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        SET COURSE EXPIRY IN DAYS
      

Set course expiry in days

Validity (days) decides how long a passed completion stays current before it needs retaking. This goes deeper on how that number behaves — including what happens to completions that already exist when you change it — and how it differs from Data Retention Period (days).

        5 MIN READ
        UPDATED 4 AUG 2026
        DASHBOARD → COURSES → COURSE SETTINGS
      

BEFORE YOU START

Validity (days) and Data Retention Period (days) both live on the Course Settings tab, in the Access & Lifecycle section — see Create a course for where to find them if this is your first time here.

Set Validity (days)

1

On Course Settings, enter a number of days in Validity (days). Leave it empty and completions never expire.

2

Choose Save Course Settings.

The clock starts at the moment a participant passes. A course with Validity (days) set to 365 means a completion recorded today needs retaking a year from now — that date is what a bundle checks against when it decides whether a participant's course is still current, and what the Results page checks to show the Expired badge.

Changing it later rewrites existing completions

Validity (days) isn't only forward-looking. Change it on a course that already has passed completions, and every one of them is recalculated on the spot using the new number, counted from each participant's own original completion date — not just new completions going forward. Clear the field entirely and every existing expiry date is removed at the same time, so nothing that already passed is retroactively marked expired by a stricter number, or left expiring under a number you've since raised.

GOOD TO KNOW

Because this recalculation runs the moment you save, it's safe to correct a Validity (days) mistake after the fact — tightening or loosening it applies cleanly to everyone who's already completed the course, not just new participants.

Validity (days) vs Data Retention Period (days)

These two fields sound similar and sit next to each other, but they control different things.

Validity (days) Whether a pass still counts. The completion record stays on the Results page; it's just marked Expired and a bundle will ask for it to be retaken.

Data Retention Period (days) Whether the record exists at all. Once this many days pass, the completion data is deleted outright. For a passed course with Validity set, the countdown starts at the end of validity, not at completion — so retention should generally be the longer of the two.

Leave Data Retention Period (days) empty and records are kept indefinitely, independent of whatever Validity (days) is set to.

Remind participants before it lapses

The Notifications tab's Email Before Course Expiry only becomes available once Validity (days) is set — without it, there's no expiry date to count back from, and the tab tells you so. Set Days Before Expiry there once Validity (days) is in place; see Create a course for the placeholders available in the email body.

If something isn't working

The expiry reminder section is disabled

Validity (days) is empty. Set it on Course Settings first, then return to Notifications.

A completion shows Expired sooner than I expected

Validity (days) may have been lowered after that completion was recorded — the change applies retroactively, counted from the original completion date.

Old completions vanished after I set a retention period

That's Data Retention Period (days) doing its job — it deletes completion data once its window passes. There's no recovery once that happens, so set it deliberately.

What next

Expired or not, every attempt shows up on the same page.

Read course results

Expiry notification emails

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