How to manage and maintain your employee certificates

Training is what turns a worker into someone a client will actually book. A support worker with an in-date Basic Life Support certificate can be put forward for work that a colleague without one cannot.

Agency Accelerator keeps every certificate a worker holds on their own record, in the Training Compliance section. It shows you what they have, what each certificate covers, when it runs out and whether it is still valid, and it lets you add and renew certificates as you go.

This guide covers all of it: reading the certificate list, adding a new certificate, working with group certificates, renewing something that has expired, and recording the extra skills a worker brings.

Before you begin

You will need a user access level that allows you to edit employee records. If the Update button is missing, or the fields will not respond, speak to the main user on your account.
Have the certificate itself to hand, saved as a .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .docx or .pdf file.
Check the dates on the certificate before you start, as you will be asked for the date it was issued.
Only tick This certificate was issued by Care Academy if the certificate genuinely came from Care Academy. Ticking it for anything else will cause the profile to be denied.

Finding a worker's certificates

Select Employees in the left-hand menu.
Find the worker you want and open their record.
Scroll down to Training Compliance. The arrow in the section header collapses or expands the whole section.

Two buttons sit beside the heading. Profile takes you back to the worker's profile details, and Training Guide explains what training is expected and why. If you are unsure whether a worker needs a particular certificate, the Training Guide is the quickest place to look.

Reading the certificate list

Certificates are shown in groups, with the number in brackets telling you how many sit in each one, for example Uploaded Certificates (2). Use the arrow on the group header to collapse a group you are not working on.

What each column tells you

Certificate — the name of the certificate. Beside it, a small tag shows which version you are on, for example v1 or v2.
Skills — the skills this certificate proves. Where a certificate covers several, one is shown with a +2 others link beside it. Select the link to see the rest.
Delivery / Score — how the training was delivered, for example E-Learning, and the assessment score where one was recorded. N/A means neither was captured.
Expiry/Issued date — two dates in one column. The larger date at the top is when the certificate expires. The smaller date underneath, beside the calendar icon, is when it was issued. An expiry date shown in red with a warning icon needs your attention.
Validity — the current state of the certificate.
Actions — what you can do with that certificate.

What the validity badges mean

Valid (green) — the certificate is in date and accepted. Nothing to do for now.
Expired (red) — the certificate has run out. The worker may no longer be eligible for work that depends on it, so renew it as soon as you can.
In Review (blue) — you have uploaded the certificate and it is being checked. Nothing is needed from you while it sits here.

The actions available on each certificate

The circular arrows icon renews the certificate. Hover over it and the label Renew Certificate appears.
The eye icon opens a preview of the certificate, so you can check you are looking at the right file.
The three dots hold the other actions available for that certificate.

Where an action does not apply, its icon is greyed out. A certificate that is still being reviewed cannot be renewed, for example, so the renew icon is unavailable until the review is finished.

Adding a certificate

New certificates are added from the form at the top of the Training Compliance section.

Select the Certificate Name field. A list opens, split into three parts, which are explained below. Choose the certificate you are adding. This field is required.
Look at the panel on the right. Before you choose anything it reads "Select a certificate to display the linked skills." Once you have made your choice it changes to Skills related to this certificate and lists what the certificate proves. Select +2 others to see any skills that are not shown.
Choose a Delivery Method — how the training was delivered, for example E-Learning.
Enter the Assessment Score where one was recorded.
Set the Issued/Created date to the date shown on the certificate. Hover over the information icon beside the field if you are unsure which date to use.
Tick This certificate was issued by Care Academy only if it was. Leave it unticked for everything else.
Under Upload Certificate, select Select File and choose your file. The supported formats are .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .docx and .pdf. A file is required.
Select Add. The certificate then appears in the list below.

Please note: the yellow message beneath the tick box is there for good reason. If This certificate was issued by Care Academy is ticked for a certificate that did not come from Care Academy, the profile will be denied. If you are in any doubt, leave it unticked.

The three kinds of certificate in the list

Group Certificates — a bundle of related training held as one certificate, such as Mandatory Care Training Modules. A tag beside the name tells you how many modules it contains, for example 10 modules.
Individual Modules — the separate pieces of training that make up a group, such as Equality and Diversity, Health and Safety, Infection Prevention and Control, Information Governance and Mental Health Awareness. Each one carries a tag naming the group it belongs to. Choose from here when a worker has completed part of a group rather than all of it.
Single Certificates — standalone qualifications that are not part of any group, such as Adult Support Protection (Scotland), Autism Awareness, Bachelor's Degree or Equivalent and Basic Life Support.

Scroll down the list to move between the three parts. The headings stay in place, so you can always see which kind of certificate you are looking at.

Working with group certificates

Choose a group certificate and an orange message appears confirming what is about to happen: it is a group certificate with a set number of modules, and it will be added as a single certificate covering all of them.

In other words, one upload covers the whole bundle. There is no need to add the modules one at a time.

Once added, the certificate appears in your list with the number of modules in brackets after its name, for example Mandatory Care Training Modules (10). Select the arrow beside the name to expand it. You will see:

A counter showing how many of the modules are in place, for example 10/10, with the number uploaded written underneath.
Skills covered — every skill the group proves, such as Mental Health Disabilities, Learning Disabilities and Mandatory Training.
The full list of modules included, each with a tick beside it.

Tip: This expanded view is the quickest way to answer a client who asks exactly what a worker's mandatory training covers. Everything is on one screen, so there is no need to open each module separately.

Renewing a certificate that has expired

An expired certificate is hard to miss. Its expiry date is shown in red with a warning icon beside it, and the Validity column shows a red Expired badge.

Find the certificate in the list.
In the Actions column, select the circular arrows icon. Hover over it first if you want to be sure — the label Renew Certificate appears.
The Training Compliance form opens with the Certificate Name already filled in and locked, so there is no risk of renewing one certificate with another by mistake.
Choose the Delivery Method, enter the Assessment Score, and set the Issued/Created date to the date on the new certificate.
Tick the Care Academy box only if it applies.
Select Select File and upload the new certificate.
Select Update to save the renewal, or Cancel to close the form without keeping anything.

Renewing does not wipe out what came before. The version tag beside the certificate name simply moves up, for example from v1 to v2, so you always have a record of what was held and when.

Renewing through Care Academy

Where a certificate has expired, you do not have to go away and find the training yourself. Agency Accelerator will offer you Care Academy, our CPD accredited training hub for care professionals, so the worker can be brought back into compliance quickly.

You will come across it in two places.

First, a blue banner appears on the worker's record once expired certificates are detected. It tells you that the worker's certificates have expired and that you can now renew them easily through Care Academy. Select Try Now at the end of the banner.

A pop-up then opens, headed "Looks like one of your worker's training is due a refresh." It sets out what Care Academy gives you:

Full compliance across your workforce
Access to hundreds of accredited courses
Support for continuing professional development

From here you have two choices:

Schedule a call — book a conversation with the Care Academy team, who will talk you through the courses your worker needs. If you would rather ring straight away, the pop-up also shows the number: 0116 4822 999, selecting option 3, between 9am and 5pm on weekdays.
I will upload certificates later — closes the pop-up and leaves the record as it is. Choose this where the worker has already completed the training elsewhere and you simply need to upload the new certificate.

Select Learn more about Care Academy in the pop-up if you would like to read about the hub before committing to anything.

Please note: closing the pop-up does not renew anything on its own. The certificate stays as Expired until a new one has been uploaded and reviewed.

Recording additional skills

Underneath the certificates you will find Additional Skills. This is where you record the skills a worker brings that are not backed by a certificate on their record.

The section says it plainly on screen: adding these skills is helpful, but attaching a certificate is recommended to verify the quality of the evidence and keep the worker's profile fully compliant. A skill tells a client what a worker can do. A certificate proves it.

The skills already recorded are shown as tags. To change them:

Select Update at the bottom right of the Additional Skills section.
The tags are replaced by a Select dropdown. Choose the skills you want to add from the list.
Save your changes.

Tip: Treat Additional Skills as a to-do list rather than a substitute for certificates. Where a skill is recorded with nothing behind it, that is a certificate worth chasing before a client asks for it.

Saving your changes

Each part of this section saves on its own, so save as you go rather than leaving everything to the end.

Add — creates a new certificate on the worker's record.
Update — saves a renewal, and saves your changes in Additional Skills.
Cancel — closes the form without keeping anything you have entered.

Please note: choosing a file does not save it on its own. The certificate is not added to the worker's record until you select Add, or Update if you are renewing.

Staying on top of expiry dates

Scan the Validity column first. Red Expired badges are the ones costing you bookings today. Green Valid badges need nothing from you.
Read the Expiry/Issued date column as a pair. The larger date at the top is when the certificate runs out and the smaller one underneath is when it was issued. It is easy to read the wrong one in a hurry.
Renew rather than start again. Using Renew Certificate keeps the version history and the certificate's place in the list.
Chase certificates for any skill recorded without one. A skill with no evidence behind it is usually the first thing a client will query.
Get the issued date right. It is the date printed on the certificate, not the day you happen to be uploading it.

If something is not right

Most of this section is maintained by your own team, so the majority of corrections are a case of renewing a certificate or uploading a clearer copy.

Please contact our Support Team, quoting the worker's name and reference number, if:

A certificate you need is not in the Certificate Name list
A certificate has been sitting as In Review for longer than you would expect
A group certificate shows fewer modules than it should, for example 9/10 when all ten were uploaded
The skills shown against a certificate do not look right
A worker's profile has been denied and you are not sure why

Check out our step-by-step guide to managing your employee certificates: