Bulk Award issues one certificate template to many recipients in a single pass. Pick users or upload a spreadsheet, review every row before anything is sent, then let it run in the background.

Starting a Bulk Award

Navigate to Certificates > Bulk Award. The page lists past batches with their template, creation date, status, and how many certificates were awarded. Click New Bulk Award to start the wizard, which walks through four steps: Template, Recipients, Preview, and Results.

Step 1: Template

Choose the certificate to award. Only published templates are listed. The template’s display name, validity, and merge fields apply to every certificate in the batch, exactly as they would for a single award.

Step 2: Recipients

There are two ways to build the list:

• Select users: search your site’s user accounts and add them one at a time. Best for small groups and for recipients who already have accounts.
• Upload CSV: upload a spreadsheet with one row per recipient and map its columns. Best for large groups and for lists exported from another system.

Both modes offer an optional Completion date. Certificates record it as their earned date, and any validity period counts from it, so a batch for last spring’s cohort can carry last spring’s date. Leave it blank to use today. In CSV mode, a completed-date column in the file takes precedence for the rows that have one.

Recipients must have a user account on the site. Rows that do not match an account are skipped, not created.

Step 3: Preview

Nothing is awarded until you confirm, and the preview shows exactly what confirming will do. Every row gets an outcome:

• Will issue: a certificate will be awarded to this recipient.
• Already holds it: this recipient has a certificate from this template already, so the row is skipped. Bulk awards follow the same duplicate suppression as automatic triggers; a bulk award never creates a second copy.
• Skipped: the row cannot be used, most often because no user account matches it. The Note column says why.

A toggle, Email each recipient their certificate, controls whether the certificate email goes out for this batch. Turn it off for historical records that recipients do not need to be notified about, or when you plan to announce the certificates yourself.

Click Award Certificates. A confirmation states how many certificates will be awarded out of how many rows, and a reminder that recipients who already hold the certificate are skipped. Award now starts the batch.

Step 4: Progress and Results

Awarding runs in the background in small chunks, so a large batch does not tie up your browser or time out. You can leave the page and come back; the batch continues and the Bulk Award list shows its progress. When it finishes, the Results step reports how many were awarded, already held it, were skipped, or failed, with a row-by-row table and a Download CSV of the results (recipient, outcome, and reason for each row) that you can keep with your own records.

Each certificate is a normal certificate: it has its own credential ID and display name, it appears in the recipient’s My Certificates list and on the Certificates screen, and it verifies like any other. Batch records are kept for seven days and then cleared; the certificates themselves are permanent.

Limits

A batch holds up to 1,000 rows. Larger cohorts can be split into several batches; because of duplicate suppression, overlapping lists do no harm. If a batch is interrupted (a server restart, say), it resumes where it left off without awarding anyone twice.

CSV File Import

What the File Needs

One row per recipient, and one column that identifies each recipient by email address or username. That is the only requirement. Every other column is optional and can fill a merge field or the completion date, or be ignored.

Column headings can be anything, because you match each column to a field after uploading. Columns headed Email, Username, Completed Date, or the name of one of the template’s merge fields are matched for you automatically.

Not sure what the file should look like? The Recipients step has a Download a sample CSV link that produces a file with the right columns for the template you chose. Fill it in and upload it.

File Rules

• CSV files only, up to 2 MB.
• Comma or semicolon delimiters are detected automatically, so exports from Excel in most locales work without changes.
• Save as UTF-8 when the file contains accented names.
• The uploaded file is held temporarily while you work through the wizard. If you leave it idle for too long, the wizard asks you to upload the file again.

Mapping Columns

After upload, a table lists each column in the file (Your Column) with a sample value and a Maps To dropdown. The targets are grouped:

• Recipient: Email address or Username. Exactly one column must map here.
• Dates: Completed date.
• Merge fields: every merge field the template can use, so a column can supply the course title, a grade, an instructor name, or a custom meta value for each row.
• Other: Ignore this column.

Merge Field Columns

A bulk award has no course or quiz behind it, so source merge fields (course title, score, and so on) would normally be blank, as they are on any certificate issued by hand. Mapping a column to a merge field fills it from the file instead. That is how a list exported from another system can produce certificates that name each person’s course and grade, and how a display name pattern like “{{source.course_title}} Certificate” resolves correctly for a bulk batch.

Recipient and certificate fields (name, credential ID, issue date, expiry date) come from the user account and the award itself and do not need columns.

The Completed Date

A column mapped to Completed date sets each certificate’s earned date, and any validity period counts from it. Use the YYYY-MM-DD format (2026-05-14); other unambiguous formats are usually read correctly, and dates are interpreted in your site’s timezone. A date the plugin cannot read is treated as blank, and a blank date falls back to the batch’s completion date if you set one, or to today.

Rows That Skip

The Preview step marks rows that will not issue and says why in its Note column. The common reasons:

• No matching user on this site. The email or username does not belong to an account. Bulk Award does not create accounts; add the user first, then run the rows again in a new batch.
• Already holds it. The recipient has this certificate. This is duplicate suppression working, not an error.
• Blank recipient cell. The row has no email or username to match.

Because skipped rows are listed before you confirm, the usual workflow is to fix the file or the accounts, upload again with Different file, and check the preview until it reads the way you expect.