track changes
• You need to assign the same curriculum to multiple user groups
• Learners should be able to self-assign the content

Learning Tracks are also easy to duplicate, which is handy when you're building similar curricula for different roles or departments.

The flexibility feature most admins don't utilize 👀

Here's something that surprises a lot of people: Learning Tracks don't have to require completion of every single piece of content. You can set a completion percentage threshold, meaning a learner earns a track completion after finishing a defined portion of the content, not necessarily all of it.

On top of that, you can mark individual courses within a track as optional, while keeping others required. This gives you a really useful structure:

• Required courses ensure everyone gets the core, standard content
• Optional courses give learners some choice around that foundation
• The completion threshold defines how much of the optional content needs to be done

In practice this works really well for professional development tracks where you want everyone to complete a few foundational modules, but then give learners the freedom to choose electives that match their role or interests. It's a much more learner-friendly experience than a rigid "complete everything" requirement, and learners actually appreciate having some agency in the process. 😊

When to use a Custom Bundle

A Custom Bundle packages multiple pieces of content into a single content item. It shows up as one thing to the learner and one thing in your reporting. Think of it as shrink-wrapping several courses together. Every piece of content in the bundle must be completed before the bundle is marked complete.

Use a Custom Bundle when:

• The content belongs together. If you have a video, a job aid, and an assessment that only make sense as a set, bundling them enforces that relationship at the system level. Learners can't complete one without the others.
• You want to keep things simple. A bundle is one assignment, one completion record, and one line on a transcript. If three courses always go together and you never need to think about them separately, bundling them reduces the administrative overhead of managing them as individual items.
• You want it in the content catalog. Bundles live in the catalog just like any other piece of content, making them easy for learners to find and self-assign.

One important thing to know before you bundle: content that's part of a Custom Bundle can no longer be copied for use elsewhere. If any of that content is used in multiple places, copy it first and then bundle the copy. This catches people off guard more than almost anything else.

Also worth knowing: once content is bundled, it can't be part of another bundle, a prerequisite for other content, or already assigned to users or learning tracks. Clean up your assignments before you bundle.

The honest answer to "which should I use for onboarding?"

Almost always a Learning Track. Here's why:

Onboarding content evolves. You'll add a module, update a policy course, swap out a video. Learning Tracks let you do that without disrupting what's already assigned. The ability to mix required and optional content is also a real advantage for onboarding. You can ensure everyone gets the non-negotiables while giving new hires some choice in how they explore the rest.

Custom Bundles lock content in a way that makes ongoing maintenance harder. Save them for content packages that are genuinely stable and meant to be experienced as a single unit, like a product certification course that wraps video, a quiz, and a task together.

How are you grouping your content? Do you use Learning Tracks, Custom Bundles, or a mix of both? And if you're using the optional content feature in Learning Tracks, what's your setup? Curious how others are balancing required vs. optional content. 👇

Full setup guides in the knowledge base: Learning Tracks | Custom Content Bundles