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Glossary

What Is Certificate Recipient?

In Verifycate, a certificate recipient is one person on a certificate's list — the record carrying their name, contact details, attribute values and status from import through issue to verification.

Also called: recipient, certificate holder, awardee

What it's for

A certificate means nothing without a name on it, and a list of names is where every issuing project actually starts — a spreadsheet from the events team, an HR export, a tally from the registration desk. The recipient is the unit that list decomposes into: one row, one person, one certificate.

Get the recipient right and everything downstream follows. Get it wrong and the failure surfaces at the worst possible moment — a misspelt name on a LinkedIn profile, a delivery email bouncing a week after the event, a certificate issued to #N/A.

How it works

A recipient record carries the contact details and the data: name, email, and the values for every attribute the certificate's template prints. People arrive three ways:

  • Import a file. CSV or Excel; columns map to attributes once and every row becomes a recipient.
  • Enter manually. For the stragglers who email you after the import.
  • Use the API. For lists that build themselves — an app, a learning platform, a form.

Or they arrive themselves, by applying through a request form, in which case their answers became their attribute values on the way in.

Each recipient sits in one state, and the states tell you what's left to do:

  • Issued — done. They can view, download and share their certificate.
  • Ready to send — queued behind a manual decision; one "issue now" moves them.
  • Awaiting form response — their private unlock link is out; the ball is in their court.
  • Awaiting review — they submitted; you owe them a decision.
  • Changes requested — a response was rejected; they've been sent a fresh link.
  • Waiting for publish — their certificate isn't public yet; publishing releases them together.
  • Expired — the certificate's validity ran out.

Recipients belong to a certificate, and every certificate's list is one view: search, filter by status, bulk actions across a selection — issue, reissue, export, remove. Editing a recipient's details re-renders their certificate, and reissue latest moves someone onto the newest template version in one click. Holders aren't accounts: a recipient never signs up, receives by email, and verifies through their certificate's public page — which is why the email address on the record is worth double-checking before the batch goes out.

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Common questions

Does a recipient need to create an account?
No. Recipients receive their certificate by email and verify it through its public page. Accounts exist for issuers, not the people being issued to.
Can one person be a recipient on several certificates?
Yes — recipient records are per certificate, so the same person can hold as many certificates as they've earned, each with its own ID and page.
How do I fix a recipient's details after issuing?
Edit the recipient and the certificate re-issues with the corrected values. For changes the holder requests themselves, the correction form handles it with an approval step.
What happens to a recipient when I archive the certificate?
Their certificate stays verifiable on its public page — archiving stops new issuing, it doesn't retract what's already in people's hands. Issued certificates remain live even if a workspace stops paying.

Related terms

Every name on the list, issued and checkable.

Import, issue, reissue and correct from one view — and each certificate verifies on its own public page. 300 free credits, no card.

We issued 2,000+ certificates for InCTF — winners, participants, the lot.” — Aravind BL, Amrita InCTF

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