Feature Overview and Requirements

In LatitudeLearning®, an Accreditation, whether a Certification or a Curriculum, is a set of course completion rules and related performance objectives that students must complete in order to demonstrate their professional competency. Our powerful goal assignment and accreditation engines help administrators automate their training programs and track compliance along the way.

Multiple tools work in tandem to evaluate prerequisites, equivalencies, electives, mandatory course rules, and even performance data to certify people’s skills and drive employee performance. Because of this flexibility, it is important to understand your business or industry requirements prior to building a compliance program into the LMS. 

Use this document to guide you through the process of building a Certification or Curriculum. Navigate to a specific section of this document using the Shortcut links, which are shown in the general order of precedence for creating and launching a compliance program.

Once you have created some of these data structures, you may be able to skip steps when adding new accreditations.

Step by Step Procedure and Field Description

Create a Program

A program is the time-frame during which a learner may earn the accreditation associated with it. It is possible to have multiple programs active concurrently. Courses completed after the end date of the program will not count toward the accreditation. 

Some examples are:

• A time-limited program for 2026 accreditations that are only needed for one year, such as “2026 Model Year Updates”. A new Program could be created for 2027-specific learning.
• An ongoing program for accreditations, such as a “New Employee On-boarding” or “Annual Office Safety Training”. Content within the accreditation could change and cause temporary revocation of accreditations until new content is completed, but there is no need to create new programs on a yearly basis.

Learn how to create a program in the LMS: Set Up Programs

Create a Position Group

A Position Group is a collection of Position Codes, or job titles, that determine Accreditation eligibility. For instance, if your “Teacher” position and “Substitute Teacher” position had identical training requirements, you could include both in a single position group called “Teaching Staff” and assign them the same accreditation goals. Positions with unique requirements may need their own position group. Using the same example, if “Teacher” and “Substitute Teacher” have any differences in their certification requirements, you may want to set them up with 1:1 Position groups:  Teacher Position = Teacher Position Group and Substitute Teacher Position = Substitute Teacher Position Group.

Each Position Code may only belong to one Position Group at a time. 

To create and edit a Position Groups: Manage Position Groups

Add Generic Rules

Generic Rules form your base-level accreditation requirements. Because generic rules are not tied to a program or a position group, you can structure them for reuse in any number of accreditations. Develop a compliance program that utilizes any combination of Evaluation Types:

• Completion – Learner must complete all of the rule-specified Courses and certifications/curriculums to satisfy the rule. For example, the learner must complete 1 Certification and  4 Courses to level up. 
• Elective – Provide a list of Course and Certification/Curriculum options, then define the total number of completions or credits required. For example, the learner must complete 4 out of 7 listed courses. 
• Department Objective – To satisfy this rule, a specified number or percentage of learners must be certified at the learner’s organization. For example, a “Sales Manager Certification” requires that 50% of reporting sales staff have completed the “Sales Consultant Certification”. 

Note: The following performance-based evaluation types require the ability to capture performance data for the selected metric. They were developed for a specific customer to meet a very particular requirement. If your organization is interested in using these evaluation types, please contact support@latitudelearning.com to learn more. 

• Individual Performance – Learner must exceed the specified performance metric to satisfy the rule. For example, salesman must sell over 1,000 units. 
• Location Performance – The learner’s organization must exceed the specified performance metric to satisfy the rule. For example, the franchise must sell over 10,000 units. 
• Top Percent – Learner’s performance must exceed the target percentile to satisfy the rule. For example, the learner’s sales volume must be in the top 90th percentile. 

Learn how to create a generic rule in the LMS: Set Up Accreditation Generic Rules

Add Primary Rules

Accreditations are built as a list of Primary Rules, which are simply a grouping of one or more Generic Rules. Just like their generic counterparts, Primary Rules can be structured for reuse in any number of certifications or curriculums. Create primary rules that evaluate compliance as either a “One of” or “All of” requirement; so that learners must complete either “one of” the generic rules in list or “all of” them to meet the primary training objective.

Learn how to create a Primary Rule in the LMS: Set Up Primary Rules

Build a Certification or Curriculum

Accreditation functionality in LatitudeLearning is very robust, offering your organization great flexibility in designing training programs that develop and measure student competencies. Now that you have built all the rules around training requirements (Generic Rules), eligible participants (Position Groups), compliance standards (Program), it’s time to tie these elements together and launch your actual accreditation as a certification or a curriculum.

Learn how to create a Certification-style Accreditation: Set Up an Accreditation – Certification

Learn how to create a Curriculum-style Accreditation: Set Up an Accreditation – Curriculum

View Accreditation Tree

After your Accreditation is set up, you can assign it as a training goal to your program participants and configure scheduled reports to track compliance. Our powerful accreditation engine will handle the rest.

If ever you need to review the overall set-up or revise this accreditation, the View Tree feature provides a complete view to assist you. The Accreditation Tree provides a detailed breakdown of all rule types, status, and affected position groups. Expand and collapse rules as needed, click links to navigate to rules of interest, or click Print to save for your records. 

Frequently Asked Questions