Automation · Revenue operations

How to build partner certification tracking

Q: What is partner certification tracking?

Matching every partner training completion and certification to the partner company, counting it against what their tier requires, warning before certifications expire, and putting the result in the CRM and the partner portal.

A partner registers a deal for a product nobody on their team is certified to sell, and nobody notices until the customer's implementation goes wrong. How to bring training back to where partner decisions are made, the prompts that build it, and how to keep tiers honest.

Built with Tray Headless

System Docebo
Step Match to the partner
Step Count against the tier
Step Warn before expiry
System Salesforce

Also Impartner

Completions in the learning system are counted per partner, checked against the tier's requirements, and written to the CRM and the portal.

The short answer

What is partner certification tracking?

Partner certification tracking has four parts: every course completion and certification in the learning system matched to the person and their partner company, a count per partner against what their tier requires (for example two certified sales staff and one certified technical lead), expiry dates watched so a certification lapsing is a warning rather than a surprise at tier review, and the result written to the CRM and the portal so deal registration and tier decisions can use it. Most programs track completions and stop there. A partner with ten people who finished the intro course and nobody certified on the product they sell looks well trained.

Stage 2 of 6: Train and certify. Part of Partner integrations, end to end : every stage, the systems it runs on and the guide that builds it.

What matters here

Match every completion to the partner company that employs the person. Tiers are about the partner.
Count against the tier's requirements. Completions alone make an untrained partner look busy.
Watch expiry dates. A certification lapsing should warn the partner months ahead, not show up at tier review.
Put certifications where decisions are made: on the partner account in the CRM, and on the deal registration check.
Show partners their own standing in the portal. They can't fix a gap they can't see.

Who this is for

You run partner operations or partner training. Training lives in a learning system, tiers live in the CRM, and the two are reconciled in a spreadsheet before each tier review.

How it works in practice

From a partner's employee passing an exam to the partner's tier reflecting it.

1

A completion is recorded in the learning system

A course finished or a certification passed, with the date and any expiry.
2

It is matched to the partner

By the person's contact record, or their email domain, against the partner account in the CRM.
3

The partner's count is updated

Certified people by product and role, against what their tier requires.
4

Gaps and expiries are flagged

A partner below their tier's requirement, or with a certification expiring within ninety days.
5

The CRM and the portal are updated

So the partner manager, deal registration and the partner all see the same standing.

What certification tracking is made of

Four parts. The second is the one that makes training mean something.

Completions matched to partners

Each person tied to a contact on a partner account, so a certification counts for the company that employs them.

Tier requirements as a table

How many certified people each tier needs, by product and role, in a table partner operations can change.

Expiry warnings

At ninety and thirty days, to the person and their partner manager, with the course to renew.

Standing where decisions are made

On the CRM partner account, in the portal for the partner, and available to the deal registration check.

The Tray Headless prompts

Paste these into Claude Code or Codex with the Tray Headless plugin installed. Each stage runs on its own. The systems named in them are the worked example rather than a requirement, and every prompt says so.

Once per project, run /tray-workflows:set-workspace to pick the workspace these build in. Point it at a sandbox first.

Find what the learning system records

Before matching, see what you can match on.

Headless skills build-workflow

Use build-workflow. The systems in play are Docebo, Salesforce,
Impartner and Slack, or whatever we run in those seats. Before you
plan anything, tell me which are already authenticated.

Show me the completion and certification records for partner users
in Docebo: who, which course or certification, when, and any expiry.
Tell me whether partner users carry their company anywhere, or only
an email address.

Match each completion to a partner

Tiers are about the partner, not the person.

Headless skills build-workflow tray-gotchas

Use build-workflow and tray-gotchas. For each completion, find the
contact in Salesforce by email. If there is none, match the email
domain to a partner account.

If the domain matches more than one partner, or none, send it to
partner operations in Slack with the person and the course, and keep
it out of the counts until someone decides.

Create the contact on the partner account when the domain match is
clear, so the next completion matches directly.

Count against the tier

Completions alone make an untrained partner look busy.

Keep a table of tier requirements: for each tier, how many people
must hold which certification, by product and role.

For each partner, count current certified people by certification,
ignoring anything expired. Write to the Salesforce partner account:
certified people by product, whether they meet their tier, and the
earliest expiry.

Copy the same standing to the partner's page in Impartner, so they see
what we see.

Warn before expiry, and feed deal registration

So a lapse is a warning, not a tier review surprise.

At ninety and thirty days before a certification expires, email the
person with the renewal course, and tell their partner manager if the
lapse would take the partner below their tier.

Make the partner's certified products available to the deal
registration check, so a registration for a product nobody at the
partner is certified on is flagged to the partner manager rather than
accepted silently.

Flag, don't reject. A partner mid-certification with a real deal is worth a conversation.

What it connects to

Training happens in the learning system. Decisions about partners happen in the CRM.

Docebo

Read course completions, certifications and expiry dates for partner users.

Reads

Thinkific

Where partner courses run there instead, read completions the same way.

Reads

Salesforce

Match people to partner accounts, and record certified people, tier standing and the earliest expiry.

Reads and writes

Impartner

Show each partner their own certification standing against their tier.

Writes

Slack

Ask partner ops to place a completion that matches no partner, and warn partner managers about lapses.

Writes

Same build, other stacks

The design does not change if you run something else in one of these seats. The same prompts build it against Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot or Google Chat.

Connections in this build

Field mapping, templates and common problems for each pairing: Docebo + Salesforce, Impartner + Salesforce and Salesforce + Slack.

Named systems are the ones most teams run, not the only ones that work. Each is an authentication in your Tray workspace, referenced by name, so the workflow never holds a credential. Where we have a connector page, the name links to it.

Running it in production

Tier, discount and deal acceptance all depend on this count.

It runs on every completion

Standing is current the moment someone passes, not at the next spreadsheet refresh.

Expired means expired

Lapsed certifications drop out of the count on their expiry date, with warnings well before.

Credentials stay in the workspace

The learning system, CRM and portal are separate authentications in your workspace.

Partner ops own the requirements

The tier table opens in Tray Build, so a program change is an edit, not a project.

Questions people ask

Why not just report course completions?

Because a partner with ten people who finished the intro course and nobody certified on the product they sell looks well trained. Count certifications against the tier's requirements.

Should certification affect deal registration?

It should inform it. Flag a registration for a product nobody at the partner is certified on to the partner manager, rather than rejecting it outright.

How early should expiry warnings go out?

Ninety and thirty days before, to the person and, if the lapse would drop the partner below their tier, to their partner manager.

Can partners see their own standing?

Yes. The same counts go to their page in the portal, so they can see a gap and close it before tier review.

Related guides

Revenue operations