Overview
A Certification that lapses unnoticed can take a qualified person out of a RideOps position or stop them completing Checklists that require the Competency. The fix is to treat renewal as a leading indicator — surfaced and acted on weeks ahead, not discovered after the fact. This article covers the tools Mobaro gives you for staying ahead of Certification expiry, and a simple routine that combines them.
At a glance |
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Who can do this | Super Users, or a Role with Competencies › View (see all Certifications) or Competencies › Administrate (create, edit, and delete; includes View). Setting renewal on a Certification Process needs Administrate. Without View, a User sees only their own Certifications. |
Where | Competencies › Certifications, Competencies › Certification Processes, Dashboard (Competency Overview widget), and the mobile app's Certification Center |
Works on | Backend (web), Mobile app |
Availability | All organizations |
💡 Why this matters: When a Certification expires, the User no longer holds that Competency, and anything that requires it treats them as unqualified. Catching "due for renewal" is an action item; catching "expired" is already a problem.
⚠️ Heads-up: Mobaro currently doesn't send expiry or renewal reminders — not by push, email, or Notification Rule. The only Certification notification is a push to the User when a Competency is awarded. Staying ahead of expiry means someone checks the views below on a regular schedule.
What you have to work with
Tool | What it does |
Renewal dates | Turn a Certification Due for renewal once the date passes, while the User still holds the Competency. Also make Certification Processes that award that Competency available to retake in the mobile app. |
Competency Overview widget | A dashboard matrix of Users × Competencies, coloured by status: valid, due for renewal, expired, or none. |
Certifications list | Every Certification with its expiry date and status. Sort by expiry, filter, and include expired records when needed. |
Certification Center (mobile app) | Where Users see their Competencies with expiry dates, and where a Process shows up again once it can be retaken. |
Set a renewal date
Due for renewal only appears on Certifications that have a renewal date. Without one, a Certification goes straight from valid to expired with no warning. Give every recurring Certification a renewal date in one of two places.
On a Certification Process — under Competency Expiration, tick Mark as due for renewal. What you enter next depends on how the Process expires:
Relative to process completion — enter Mark as renewal after (days). This counts days from when the Certification is awarded, not days before it expires. The editor suggests 365 days to expire and 335 days to renewal, which gives each User about 30 days' notice.
At an exact date — pick a Renewal date, on or before the Expiration date.
See Create a Certification Process for the full editor.
🛑 Critical: Changing a Certification Process's expiration or renewal settings re-dates every active Certification it has already awarded, recalculated from each Certification's award date. Expired Certifications aren't changed. Check the effect before you save.
On a manual Certification — when you create or edit a Certification by hand, tick Mark as due for renewal and pick a Renewal date. The editor suggests one month before the expiration date, and the renewal date can't be later than it. A Certification set to Never expires has no renewal date.
How renewal re-opens a Process
Once a Certification's renewal date passes, any Certification Process that awards the same Competency becomes available again to that User in the mobile app — as long as they're still an Assignee, hold the Process's Required Competencies, and completing it again would push their expiry date later. It also becomes available once the Certification has expired. This applies whether the Certification came from a Process or was granted manually.
Nothing notifies the User when a Process becomes available again. They'll see it the next time they open the Certification Center, so tell them to expect it.
⚠️ Heads-up: A Certification Process won't re-open early in these cases:
The Certification has no renewal date — the Process stays hidden until the Certification expires. If it never expires, the Process stays hidden.
The Process uses At an exact date and the User's Certification already expires on or after that date — retaking it wouldn't extend it, so it isn't offered early. This is always the case for Certifications that Process awarded itself. Once the exact date has passed, the Process isn't offered at all until you set a new date.
Watch the Competency Overview widget
Add the Competency Overview widget to a dashboard for the team or Location you're responsible for. Filter it to the relevant User Group and the Competencies that team needs. Cells are green for valid, yellow for due for renewal, red for expired, and grey where the User has no Certification. Hover a cell for the expiry date, or click it to open the matching Certifications. See Competency Overview Widget.
Work from the Certifications list
For a list you can act on, go to Competencies › Certifications. Sort by the Expiration column to bring the earliest expiry dates to the top; Due for renewal or Expired appears under the date where it applies. Filter by Competency, User or User Group, or Certification Process. Expired Certifications are hidden by default — turn on Include Expired (the clock icon in the filter bar) to see them.
What Users see in the app
In the mobile app's Certification Center, the Competencies tab lists a User's Competencies under Active with each one's expiry date. There's no due-for-renewal flag in the app. The app only downloads Certifications that haven't expired, so an expired Competency appears under Expired only until the app next refreshes its data, then drops off the list. When renewal is due, the Process appears again on the Certification tab (under My Certifications, or under Assess others for an assessor on a peer-assessed Process). See Using the Certification Center in the mobile app.
Build a weekly renewal routine
A routine that works for most teams:
Every recurring Certification Process has Mark as due for renewal set, with enough lead time to retrain.
One named person reviews the Competency Overview widget or the Certifications list every week.
For each Due for renewal User, they check the Process is available to retake and book the retraining.
Anyone Expired is taken off tasks that require the Competency until they're recertified.
Best practices
Match the renewal gap to retraining time. If a refresher needs scheduling weeks ahead, leave 60–90 days between renewal and expiry; for a quick self-assessment, 30 is often enough.
Give the widget an owner — a person who reviews it on a set cadence (weekly is common) and follows up on every yellow cell. A widget nobody owns drifts into wallpaper.
Tell staff what to watch. Encourage Users to check their expiry dates and complete re-opened Processes promptly.
Frequently asked questions
Can Mobaro send an alert when a Certification is about to expire?
No. Mobaro currently has no expiry or renewal notifications, and Notification Rules don't cover Certifications. Use renewal dates so the Due for renewal status appears early, and review the Competency Overview widget or Certifications list on a schedule.
Do Certification Processes renew Certifications automatically?
No. A renewal date only makes the Process available to retake. The User has to complete it again (and a Reviewer approve it, if Require Validation is on) before a new Certification is awarded.
A user is due for renewal, but the Process doesn't appear for them. Why?
The Process only reappears once every current Certification they hold for that Competency is past its renewal date and expires earlier than the Process would grant. A manual one set to Never expires or with no renewal date keeps it hidden. See Gaining and managing Certifications.