This project is a WordPress LMS for training providers, built for a health and safety training company whose business had grown up around classrooms, paper registers and PDF certificates sent by email. The courses were good; the administration around them was not. Every certificate was a document someone had to create, every renewal a date someone had to remember, and every employer question a phone call someone had to answer.
We replaced that with a single learning portal where courses, assessments and certificates live together. Learners study online or book a classroom date, sit timed assessments, and receive a certificate the moment they pass, complete with a public verification code. Employers see the compliance status of their whole team without picking up the phone, and the portal itself warns everyone well before a certificate expires.
About the Client
The client is an accredited health and safety training provider. Its learners are mostly people at work — site operatives, care staff, office fire marshals, first aiders — and its real customers are often their employers, who need to prove to inspectors and insurers that the right people hold the right, current qualifications.
That gives the business two audiences with very different needs. Learners want a straightforward way to complete a course and keep their certificate. Employers want an accurate, always-current picture of who on their team is compliant, who is due to renew and who has lapsed, ideally before an inspection rather than during one.
Project Goals
Move course delivery online without losing the option of classroom and blended courses.
Issue certificates automatically on a pass, each with a code anyone can verify.
Give employers a self-service view of their team’s compliance status.
Warn learners and employers before certificates expire, not after.
Keep the portal manageable by the training team in WordPress, without developer help for routine changes.
Project Overview
The Challenge and Our Solution
The Challenge
Courses were delivered in person, certificates were issued as PDFs by email, and employers phoned to ask who on their team was still compliant. Renewals were tracked in a spreadsheet, so expiring certificates were often noticed after they had lapsed — a problem when a site inspection depends on them.
Our Solution
We built a learning portal on WordPress with a membership and LMS layer: video and document lessons, progress tracking, timed assessments with randomised question banks, and certificates issued automatically on a pass with a verifiable code. Employers get a team account showing every learner’s status, with expiry warnings at 90, 30 and 7 days, and can buy seats in bulk and assign them. Compliance reports export for inspections.
Courses, Assessments and Resits in One Place
Each course is built from lessons — video, documents and short knowledge checks — followed by a timed assessment drawn from a randomised question bank. Because questions are drawn afresh for every attempt, two learners sitting the same course see different papers, and a learner who resits does not simply see the same questions again.
Resit rules are set per course, so a short awareness module can allow immediate retakes while a regulated qualification can require a waiting period or a conversation with a tutor. Progress tracking means a learner can stop halfway through a lesson on a phone and pick it up later on a laptop.
Video and document lessons with progress tracking
Timed assessments from randomised question banks
Resit rules configured per course
Certificates Anyone Can Verify
Certificates are generated the moment a learner passes, using the course, the learner’s details and the validity period. Each one carries a unique verification code. An inspector, insurer or new employer can enter the code on the public verification page and see whether the certificate is genuine and still in date, without contacting the office.
This removes a whole category of admin — reissuing lost PDFs, confirming certificates by email — and makes forged or altered certificates easy to spot. For the business, it turns every certificate into a small, trustworthy advertisement for the quality of its training.
Automatic certificate generation on a pass
Public verification page using a unique code
Validity periods set per course
An Employer Compliance Portal That Answers the Phone for You
Employers have team accounts. They can buy course seats in bulk, assign them to staff, and watch progress in a live compliance view that shows who is enrolled, who has passed, who is due to renew and who has lapsed. Compliance reports export in a format suitable for inspections and audits.
Previously, this information lived in the training company’s spreadsheet and reached the employer only when they asked. Now employers self-serve, which the client’s team noticed immediately in the number of calls they no longer had to take.
Bulk seat purchase and assignment
Live compliance view per team
Exportable reports for inspections
Renewal Reminders That Protect the Learner and the Business
Expiry warnings go to both the learner and their employer at 90, 30 and 7 days before a certificate expires. The 90-day warning leaves time to book a classroom date; the final warning is hard to ignore. Each reminder links straight to the right refresher course.
For the training provider, these reminders turned lapsed renewals into scheduled repeat business. For employers, they mean a site visit is far less likely to uncover an expired qualification.
Warnings at 90, 30 and 7 days
Sent to learner and employer
One-click route to the refresher course
Our Process
How We Delivered It
1
Mapping the Certificate Journey
We followed a certificate from booking to expiry, noting every manual step, spreadsheet and email along the way.
2
Choosing the LMS Layer
We selected WordPress with a membership and LMS layer the team could run day to day, and planned the custom pieces around it.
3
Building Assessments and Certificates
Question banks, timed assessments, certificate generation and the verification page were built and tested with real course content.
4
Employer Accounts and Reminders
Team accounts, bulk seats, compliance views, reports and the 90/30/7-day reminder schedule were added and tested with a pilot employer.
5
Migration and Training
Existing certificates and learners were imported, and the training team learned to manage courses and accounts themselves.
Key Features
What We Delivered
Courses & assessments
Lessons, timed assessments with question banks, and resit rules per course.
Automatic certificates
Issued on pass with a verification code employers and inspectors can check.
Employer team accounts
Bulk seat purchase, learner assignment and a live compliance view per team.
Renewal reminders
Expiry warnings at 90, 30 and 7 days to learner and employer alike.
Outcome
Results and Impact
Certificates issued instantly on completion, with a public verification code.
Employers self-serve compliance status instead of phoning the office.
Expiry warnings turned lapsed renewals into scheduled repeat revenue.
Course delivery scaled without adding classroom dates.
Client Feedback
What the Client Says
★★★★★
Certificates issue themselves the moment a learner passes, with a code employers can verify. That removed most of a part-time admin role and the renewal reminders turned lapsed customers into repeat revenue.
Training DirectorHealth & safety training provider
Services
Services Behind This Project
The WordPress, PHP & Laravel, Custom Web expertise we used to build this wordpress cms website — and can bring to yours.
Bespoke websites and web applications engineered around your workflows — fast, secure, and built to scale with your business.
Learn more
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Why use WordPress for a learning management system?
WordPress with a mature LMS and membership layer gives training providers a familiar admin, a huge choice of integrations and full ownership of their content. Custom development then fills the gaps — certificate generation, verification, employer accounts — so you get a portal tailored to your courses without paying per-learner licence fees to a hosted platform.
Can learners verify their certificates without contacting us?
Yes. Each certificate carries a unique code that can be checked on a public verification page. The page confirms whether the certificate is genuine and in date, which saves your team from reissuing PDFs or answering confirmation emails, and makes altered certificates easy to detect.
Can the portal handle classroom and blended courses as well as online ones?
It can. Courses can be fully online, classroom-based or blended, with dates, seat limits and joining instructions. Classroom attendance and practical assessments can be recorded against the learner so the certificate is still issued through the same system.
How do employer team accounts work?
An employer buys seats in bulk, assigns them to staff and sees a live view of each person’s progress and certificate status. They can export compliance reports for inspections, and they receive the same expiry warnings as their staff, so renewals are planned rather than rushed.
What affects the cost of building a training portal like this?
The main factors are the number of course formats you need, how complex your assessment and resit rules are, whether employers need team accounts and bulk purchasing, payment and invoicing requirements, and how much existing learner and certificate data must be migrated. We scope these early so the estimate reflects your real workflow.
Can existing certificates and learners be imported?
Yes. We import existing learner records and certificates, including issue and expiry dates, so renewal reminders work from day one. Where historic certificates lack verification codes, we can generate codes for them during migration so they become verifiable too.
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