Credentialing Software

What is Credentialing Software?

Credentialing software is used by professionals or HR personnel to digitally track and administer professional licensure, certifications, and documents that indicate the holder is legally or, in accordance with any governing policy, able to perform work. They are also used to certify that employees and individuals possess certain specialized skills or qualifications.

Credentialing and credentials management software allows businesses to convert from physical credential and badge management to digital credentials. This poses several benefits, including better visibility, increased administrative efficiency, and more accessibility, especially for distributed or remote teams.

There are several common areas of credentials that credentialing software focuses on. The most general-use credentials include common HR credentials, such as employee badges. Credentialing software can also manage skills-based credentials based on professional coursework employees have conducted. However, the most crucial application of credentialing software is for management credentials necessary for regulatory compliance. Fields like healthcare have been heavily reliant on these systems already, but credentialing software can also be valuable in other highly regulated industries, or in large enterprises with strict internal training requirements.

Any credentialing system a business uses should integrate with its learning management system (LMS) as a core requirement. Some LMS’s are preempting the need for 2 systems by building in credentialing and credential management capabilities natively. Whether through a first or 3rd party feature, credentialing and credential management should have a low or no-friction workflow from the organization’s LMS.

Credentialing Software Features & Capabilities

Credentialing software may vary in feature sets depending on what niche a particular product caters to. However, credentialing software should cover most or all of these feature areas:

• Tracking employees’ earned credentials

• Tracking credential’s recertification or expiration dates

• Integrations with 3rd-party learning management platforms

• Credential design and creation tools

Credentialing Software Comparison

1. Skills Credentials vs. Compliance Credentials: Does the business have a focus on facilitating/giving visibility to credentialing skills employees have/acquire, or do they prioritize managing the credentials necessary to comply with industry-specific standards? This distinction determines how important features like credential expiration tracking, integrations with credentialing associations, and native credential design tools are to the business.

2. Standalone credentialing vs. Identity Management/LMS Add-On: Does the business already have a learning management system that offers credential management features? This is most relevant when businesses are interested in managing skills-based credentials. However, for industry specific or compliance-focused use cases, standalone credentialing may be a necessity. In this case, buyers should ensure that every credentialing option integrates well with their LMS to allow for scalability.

3. Managing Credentials vs. Building Credentials: Most can both create credentials and manage existing ones. However, many are stronger in one area over the other. Buyers should look to reviewer feedback for the best sense of where each product is stronger or weaker.

Pricing Information

There are some free versions of credentialing software for individual use or small businesses. Paid plans start around $50/month and scale up with custom pricing, larger use bases, implementation, and other add-on costs for larger deployments.