Credentials management

What happens to a credential after you issue it

Issuance is the short part. A credential then has to survive corrections, name changes, verification requests, and the years in which the recipient keeps using it, long after whoever ran the batch has moved on.

Why files make this hard

When a certificate is a file, every change creates a second file. The original is already in somebody's inbox, and there is no mechanism that reaches it. So corrections multiply versions, and organisations become reluctant to make them. That is how a recipient ends up being told their misspelled name is not worth reissuing.

A credential that lives at a permanent address inverts that. There is one record, at one URL, identified by its own credential ID. Correcting it corrects what everyone sees next time they look, and the link on a CV or a LinkedIn profile keeps working rather than going stale.

It is worth being precise about the limit: a permanent URL fixes the record, not the copies. A PDF downloaded before a correction still shows the old details. What changes is that the verification link printed on it now resolves to the corrected credential, so anybody who checks sees the right thing.

In this section

Most corrections are cheaper to avoid than to make. Creating certificates in bulk covers the data checks that catch a wrong name before it is printed, and credential verification covers what the credential does once it is out in the world.

Credentials you can correct without reissuing

We will show you a live credential, correct a detail on it, and let you watch the original link keep working.