Use this guide to enable continuing professional development (CPD) for your account, set the points or hours a course awards, and check a participant’s award. A System Admin manages the account-wide CPD settings. An authorised Course Owner or System Admin configures the intended course.
CPD award: The points or hours a participant earns for completing one Registration on a course. A Registration is one participant's individual place on the course.
Availability: the account needs the CPD Points & Hours feature. The Pro and Teams plans include it; the Free plan does not. If your plan is shown as Enterprise, it is a plan agreed with Cademy, so confirm with Cademy Support whether it includes CPD. To check your plan, see Understand Cademy Plans, Limits and Fees.
CPD and certificates are separate. A course can award CPD without issuing a certificate, issue a certificate without awarding CPD, use both, or use neither.
Start in the intended provider account. The main Registrations and Contacts pages require a System Admin. Course Owners and Facilitators can open Registrations through the course’s Registrants tab within their course or date access. If a control is missing, check your account, role and assignment with a System Admin.
Enable CPD for your account
Go to https://admin.cademy.io and log in.
Use a System Admin account for these account-wide settings.
Select Settings in the main menu.
Select CPD.
Turn on Enable CPD.
Keep Points Label and Hours Label, or enter the names your organisation uses, such as CE credits or Course hours. Both labels must contain text and be no more than 30 characters; they name the units, not the amount awarded.
Select Save.
Wait for CPD settings saved, then reopen the page and check the saved switch and both labels. Changing these controls requires Save; it does not award CPD to past completions.
Account CPD settings: a System Admin enables the feature, names both units and selects Save.
Your labels are used wherever CPD appears, including course controls, public course pages, listing filters, embed badges, Registrations, Contact activity, exports and certificate variables.
If CPD is missing: ask a System Admin to check the account’s CPD feature and Settings > CPD. A Course Owner may see the settings page but cannot be assumed to have permission to save account-wide changes.
Add CPD points or hours to a course
Course-editor changes can save when you switch sections. Check the intended course before changing anything.
Select Courses, open the intended course and select Edit Course.
Open Settings → Certificates & CPD, then turn on Award CPD.
Enter points, hours or both in the fields named by your account’s labels. Each value must be greater than 0 with no more than one decimal place, such as 2 or 2.5. Leave an unused unit empty; 0 is not a valid award.
Correct any visible validation error before saving. At least one value is required. Invalid text can leave the last valid value in place, so do not assume the number you typed is the saved value.
Select Save. After the saved result, reopen Certificates & CPD and check Award CPD and the saved values. For an already published course, return to its course dashboard and use Open in new tab beside Share to check its public Highlights. That control is unavailable for an unpublished course; confirm the saved settings without publishing it just for this check.
Course CPD controls are separate from automatic certificates and certificate emails. This example uses 4 points and 1.5 hours; later images show different examples.
Leave a field empty if your organisation does not use that unit. For example, a course can award 6 CPD points without also awarding CPD hours.
Certificates and CPD are separate: Turning on Award CPD does not require Automatically issue certificate to be enabled.
Show CPD on public course pages and listings
Public course page Highlights
Example of CPD values in public course Highlights. This displays what the course offers, not an award already earned by a participant.
The course's CPD values appear in the Highlights section on its public course page. This applies to both automatic Highlights and manually written Highlights.
Example of the description editor’s Highlights preview. The Highlights gear does not set CPD values; use Settings → Certificates & CPD.
With automatic Highlights, the CPD chip appears with the other course information.
With manual Highlights, the custom chips appear first and the CPD chip is added automatically afterwards.
The course editor preview shows the same CPD chip in both modes.
There is no separate CPD control in the Highlights editor. Turning off Award CPD removes the chip and also stops new CPD awards for that course; it does not revoke existing awards. Check that both effects are intended before changing it.
Add a CPD badge to course-listing cards
A CPD badge can be added to course cards in a Standard Website Embed or a Cademy for WordPress course listing. It is off by default, so existing listings do not change until you choose it.
For a Standard Website Embed:
Example of Card Details → CPD in Embeds. The badge text is shortened in this preview. Use Get Code and update the installed embed to apply changed options to your website.
In the Cademy dashboard, select Apps.
Open Cademy Embeds.
Under What would you like to embed?, choose Multiple Courses.
Choose Grid, Rows, Dates List or Date Cards.
Open Options.
Open Card Details and select CPD.
Check the preview, select Get Code and replace the installed embed code or address on your website with the new version. Save the website page and check the public listing. Changing the dashboard preview alone does not update an existing embed.
For a Cademy for WordPress course listing:
Example of the CPD checkbox in the WordPress block settings. Save the page and check its public course listing; the checkbox alone does not verify the displayed result.
Open the WordPress Dashboard.
Select Pages and edit the page containing the Cademy Courses block.
Select the Cademy Courses block in the page editor.
Open the Block settings in the right sidebar.
Open Card Details.
Select CPD.
Select Save to update the page, then open its public view and check a course that awards CPD. If these controls are missing, check the installed plugin and its setup using the WordPress guide below.
A CPD course card shows the points, hours or both, such as 6 CPD points · 4 CPD hours. Courses without CPD do not show an empty badge.
Example of the visitor CPD filter using the default unit names. Check the resulting list after Apply; account labels can change the filter wording.
Minisite cards: Visitors can filter CPD courses on a Cademy Minisite, but Minisite course cards do not currently show the optional CPD badge.
For complete setup instructions, see Embed Courses or Forms on Your Website or Publish Cademy Courses on a WordPress Website.
Let visitors filter courses that award CPD
Visitors can filter CPD courses on:
the course provider's Cademy Minisite;
a Standard Website Embed; and
a Cademy for WordPress course listing.
On a Standard Website Embed, the CPD filter is selected by default for eligible accounts. To check or change it:
Select Apps, then open Cademy Embeds.
Choose Multiple Courses and any layout except Calendar.
Open Options.
Open Search & Filters.
Select CPD to show the filter, or clear it to hide the filter.
After changing the filter option, use Get Code, update the installed embed and save the website page. Check the public result; the preview alone does not change an existing website.
To use the filter as a visitor:
The labels below assume the default CPD unit names. With custom labels, the checkbox uses Awards followed by the scheme name, and the minimum fields use your saved points and hours labels. Minimum values filter course offers; they do not change anyone’s award.
Open the CPD filter above the course list.
Select Awards CPD to hide courses that do not award CPD.
Optionally enter Minimum CPD points, Minimum CPD hours, or both. Decimal values such as 0.5 are supported.
Select Apply.
Use Clear inside the CPD filter, or Clear Filters above the course list, to remove it.
The page address records the selected CPD filter. Copy the complete address after applying the filter when you want to share the same filtered course list.
On a Cademy for WordPress course listing, selecting Awards CPD and then Apply updates the course list on the current page. The page address includes cpd=awarded, and only courses that award CPD remain visible.
No matching courses: The CPD filter can appear for an eligible course provider even when none of their published courses currently award CPD. Selecting Awards CPD then produces an empty result. Check the course's Certificates & CPD settings or clear the filter.
How custom CPD labels appear
Course-page Highlights, embed card badges and the minimum-value fields use the labels saved under Settings > CPD.
If both labels share a distinct opening scheme name, the filter button uses that name. For example, RCN points and RCN hours produce an RCN filter. The shared name must be only part of each label: two identical labels do not establish a separate scheme name. Otherwise the button remains CPD, while the minimum fields use the saved unit labels.
When CPD is awarded
Cademy can award CPD when it evaluates a Registration as Completed and the account, course and record are eligible. Completion uses the attendance and online lesson evidence for that Registration.
Current Order, manually added and imported Registrations are supported automatic-award paths. Older booking records and historical or imported Completion can follow different rules. Enabling CPD alone does not backfill awards, but a later completion evaluation can award eligible missing CPD. Ask Support about an unexpected result; do not change accurate attendance or progress just to trigger an award.
In short: a course with sessions needs the participant marked Attended for every required session, an on-demand course needs 100% lesson progress, and a blended course needs both. Submitting a request for an on-request course does not award CPD; the participant needs an actual Registration for the arranged course and must meet its attendance requirements.
For the complete status rules, see Understand Course Completion Status. For attendance instructions, see Record Attendance.
Staff can also correct an on-demand or blended learner's lesson status from the Registration. If the change makes the Registration Completed, it can award CPD. See Correct a Learner’s Lesson Progress.
Only correct evidence that is genuinely wrong. The same completion change can also issue a certificate, notify a participant or the Order’s primary contact (the Order Contact), or trigger an eligible feedback message. Awarding CPD sends no email of its own. A CPD award is not proof that a certificate or email was delivered.
One Registration per participant: Every participant needs their own Registration to receive CPD. This includes every other participant on the same Order. The Order’s primary contact, or any other person without their own Registration, cannot receive an award.
One Registration can hold one active CPD award. If the same participant takes the course again using a new Registration, the new Registration can earn another award.
The awarded values are saved at the time of the award. Changing the course's CPD points or hours later does not change awards already issued.
If a revoked award is awarded again, the existing award record is updated with the current course values and a new award date; its revoked marker is cleared. This is not a second active award or a guarantee that the original amount is restored. The CPD award date can differ from the Registration’s first Completion Date.
Correcting completion evidence: Changing attendance or lesson progress after completion can move the Registration out of Completed, but it does not automatically revoke CPD already awarded. Revoke the award separately when it should no longer remain active.
Where CPD awards appear
Registration
Open the intended course’s Registrants tab and the participant’s Registration, or use the main Registrations page as a System Admin. Check the learner, course and date, then expand Certificate & CPD. It shows the active CPD award’s saved values and award date. A revoked CPD award is hidden here; check Contact activity for its revoked marker.
Example of an active CPD award on a Registration. Issue Another is a certificate action, not a control for adding CPD.
Contact activity
As a System Admin, open Contacts, select the participant and select the CPD activity tab. Check the course, values, award date and any REVOKED marker. Select an entry to open its Registration. If you do not have Contacts access, ask a System Admin to check it.
Contact CPD activity lists individual awards. These are separate records, not a calculated CPD total or a continuous example of the earlier course setup.
The CPD tab shows individual awards. Cademy does not currently calculate a participant's accumulated CPD total or provide a learner-facing CPD record.
For complete Contact instructions, see Manage Contacts.
Registration exports
As a System Admin, open Registrations and set the filters for the records you want. The steps for starting an export, and what limits the file, are in Find and Manage Course Registrations. In the export window, choose one of these options:
All Columns: Includes the CPD points and hours columns when CPD is available and enabled.
Choose Columns: Lets you select the points and hours columns from the CPD group.
Example of Choose Columns in the export window, with both columns in the CPD group selected.
The export column names use your organisation's saved CPD labels. Each row shows that Registration's active award. A value is blank when the Registration has no active award, its award was revoked, or that unit was not awarded.
Follow the linked export guide to finish generating and downloading the file. Open it and check the expected Registration rows, CPD columns and values. Selecting columns alone does not produce or verify an export.
CPD columns are available only in Registration exports. Contact exports do not include CPD awards because Cademy does not currently calculate per-contact totals.
For the complete export process, see Find and Manage Course Registrations.
Certificate templates
When CPD is available and enabled, certificate template text can use these options under Insert variable (x):
CPD points
CPD hours
CPD points label
CPD hours label
Example of Insert variable (x) in a certificate Text block. The menu is not a rendered certificate; custom templates also require the account’s Custom Certificates feature.
The CPD points and CPD hours variables use an active award’s saved values, even when course values later change. Only when no award exists do they use the current course values, with course CPD enabled. A missing unit in that selected source is blank; a revoked award leaves both values blank. Labels use the current account settings. Disabling CPD or losing the feature makes the CPD variables blank while that restriction applies.
For the complete certificate-template process, see Set Up and Issue Course Certificates.
Revoke a CPD award
First check why the award should be revoked. Correct attendance or lesson progress only if that evidence is wrong; do not alter accurate evidence merely to remove an award. If it should remain revoked despite valid Completion, ask Support about the automatic re-award risk before proceeding.
Open the intended participant’s Registration and check the learner, course, date and current awards.
Open the three-dot Registration actions menu. It offers one revoke action: Revoke CPD…, or Revoke Certificate & CPD… when this Registration also shows an active certificate.
Read the confirmation. It names the learner, the course and what will be taken back, and it can warn that the certificate is shared with another Registration on the same Order. Do not rely on that warning or on the action’s name. If the same learner has more than one Registration for this course on the same Order, for example two dates booked together, Revoke CPD… can also revoke a certificate that is shown only on the other Registration, without a warning. In that case, select Cancel and contact Cademy Support before revoking. The combined action revokes the CPD award and only the latest active certificate, not every certificate or a template you select. If several active certificates are listed or the scope is unclear, select Cancel and ask Support first.
Select the final Revoke only when the shown scope is intended. A message then names what was revoked, such as CPD revoked or Certificate and CPD revoked. Check that the CPD award has gone from Certificate & CPD, and check any remaining certificates separately. A System Admin can check the REVOKED marker in the Contact’s CPD activity.
If Failed to revoke appears or the result is uncertain, read the error, refresh and check the CPD award and each certificate before repeating. A combined action can leave CPD revoked even if a later certificate step fails. Ask Support if the remaining awards or intended scope are unclear.
Example of the combined Revoke Certificate & CPD… menu item before confirmation. Check the confirmation’s actual scope; Cancel Registration is a different action.
Example of the confirmation for the combined action. It names the learner, the course and what will be taken back.
What revoking changes
The CPD award: it no longer shows on the Registration. It stays in the Contact’s CPD activity with a REVOKED marker, and its values are blank in Registration exports and in the certificate CPD variables. A later eligible re-award updates that same record and clears the marker.
The certificate: the combined action also revokes the latest active certificate, and that certificate’s link stops working. Downloaded certificates and messages already sent are not recalled. For revoking and reissuing certificates, see Set Up and Issue Course Certificates.
Completion: revoking does not change the Registration’s Completion, attendance or lesson progress. The confirmation says this too.
Emails: Cademy sends no email about a revoked CPD award.
Moving the Registration: revoking does not make Move Registration… available. That action stays hidden for a Registration that has completed before. See Move a Participant or Replace the Person Attending.
While CPD is turned off for the account, the menu names only the certificate (Revoke Certificate…), but confirming it also revokes that Registration’s CPD award.
Automatic re-award: if the evidence still meets Completed, a later completion evaluation can award CPD again. Correct genuinely incorrect evidence first; contact Support if accurate Completion needs to remain and the award should not return.
Turn CPD off
A System Admin should make this account-wide change. Check the effect on course displays, awards, exports and certificate values before switching it off.
Go to Settings > CPD.
Turn off Enable CPD.
Select Save.
After the saved message, reopen the settings and confirm the switch is off. Check the affected surfaces separately; a saved setting does not prove they have all refreshed.
Turning CPD off stops new awards and hides the CPD course controls, public Highlights, course-list filters, embed badges, Contact CPD tab, export columns and certificate variables. Existing course settings and award records are kept and become available again if CPD is re-enabled.
Losing the account’s CPD feature also hides CPD and stops new awards while access is unavailable. It does not delete saved award records. Check actual account entitlement rather than assuming every plan or agreement follows the same hierarchy.
Frequently asked questions
Why can I not see the CPD page or Award CPD control?
Ask a System Admin to check the account’s CPD Points & Hours feature and Settings > CPD. Account-wide Save requires a System Admin; course settings require authorised Course Owner or System Admin access. Award CPD also needs account CPD enabled. Reload after an access change, then check the actual controls and public result. Do not assume a fixed refresh time.
Can I award CPD without issuing a certificate?
Yes. CPD and certificates are separate course settings. You can use either one or both.
Will past course completions receive CPD automatically?
Enabling CPD alone does not backfill previous completions. A later completion evaluation can award eligible missing CPD using current course values. Ask Support about a missing award instead of changing accurate attendance or lesson progress to trigger it.
Can I add a CPD award manually?
There is no separate control here to enter a CPD award manually or record one earned elsewhere. Awards come from eligible Registration completion. Staff can correct genuinely incorrect attendance or lesson progress, which may trigger CPD and other completion actions; this does not let you enter a separate award amount.
What happens if I change the course's CPD values later?
Active awards keep their saved values. New awards use the current course values. If a revoked award is awarded again, the same record gets the current values and a new award date, and its revoked marker is cleared.
Can someone earn CPD again for repeating the course?
Yes, when the repeat attempt has a new Registration. The same Registration cannot hold two active awards.
Does every participant on a booking receive CPD?
Each eligible participant needs their own Registration and must meet the course’s completion rules. Current Order, manually added and imported Registrations are supported; older booking records can differ. An Order’s primary contact without their own Registration does not receive a separate award.
Can I see a participant's total CPD?
No. Cademy currently shows individual awards in admin, but it does not calculate accumulated totals or provide a learner-facing CPD record.
Why does the CPD filter show no courses?
The filter can appear even when no published course currently awards CPD. Check that at least one published course has Award CPD enabled with points or hours set, or clear the filter to restore the complete course list.
Why does the filter button still say CPD after I renamed the labels?
A custom scheme name must be a shared opening part of both labels, such as RCN in RCN points and RCN hours. If there is no distinct shared prefix, including when the labels are identical, the button remains CPD. Minimum fields, Highlights and badges still use the saved unit labels.
Why is CPD missing from a course card?
On a Standard Website Embed or Cademy for WordPress course listing, open Card Details and select CPD. Also check that the course has Award CPD enabled with at least one points or hours value. Minisite course cards do not currently show the badge, and courses without CPD never show an empty badge.
Why is CPD missing from the public course page?
Check that CPD is available and enabled for the account, that Award CPD is enabled for the course, and that at least one points or hours value is set. CPD is added automatically to both automatic and manual Highlights.
Why can I not move a Registration?
Move Registration… is not shown for a Registration that is Completed or has completed before. Revoking its certificate or CPD award does not bring the action back, so do not revoke an award to try to unlock a move. See Move a Participant or Replace the Person Attending, or contact Cademy Support if a participant who has completed needs to be moved.