Certificates can have a number of different settings:
The status of each certificate can vary.
- Pending - i.e. issued ahead of time and awaiting the start date. An example is an insurance certificate.
- Active - in force or valid. Active certificates can be suspended, revoked or renewed.
- Expired - past its expiry date, assuming not already superseded, suspended or revoked.
- Superseded - an expired (but not suspended or revoked) certificate replaced by a more recent active certificate.
- Suspended - temporarily inactive or invalid. Suspended certificates can be reactivated. This status may be because an additional condition (like an associated payment or dependent certification) is no longer being met
- Revoked - permanently made inactive or invalid. Revoked certificates cannot be reactivated. A new certificate would need to be issued.
In addition to the above, a certificate may also be:
- Public or Private - see here for more details.
- Archived - this locks the public/private setting and files the certificate away in the archived folder, moving it from the main received certificates list. This is a means of tidying away old or superseded certificates. A certificate needs to remain public in the archive if a smart badge is to remain showing because of a newer equivalent certificate. Archived certificates are not shown on an associated profile page.
In addition to selecting the statuses above, other actions can also be performed on certificates:
• Renew - This extends a certificate's expiry date and can bring an expired certificate back into validity (from its original start date).
Issuers of certificates can suspend, re-activate, revoke or renew certificates. Recipients of certificates can set them to public, private or archived.
An audit trail is maintained for each certificate from the time it is created and issued. This shows the date and time of any change of status of a certificate.
The visibility settings of a certificate's audit trail are the same as those of the certificate, so public certificates have a publicly viewable audit log. However, some information (for example the user who changed the status or edited certificate information) remains private to the issuer. A small privacy icon is shown for these cases.