In Bridge, course expirations can be configured based on three different criteria to suit your organization’s needs:
- Learner Completion Date: The course expires after a set time from when the learner completes it.
- Learner Enrollment Date: The expiration is based on the learner’s enrollment date.
- Specific Date: The course expires on a predefined date.
These options are located within the course settings drop down, allowing you to manage certifications and compliance easily.
Common examples of course expiration settings in Bridge LMS include:
- Completion Date: Courses expire 365 days after completion.
- Enrollment Date: Courses expire 365 days after initial enrollment.
- Specific Date: Courses expire on a set date, e.g., every January 1st.
When a course expires, it can take one of three actions:
- Auto re-enroll learners, marking previous completions as inactive.
- Remain active with re-enrollment options.
- If incomplete, it appears overdue on the learner’s page until completed.
When auto re-enrollment is enabled, learners are systematically re-enrolled in the same course based on the expiration rules (completion, enrollment, or a specific date). The setting "Learners will be given X days to complete" re-enrolls them X days before the expiration date.
Note: If a learner never completes the course, it remains in an overdue status without marking them as “failed” or unenrolling them.
To stop auto re-enrollment, simply uncheck the auto re-enroll option in the course settings.
If a course is set to expire without auto re-enrollment, the learner’s enrollment will grey out in the "Learners" tab under course settings. For example, Kelly Freeman completed the course on July 9, and it is set to expire on July 1, meaning the course will simply appear as inactive for her without triggering re-enrollment.
Since auto re-enrollment is not enabled for this course, Kelly Freeman will not have another enrollment in progress once her current one expires. Her current enrollment remains active, and an admin or any user with appropriate permissions can manually re-enroll her if needed. This allows for flexibility in managing learner progress and addressing any specific enrollment requirements.
When a learner has another active, in-progress enrollment due to auto re-enrollment settings, their previous enrollment becomes inactive. This means the system keeps a record of past completions while the learner works on their current course, ensuring historical data is retained for reporting purposes.
John Herring triggered re-enrollment, making his historical enrollment inactive, which means the meatball menu is no longer available next to the enrollment. Expired courses are never deleted and will remain in the learner’s history, with both active and inactive enrollments visible in Analytics. For example, when searching for the course "Welcome!" in Analytics, both Kelly Freeman's and John Herring's completions appear on their transcripts, showing a complete record of all enrollments for reporting and tracking purposes.
Active enrollments are visible to admins through the admin dashboard when viewing a specific learner's profile. For instance, when looking up Kelly Freeman, her completed courses, like "Welcome!," will appear on the completed list, allowing admins to easily track and manage learner progress.
This will also appear in the "Completed" section of Kelly Freeman's My Learning page, where she can see all of the courses she has finished. This makes it easy for learners to track their achievements and access certificates or content from courses they have completed.
Once a re-enrollment is triggered, the previous completion becomes inactive. This inactive enrollment will not appear on the admin’s dashboard under the "Completed" section for the learner. Instead, the learner’s active re-enrollment will show as in progress. This ensures the admin only sees the most current enrollment, avoiding confusion between completed and newly re-enrolled courses for the user.
NOTE: There is one exception where a historical enrollment can be inactive without an active re-enrollment in the course. This occurs when a historical upload is completed, and enrollments are marked as inactive during the upload without active enrollments being added.
In Kelly Freeman's case, since he was re-enrolled in the course, "Welcome!" is now listed under his required section, not in the completed section, as the re-enrollment takes precedence.
The key takeaway is that a course cannot appear in two sections at the same time. Each course and user have a unique ID, ensuring a 1:1 relationship between active enrollments and course IDs. While there can be multiple inactive enrollments due to historical completions, only one active enrollment exists per course for each user. For more detailed information on re-enrollment settings, please refer to here.
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