Check a certificate or CPD reference

Every certificate and CPD statement this system issues carries a printed reference. Reference lookup is where you type one in and find out what it is, who it belongs to and whether it still stands. It is the answer to “somebody has sent us this certificate — is it real?”

Find it under Manage → Reference lookup. It needs the Look up references permission, which is separate from anything that lets you issue or edit a certificate — somebody can be allowed to check references without being allowed to grant them.

Looking one up

1. Choose Manage → Reference lookup.
2. Type the reference exactly as printed: CERT-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX for a certificate, CPD-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX for a CPD statement.
3. Choose Look up.

A match returns two panels. Document tells you what it is: the type, the course, the certificate design, when it was issued and when it expires, or for CPD the period it covers, who requested it and when it was generated. Holder tells you whose it is, with their job titles, departments, locations and user status.

Reading the result honestly

A reference that comes back is proof the document was issued. It is not proof the document in front of you is unaltered — compare the details on screen with the paper.

Three results mean something specific rather than “not found”:

Revoked or Deleted — the document was issued and has since been withdrawn. This is the case worth slowing down for: a genuine reference on a certificate that no longer stands.

Superseded by — the statement was replaced, and the reference of its replacement is shown. CPD statements are superseded rather than edited, so an older reference stays valid as a record of what was said at the time.

Holder erased — the person’s personal data was removed under your data retention policy. The document record was deliberately kept without their identity, so the certificate can still be verified while the person cannot be named.

What it will not find

The lookup is scoped to your own organisation. A reference issued by somebody else’s account returns not-found, which is why the message says to check the reference rather than claiming the document is fake — the same reference may be perfectly genuine elsewhere.

Every lookup is recorded

Searches are written to the audit log whether they find something or not, against the person who ran them. A reference in the wrong format is recorded too, and recorded as a failure — a run of malformed lookups is somebody guessing at reference numbers rather than mistyping one, and that is worth being able to see.