Certificate design and issuance guide

Bring your certificate design. Keep issuance under control.

Import approved artwork, configure controlled replacement fields, complete the publication check, publish an immutable revision, and use the existing policy flow to issue a verifiable credential.

Live: certificate import is available to companies by default. A company-level block is reserved for emergency denial or rollback, and platform operations may still pause authoring or issuance independently for safety.

On this page

Before you import

Permission

Use a company admin account with certificates:manage in the company you are working in. Real-employee private preview also requires employees:read, employees:read:own, or employees:read:all.

Supported source

Prepare one safe, single-page PDF, PNG, or JPEG. Password-protected and multi-page PDFs are not supported.

Design rights

Confirm that your organization has permission to use the artwork, logos, signatures, and fonts represented in the design.

Import a design

1Open Certificates, then choose Create Template.
2Choose Import my certificate. Start from scratch keeps the existing template workflow unchanged.
3Select one PDF, PNG, or JPEG and wait until IgniteIQ accepts and processes it.
4Read any classification or corrective message. The classification describes the source; it does not promise editable PDF layers.

Page geometry

PDF

IgniteIQ preserves the effective single-page PDF dimensions and rotation. It does not silently stretch the design to US Letter or the legacy editor ratio.

PNG or JPEG

Confirm Landscape Letter, Landscape A4, or a custom physical size. Preserve aspect ratio unless you deliberately crop, and resolve any low-resolution warning before publication.

Configure the fields that make the credential valid

Set an editable static certificate title.
Place learner name and the correct course or learning-path title binding.
Place visible Certificate ID text and the platform verification QR. Their final values are backend-owned and cannot be redirected by the template author.
Use the replacement workflow to cover source wording cleanly; required covers stay fully opaque so old wording cannot show through.
Use Advanced settings only when geometry, typography, ordering, or ordinary element controls need deliberate adjustment.
Save the draft before running the publication check. Preview values on the canvas are advisory, not final issuance data.

Revision settings

These values belong to the saved revision. Private preview, the publication check, and final issuance all resolve the same approved settings.

Locale and issue-date format

Control how the issue date is written, such as 11 July 2026 or Jul 11, 2026.

Time zone

Controls which calendar date applies at the moment of issuance. It does not change the learner's completion record.

Signer name and title

Provide approved static signer wording for fields that use those bindings.

Signature asset

Choose an approved ready signature asset. No signature is rendered when none is selected.

Certificate location

Provide the approved place-of-issue wording when the design includes that field.

Save and recheck

Changing any setting makes the draft unsaved and the prior publication check stale. Save, preview the formatted example, then run the check again.

Private preview and publication check

Preview representative values

Test short and long names, accented text, Arabic or right-to-left text, long learning titles, and missing optional values. An eligible company learner may be selected for a private preview, but preview does not establish issuance eligibility.

Run and review the publication check

The publication check renders the current saved draft and marks it PREVIEW — NOT VALID. Review alignment, replacement coverage, overflow, fonts, QR clearance, and page bounds. Any later draft edit makes that check stale.

Publish and revisions

Publication requires a successful publication check for the exact current draft, no unresolved blocker, and your explicit review confirmation.
Publishing freezes that revision. It cannot be edited in place.
A later change creates a new draft. Publishing it supersedes the previous revision without rewriting or deleting it.
A failed first publication leaves the template inactive and non-default. If a later replacement draft fails to publish, the previous published revision stays active and unchanged.

Activation and defaults

The first successful publication activates the imported template. When default-on-publish is selected, publication atomically replaces only the current default for the same company and template type. When it is not selected, the current default stays unchanged. Default selection changes appearance only; completion, exam, approval, entitlement, plan, and issuance eligibility rules are unaffected.

Course and learning-path assignment

Select the active published template in the existing certificate policy for the course or learning path. For a scheduled cohort certificate, choose the cohort's underlying learning path and configure the cohort policy; that policy still owns eligibility and issuance. Reusing a template is allowed, but every active certificate-enabled course still counts under the applicable plan rules.

Read the certificate issuance playbook

Issue, download, and verify

Issue

The existing completion, exam, approval, entitlement, and plan policy decides whether a learner is eligible. A published design never bypasses that decision.

Download

After successful imported-template issuance, the learner accesses the authenticated final PDF from the certificate area. Existing certificate formats keep their established access behavior. A failed render does not expose a valid-looking partial certificate.

Verify

The Certificate ID and QR use certificate-specific platform values. Public verification confirms allowlisted credential status; it does not publish the imported source or final PDF.

Archive, restore, and discard unfinished imports

Restore

Rechecks certificate-import availability, the current published revision, its source, and any selected signature asset before making the template active again.

Discard an unfinished draft

You can discard an upload during import or discard its template later while it is still an unreferenced, never-published imported draft. Once any revision has been published, preserve its history with Archive and Restore instead of destructive deletion.

Troubleshooting

The file is rejected

Use one supported, unencrypted, single-page file. Correct the reported file, safety, size, or geometry problem before trying again.

The design looks stretched or cropped

Recheck the confirmed physical size and fit mode. A PDF keeps its effective native page geometry; raster crop must be explicit.

Employee or target lists are empty

Load authorized options and search with at least two characters when the list is large. Confirm your role can read employees, the company has an active employee, and a compatible published course or learning path exists; scheduled-cohort previews use the cohort's underlying learning path.

Private preview reports a changed draft

Reload the editor if prompted, save the current draft, refresh the authorized options, and generate the preview again. The preview will not use stale draft content.

Publication check is blocked

Resolve every missing required field, font or text problem, overflow, opacity, QR spacing, asset, geometry, or uncovered old wording, then save and run the check again.

Publication check is stale

The draft changed after the last check. Save the current draft and run a new publication check before publishing.

Publish is disabled

Read the publication readiness checklist beside Publish. Save any edits, complete a current publication check, clear its blockers, then confirm that you reviewed the result.

The template is missing during assignment

Confirm that it belongs to the company, is active, and has a published revision.

A learner has no certificate

Check the target certificate policy and its selected completion, exam, approval, entitlement, and plan rules. Template publication alone does not issue a credential.

Privacy and security

Original uploads, private previews, publication-check renders, and issued PDFs are not public media.
Company scope and certificates:manage are checked for certificate operations. Real-employee preview options and rendering also require employee-read permission; request fields do not grant authority.
Preview learner data stays inside the authorized company context and cannot be supplied as authoritative issuance data.
The platform controls certificate identity, verification URL, QR destination, and final issuance values.
Public verification returns only the credential information intended for verification; it does not expose the imported source or private artifact.

Support and release notes

For import, publication-check, publication, assignment, or issuance problems, include the safe user-facing error, the affected company, the step you were on, and whether retry changed the result. Do not email certificate source files or learner data unless support explicitly provides an approved secure path.

Email support Read release notes

Certificate import FAQs

Does IgniteIQ make every part of an imported PDF editable?

No. IgniteIQ preserves the original single-page design as locked artwork. You configure supported replacement fields over it; flattened artwork and original PDF authoring layers are not reconstructed.

Which certificate files can I import?

Use one safe, single-page PDF, PNG, or JPEG. Encrypted, malformed, multi-page, unsupported, oversized, or unsafe files are rejected with a corrective message.

Can I publish without completing the publication check?

No. Publication requires a successful publication check for the current saved draft and an explicit confirmation that an authorized admin reviewed it. Editing the draft makes the previous check stale.

Does publishing a template issue certificates to learners?

No. Publication only makes a reviewed design revision available. Existing course or learning-path eligibility, evidence, approval, entitlement, and plan rules still decide whether a credential may be issued.

What happens to certificates issued from an older revision?

They remain bound to the exact immutable revision and final artifact used when they were issued. Publishing, editing, archiving, or replacing a template does not rewrite an existing certificate.

Can learners download and verify an issued certificate?

An eligible issued imported-template credential appears in the learner certificate area with its authenticated PDF download and verification details. Existing certificate formats retain their established access behavior. The certificate ID and platform verification QR resolve to backend-owned credential data.

Who can import or manage certificate designs?

A company admin needs certificates:manage in the correct company context. Selecting real learner data for private preview also requires an employee-read permission; learners cannot edit templates or choose certificate identity or verification values.