Certificate Date changes

Certificate Date changes

by Martha Hufham -
Number of replies: 4

Good Morning,

We've used the custom certificate successfully this year but noticed some changes recently with the date changing from the original issuance date when downloaded.

We originally put the 'completion date' in place for the certificates but they came up blank. Issue date reflected the wrong date so course grade date was used. Everything seemed to line up.  In the student's profiles, their certificate listings show the original date they completed the course and received an email with their certificate.

School admin has switched to downloading the certificates rather than pulling from the email/original issuance. When we download the certificate - it displays a later date of completion. At this time, it looks like when you download a certificate it is replacing the course grade date for that certificate/course with the date of the last time they completed any course.  We're still investigating to see if that is true across the board. 

UPDATE - it is not. We have one student that all of his certificates now download as the date of his last certificate, one who has a date a month later on download with no clear correlation to any event, one who had their date changed to 6 days later; again no pattern.

Thank you for your help!


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In reply to Martha Hufham

Re: Certificate Date changes

by Mark Nelson -
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Without being able to look at the database or do some debugging it is quite hard for me to tell you what is happening. What I can say is that the date is generated each time the certificate is created, so a few factors could do this depending on what data changes on your site. If you have a developer handy tell them they should look around https://github.com/mdjnelson/moodle-mod_customcert/blob/MOODLE_38_STABLE/element/date/classes/element.php#L138.
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In reply to Mark Nelson

Re: Certificate Date changes

by Martha Hufham -
Hi Mark,

We are at 3.6.2+. Looking at the documentation for that version, it looks the same logic.

We are using course grade date for the certificates as the completion date was blank. In our initial testing, the grades reflected correctly and stayed stable (over a year ago now). At some point, that shifted.

- When I pull activity completion or course completion reports, it shows the actual date the student successfully completed the course on July 22, 2020. The email settings sent the certificate out with that date.
- When I view the certificate activity - the award date for the certificate is showing as August 19, 2020. I'm trying to determine if any part of the certificate was changed on this date or if there was any action in the student account.
- When I downloaded that certificate today, it shows November 16, 2020 on the certificate as the course grade date.

So far I haven't found a clear correlation between any activity and the date changes.
In reply to Mark Nelson

Re: Certificate Date changes

by Martha Hufham -
Hi Mark,

Could a change in the student's status make a difference in the date showing? We are using the course grade date. All good, the student completes the course - gets the grade - certificate generates - done. But what is the student status is changed to suspended or inactive at any point? When they are changed back to active - could it impact the grade date? Thank you!
In reply to Martha Hufham

Re: Certificate Date changes

by Mark Nelson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
It sounds odd that this would change each time you view it unless the gradebook is being reset. Can you confirm whether the course grade and date remains the same in the gradebook?
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