Building a Certification Template

Certification templates define the questions your employees answer each time you run an attestation. Building one once lets you reuse it every cycle. This article walks through building an annual attestation template that covers brokerage accounts, gifts and entertainment, the compliance manual, and customer complaints, including conditional follow-up logic, previewing, and publishing.

Start a new template

1. Go to Certifications, where all attestations are built and sent out.
2. Open the template library. Every certification starts from a template here.
3. Create a new template to open a blank canvas, then choose the certification module. This tells the platform where the template will be used.

The builder opens, ready for your first question.

Add attestation questions that pull in platform data

Every question needs a question type. When you want existing platform records to appear for the employee, choose the attestation type. The attestation pulls those records into a table for the employee to review.

Brokerage accounts

Write a question asking employees to confirm their brokerage accounts are correct. Link investment accounts as the data source so the employee's accounts already on file appear in the table. Add a short attestation message that tells them exactly what they are confirming.

Gifts and entertainment

Add another attestation question. Because gift data is reported through disclosures, choose the disclosures option for the data pull, then limit it to gift and entertainment records. If you have created a custom disclosure template, choose the custom option to link that data instead.

By default, only records within the certification period are shown. To include all historical records, toggle that setting off.

Compliance manual

Add a third attestation question and choose the document attestation option. This lets you attach the document employees are attesting to. Upload your manual so it is embedded directly in the certification.

Add a yes/no question with a flag and conditional follow-up

For a direct question such as whether the employee has unreported customer complaints, a yes or no question type works best.

• Flagging: Turn on flagging to be notified when an answer needs a closer look. Here, a "No" answer signals unreported complaints, so "No" is the flag trigger.
• Follow-up question: Add a question that gives the employee room to explain. Use a long answer field for a written explanation and mark it required so it cannot be skipped.
• Conditional logic: Set the follow-up to depend on the complaints question you just built, and show it only when the answer is "No." Employees who answer otherwise never see it.

Each question also has a place for context and instructions if it needs extra guidance. Neither is needed here, so leave them switched off. The closing attestation line at the end can be edited to match your firm's own language.

Preview the template

Before publishing, use the preview to see exactly what employees will experience:

• The brokerage account question shows the employee's live records. If an account is missing, they can click Manage in the upper right to add it. Changes made there are reflected in their account audit trail.
• For the manual, employees must download the attached document before they can attest that they have read it.
• Answering "No" to the complaints question automatically displays the follow-up, where the employee can enter a long response.
• The certification closes with an electronic signature that carries full legal weight.

To make further changes, use the back arrow at any time to return to the builder.

Save or publish

If you want to stop and finish later, click Save as Draft to keep your progress. When everything looks right, click Publish.

The template is now live and ready to use for your next certification cycle.