Create a Custom Certification Path

A certification path is a special type of custom journey that allows you to add exam information and if you want, you can require learners to upload their certification credentials after they get certified. When you create a certification path, you are able to track which learners are certified and which learners are tracking to become certified.

When you want to create a certification path, you use the same process as creating a custom journey. Having all required informational elements organized before you begin to create your certification path makes the four-step process go quickly. See Plan your Custom Journey to ensure you have all elements and review how changes to a journey impacts learners.

To make a journey into a certification path, choose the Journey type of Certification path when you are initially setting up the journey. After you choose Certification path, you have options to:

  • Add exam number, level, and format
  • Pick any theme you want
  • Add as many tracks with as much content and specify action steps.
  • Label tracks with a Milestone type to help learners gauge where they are in the process.
  • Choose whether to require learners to upload certification credentials as the last step in the certification path in order to complete certification.

Skillsoft Certification Paths are only available in English. To offer a Skillsoft Certification Path in more than one language, make a copy of it, add the languages and content you need to the copy, then hide the original. You cannot edit a Skillsoft Certification Path.

Get started

  1. To start the four-step process, from the left navigation bar, select Content, then Journeys. The Custom Journey page displays.
  2. Select the Create Journey button.
  3. Choose the theme that best meets your certification path content design. The four-step process is the same for all themes:
      • With the Simple theme, learners see the journey and all its tracks on a single page and if you add a video, it plays inline. The Simple theme is great for shorter journeys with lots of video content.
      • With the Classic theme, learners see the journey with its list of tracks on one page, but each track opens in a separate page and all content opens in its own player. The Classic theme is great for longer journeys that don't have as many single videos. This is the theme used by Skillsoft Aspire Journeys.
      • With the Concise theme, learners see the journey more in a list format with numbered steps and few images. Each track expands on the page and content opens in its own player. The Concise theme is designed to support your custom certification paths. This theme is used by Skillsoft for its certification paths.
  1. To make the journey a certification path, choose the Journey type of Certification path. Specify the additional criteria in support of certification.
  2. At the end of each step, you can Cancel without saving changes, Save as draft to continue at a later time, or move onto the Next step.
Note: If you need to preview or test your certification path prior to publishing it to its intended audience, create an audience of reviewers and target the certifiation path to the reviewer audience first. See Target Journey to Audience below for more details.

Follow the steps

Percipio includes a stepped process to guide you through creating your certification path.

  1. Describe your journey: In this step, specify the title and description of the certification path, chose an image and library location so the learner can find it, select whether learners can earn a custom Digital Badge or must upload credentials, and specify in which languages learners can access the certification path.
    • Choose your theme. You can view a sample theme to get an understanding of how eachtheme shows to learners. You can switch your theme at any time by editing the journey.
    • Percipio limits titles to 1024 characters and descriptions to 740,000 characters. We recommend the shorter the better.
    • We recommend that you make your journey and track titles short and succinct so they fit on your custom digital badges if you use them instead of credentials. The shorter the titles and descriptions the easier it is for learners to understand. Percipio does not limit the number of characters on titles or descriptions.
    • JPEG, PNG, or GIF images should use a 16x9 aspect ratio (for example, 1920x1080px) and be sized no more than 300KB. If you do not have a custom image, you can select a royalty-free one from the image gallery or use the default Percipio image.
    • To add a language, from the Language drop down, select Manage languages, then select the desired languages. For each language chosen, you must provide relevant translations for titles and descriptions and complete required fields.
    • To help you identify courses in a local language that you can add to a journey language view, you can see Find a course in a different language or use the All content listing report and filter on the English Equivalent Title column for the English title you are using.
    • You cannot move to step 2 until all required fields are specified for all selected languages.
    • You can only add or remove languages to a journey in this step.
    • For the Journey type field, specify Certification path. When you specify Certification path, learners can filter search results on Certification path to find it. In addition, the Certification path type provides additional fields for you to enter information about an exam and certification credentials and track milestones. These fields are:
      • Logo: If this is a certification body like Microsoft or AWS, you can find their logo an upload it here. If this a custom corporate certification such as Sale Training, add your own logo. This is an optional field and displays to learners on the certification path landing page.
      • Exam number: Many certification bodies have their own exam number schema. Enter the exam number the learner will take to become certified. This is an optional field and displays to learners on the certification path landing page.
      • Exam level: Many certification bodies have their own exam level schema. Enter the exam level the learner will take to become certified. This is an optional field and displays to learners on the certification path landing page.
      • Exam format: Many certification bodies have their own exam format. Enter the exam format the learner will take to become certified. This is an optional field and displays to learners on the certification path landing page.
      • Digital Credentials: In this section you specify whether the learner earns a Digital badge for completing the certification path or whether you will require them to upload their certification credential after they pass their exam. If you select Proof of certification, learners will be required to enter a URL to a digital badge or upload a .pdf as proof of certification outside of Percipio. This step will be required for journey completion and will display below all other required tracks. If you select Digital Badges, learners earn a digital badge upon completing all tracks in the certification path:
    • The Journey source field is free-form text and required. Journey source is used as a filter in reporting and text in this field helps you distinguish where the journey came from when viewing reports. Having a corporate-wide protocol defined for using this field helps ensure consistency across journey creators. For example, you can use your Organization name to distinguish against a Skillsoft Aspire journey.
  2. Build your journey: This is where you build out your certification path structure. A certification path can have up to three parts: Introductory (optional content), Tracks (required content) and Related Content (optional content). Within each part, you create one or more sections or tracks, which you then populate with either Skillsoft or custom content items. Each track or section displays as a content strip to the learner.
    NOTE: Before adding any Skillsoft content to your custom journey, check the All Content Listing report to ensure items you want to include are not retiring soon. If you add items that get retired at a later date, they are automatically removed from the journey and no longer count toward completion.
    • By default, learners can complete a certification path in any order. You can choose whether you want to require learners to complete the certification path in the order you specify. When you require paths to be completed in a specified order, the next content item or track is not available until the previous one is completed. Learners can still expand tracks to see what is next, but they won't be able to launch the next content item until the previous content or track is complete. This ensures that learners progress through the material in a structured manner. You can choose between two options for requiring content to be taken in a specified order:
      • Tracks must be completed in the display order specified; content contained in each track can be completed in any order.
      • Tracks and the content contained in each track must be completed in the display order specified.
    • Make sure the appropriate language is selected before adding sections or tracks and making content selections.
    • For each language you selected, you must specify content for each track before you can move onto step 3.
    • You can add more tracks (click Add a track) or remove unwanted tracks at any time (click delete icon, white x in a red ciricle in the track). A best practice is to add no more than 15 items to each individual track, but there is no limit to the number of items you can add.
    • Each language option does not need to have the same number of tracks, the same number of introductory or related content sections, or even the same amount of content within each track or section.
    • You can add content in any language to any language view. For example, if you are creating an English UK journey view so learners in the UK using that site language see the journey, you can search for and add English US content to the UK journey so the UK users have a similar experience to your English US learners. Likewise, you can add an English US course to a Spanish language journey view and allow the learners to use translated closed captions to view the English US course with translated subtitles..
    • Images should be in a 16x9 aspect ratio, be less than 300KB, and be 1920x1080px.
    • We recommend that you make your track titles short and succinct so they fit on your custom digital badges. The shorter the titles and descriptions the easier it is for learners to understand. Percipio limits titles to 1024 characters and descriptions to 740,000 characters.
    • When selecting a content item to add to a track, notice the collections listed for that item. Content items can exist in more than one collection. Your learners need to be assigned to at least one of those collections through license distribution if you want learners to be able to see and complete that item in the track.
    • If learners are not assigned to a collection containing the content item selected for a track, learners do not see that item in the track.
    • Learners can complete the track and the journey without access to all content items.
    • You can add custom content and Live Courses (ILT) to a custom journey.
    • For the Introduction and Related content sections:
      • These sections are optional and are there for the learner to reference before, during and after going through the journey. Items display as a strip of content cards above/below the Tracks part in the order specified.
      • You can define multiple Introductory and Related content sections for an individual journey. Each section can have up to 15 items.
      • You have the option to add customized text, called a Rich text block, that displays in a new browser tab when the learner clicks the image block associated with it. You can add formatted text, images, tables, and hyperlinks in the Rich text block.
    •  You can remove a section or track at any time by clicking the remove button delete icon, white x in a red ciricle. When you remove a section or a track all content within that section or track is also removed from the journey.

    • For any track, in addition to adding content, you can add an Action link. An Action link lets you specify something the learner must do such as go out to a website and register for an exam. When you add an action link, you specify the URL, a title the learner sees as the action and a description. You can add any other instructions within the description. This allows you to guide the learner to complete an action outside of Percipio in order to complete the journey.

    • Because you selected Certification Path as the Journey type in step 1, you must specify a Milestone type for the track. This helps the learner mark significant achievement. These milestones also display in analytics and help surface insights on your learners’ progress. Your options are:
      • Learning: Select this milestone when the learners' main focus is on understanding concepts and gaining knowledge of how to apply the concepts prior to them engaging in hands-on practice. You might select this when content in a track are courses, videos, and books.
      • Practicing: Select this milestone when the learners' main focus is on applying or practicing the concepts and knowledge they previously learned. You might select this when content in a track contains labs, practice exams, or AI simulations.
      • Obtaining: Select this milestone when the learners' main focus is on obtaining vouchers and scheduling an exam or applying for certification. You might select this when you add an action link to a track that the learner needs to follow to complete certification.
  3. Target journey to audience: In this step, you have the option to make your journey available only to a specific audience; otherwise, it is visible to all learners on your Percipio site.
    • The audience must be defined for it to appear in the list. See Create a New Audience if you do not see the one you want.
    • If you do not select an audience, the custom journey displays to all learners via the All users audience.
    • For the learners of an audience to be able to complete all items in a track, the audience must be assigned to the collections containing those items.
    • If learners in an audience are not assigned to a collection containing the content item selected for a track, learners do not see that item in the track.
    • Learners can complete the track and the journey without access to all content items.
    • You cannot target your journey to an individual, only a defined audience.
    • If you need for others to review a journey before the intended audience sees it, create a new audience of the designated reviewers and add only that audience. After the reviewers approve the journey, you can remove them from this step and add the intended audience by editing your published journey.
    • If you have the role of content coordinator you cannot target a journey to an audience. Save the journey as a draft and notify a site admin or content curator.
  1. Review and publish journey: In this final step, you have the option to review and edit any section of the certification path before you publish it, edit the audiences, and check to ensure learners are licensed to access the content in the certification path.

    2. Note: Check that targeted learners have access to all collections for content added to the journey. Use license distribution to assign collections. If a learner does not have access to a content item within a journey, they do not see that content item. Learners can complete the track or the journey without access to all content items.
    • Select View Details to see the collections associated with the content selected for the journey.
      • Select Download journey content list to generate a CSV file of all the journey's content and within what collection it is located.
    • Check that targeted learners have access to all collections for content added to the journey. Use license distribution to assign collections.
    • If a learner does not have access to a content item within a journey, they do not see that content item. Learners can complete the track or the journey without access to all content items.
    • Review how your track and journey titles display in your custom Digital Badges. If a title appears too long, select Edit Digital Badge Titles and modify the title to fit the badge. When you modify a title, it does not change the actual title displayed in the user interface.

    After you publish a journey, it is available for consumption by the learners who are targeted. You are also presented with an option to add the journey to a Learning Program. A learning program is a way for a group of learners called a cohort to move through a learning experience together. You can track the progress of each cohort separately through the learning program and send customized notifications to each cohort.

    For more information on Learning Programs, see Learning Programs.

    Note: It may take several minutes for the journey to display in the library and search results.