How to Set Up Certification Requirements So Only Qualified Instructors Appear in the Booking Widget
Published September 24, 2026 · Rock Climbing
How to Set Up Certification Requirements So Only Qualified Instructors Appear in the Booking Widget
You run a climbing school. Two of your five guides hold AMGA Rock Guide. One holds only Single Pitch Instructor. The other two are training up but hold nothing yet. You offer intro climbs, multi-pitch climbs, and technical skill clinics, and each one demands a different level of training and experience.
You could track all of that outside the product: a spreadsheet, a group text, or someone's memory of who can teach what. Then someone books a multi-pitch online, and the system offers an instructor who has only taught intro climbs, and now you are explaining to a customer why their confirmed lesson is not actually confirmed after all.
That confusion happens because most appointment tools treat every instructor as equally qualified for every lesson. They are designed for salons and gyms, where anyone on the schedule can cut hair or run a yoga class. They are not designed for outdoor schools, where some instructors can lead a full-day alpine route and some cannot, and the difference matters on a booking widget just as much as it matters on a cliff.
Seshana solves this by letting you define the certifications your school recognizes, attach requirements to specific lesson types, and then filter the booking widget and the admin assignment list by who actually holds the credentials for that activity. When a customer tries to book a multi-pitch climb, they see only the two guides who hold Rock Guide. When an instructor's certification expires, they stop appearing for lessons that require it until they renew.
This guide walks through the setup from scratch: how to define a certification catalog for your school, how to attach requirements to lesson types, how to add credentials to each instructor's profile with expiration dates, and what a customer sees when only a subset of your team is qualified. By the end, your booking widget will be an accurate reflection of who can actually teach each activity, not just who is available that morning.
Table of Contents
Why Instructor Certification Requirements Matter
Outdoor lesson businesses face a problem that hair salons and yoga studios do not: not every instructor can teach every lesson. A kiteboarding school distinguishes between IKO Level 1 instructors who teach beginner land lessons and IKO Level 3 instructors who teach advanced water starts and jumps. A sailing center separates ASA 101 Basic Keelboat instructors from ASA 103 Basic Coastal Cruising instructors. A horseback riding barn requires CHA certification for trail rides and a higher level for jumping lessons.
If your booking system does not know the difference, it will offer unqualified instructors to customers, and you will not find out until someone tries to confirm the lesson or the instructor shows up and realizes they are not supposed to be teaching that activity.
Most outdoor schools handle this manually. Someone keeps a spreadsheet of who holds what. Someone checks it before confirming a booking. Someone remembers to update it when a certification renews. That works until the school hires a fourth instructor, adds a second location, or starts offering a wider range of lessons, and then the manual system becomes a bottleneck and a risk.
Seshana moves that tracking into the product. You define the certifications your school recognizes, attach requirements to lesson types, add credentials to instructor profiles, and the system filters the booking widget and the admin assignment list by who is actually qualified. When a certification expires, the instructor stops appearing for lessons that require it until they renew. When a customer books online, they see only instructors who hold the credentials for that specific activity.
That does not replace your judgment as the operator. It removes the manual lookup step that used to happen before every booking, and it prevents a customer from booking someone who should not be teaching them in the first place.
What Seshana's Certification Tracking Does and What It Does Not Do
Before walking through the setup, here is what certification tracking is and is not designed to do.
It filters the booking widget and the admin assignment list by who holds the required credentials. When a lesson type requires AMGA Rock Guide, the booking widget offers only instructors who hold that certification with a current expiration date. The admin assignment screen shows those instructors at the top of the list, labeled as qualified, with unqualified instructors below them.
It tracks expiration dates and sends reminders. Thirty days before a certification expires, Seshana emails the instructor and the school's admins. When it expires, another notification goes out. Depending on how the school configures expiration handling, an expired certification can block new assignments, remove the instructor from upcoming lessons that require it, or just warn the admin.
It stores uploaded certificates. Instructors and admins can upload a PDF or image of the physical certificate. Seshana displays it on the instructor's profile but does not verify it against an issuing body. That verification is the school's responsibility.
It does not auto-assign instructors. Seshana narrows the list to qualified candidates and sorts by availability. The admin still picks who teaches the lesson. Certification requirements filter and label the assignment list; they never make the choice for you. For more on how assignment works, see How to Assign Instructors to Outdoor Lessons Without Guessing Who's Free, which covers availability scoring, the assignment screen, and how the product supports the admin decision rather than replacing it.
It does not track training hours, skill progression, or course syllabi. Certification tracking is credential plus expiration, not a curriculum management system. If your school needs to track which modules an instructor has completed toward a full certification, that belongs in a training log outside Seshana.
It does not preload certifications per sport. The catalog starts empty. You define what your school recognizes, and those definitions drive the system. An instructor credential that is not in the catalog is stored but satisfies no requirement until an admin maps it.
With that framing in place, here is how to set it up.
Step One: Turn on Certification Tracking
Certification tracking is off by default. Turn it on from Settings. Navigate to Settings, open the General section, and toggle Instructor Certification Tracking to on. Save the change.
Once enabled, a new Certifications section appears in the Team screen, and lesson type editing gains a Required Certifications section. Instructors see a Certifications section on their own profile where they can add and update their credentials.
Turning certification tracking on does not change how existing lessons or assignments work. It only activates the setup and filtering surfaces. Until you define certifications and attach requirements to lesson types, nothing is filtered.
Step Two: Define the Certifications Your School Recognizes
Open the Team screen and navigate to the Certifications tab. This is where you define the certifications your school recognizes. Click Add Certification. Enter the certification name and the issuing organization. For example, a climbing school might define AMGA Single Pitch Instructor issued by the American Mountain Guides Association, and AMGA Rock Guide issued by the same organization.
Add every certification your school requires for any lesson type. A kiteboarding school might add IKO Level 1, IKO Level 2, IKO Level 3, and IKO Level 4. A sailing center might add ASA 101, ASA 103, ASA 104, ASA 105, and US Sailing Small Boat Instructor. A horseback riding barn might add CHA Certified Riding Instructor, CHA Master Instructor, and PATH International Certified Therapeutic Riding Instructor.
This catalog is your single source of truth. When an instructor adds a credential to their profile, they pick from this list. When you attach a requirement to a lesson type, you pick from this list. An instructor who holds a certification that is not in the catalog can still store it on their profile, but it will not satisfy any lesson-type requirement until you add it to the catalog.
Once you have defined the certifications your school recognizes, move to the next step: attaching requirements to lesson types.
Step Three: Attach Requirements to Lesson Types
Open the Lesson Types screen from the admin sidebar. Edit one of your lesson types. Scroll to the new Required Certifications section. Click Add Requirement and pick a certification from the catalog you just defined. Save the lesson type.
Repeat for every lesson type that requires a specific credential. A climbing school might set AMGA Single Pitch Instructor as required for Intro Climb and AMGA Rock Guide as required for Multi-Pitch Climb. A sailing school might require ASA 101 for Basic Keelboat Lesson and ASA 103 for Coastal Cruising Lesson. A kiteboarding school might require IKO Level 2 for beginner lessons on land and IKO Level 3 for water lessons.
You can attach multiple certifications to a single lesson type. If an activity requires both a sport-specific certification and a wilderness first responder credential, add both. An instructor must hold all required certifications with current expiration dates to be considered qualified for that lesson type.
Lesson types with no required certifications remain open to any assigned instructor, just as they were before you turned on certification tracking. This is intentional: you may have general lessons that any instructor can teach, and those should not be gated.
Once you have attached requirements to the relevant lesson types, the next step is adding credentials to each instructor's profile.
Step Four: Add Credentials to Each Instructor's Profile
Instructors can add their own credentials from their profile. Admins can add credentials for instructors from the Team screen. Open the instructor's profile, navigate to the Certifications section, and click Add Certification. Pick the certification from the catalog, enter the date earned and the expiration date, and optionally upload a PDF or image of the certificate. Save the credential.
Repeat for every instructor. A fully configured instructor profile lists every certification they hold, the expiration date for each, and a copy of the certificate if uploaded. That profile becomes the source of truth for whether the instructor is qualified for a given lesson type.
If an instructor holds a certification that is not in your school's catalog, add the certification to the catalog first, then add it to the instructor's profile. The product will not let you attach a requirement to a lesson type unless the certification is defined, and it will not count an instructor's credential toward a requirement unless the certification is mapped.
Once every instructor's credentials are entered, the booking widget and the admin assignment screen will filter by qualification. Test it.
Step Five: Confirm the Booking Widget Filters Correctly
Open your booking widget as a customer would see it. Pick a lesson type that requires a certification. Step through the booking flow. When the widget asks the customer to choose an instructor, it should show only instructors who hold the required certification with a current expiration date. Instructors who do not hold the certification, or whose certification has expired, should not appear in the list.
If the lesson type requires multiple certifications, the widget filters by all of them. An instructor must hold every required credential to appear.
If no instructor holds the required certification, the widget will not offer that lesson type as bookable, or it will show a message that no instructors are available for the selected time. The exact behavior depends on how your widget is configured, but the underlying logic is the same: the customer cannot book an instructor who is not qualified.
For more on how the booking widget handles instructor selection, see How the Booking Widget Lets Customers Choose a Lesson, Instructor, and Time Without Calling the School, which covers lesson-type filtering, instructor availability, and the booking confirmation flow.
Test the admin assignment screen as well. Open a lesson on the schedule, click to assign or reassign an instructor, and verify that qualified instructors appear at the top of the list, labeled as such, with unqualified instructors below them. You can still assign an unqualified instructor if you choose to, but the system will ask for confirmation and a reason. That override path is covered in a later section.
What Happens When a Certification Expires
Thirty days before a certification expires, Seshana emails the instructor and the school's admins with a reminder. The email includes the certification name, the expiration date, and a link to the instructor's profile where they can update the credential once renewed.
When the certification expires, another notification goes out to the instructor and the admins. At that point, the system treats the expired certification the same as a missing one: the instructor is no longer considered qualified for lesson types that require it.
What happens next depends on how your school configures expiration handling. Open Settings, navigate to the Certifications section, and review the expiration policy. You can choose from three options:
Warn only — The instructor is marked as unqualified in the assignment list, but existing lessons are not changed and new assignments are not blocked. The admin sees a warning and can still assign them.
Block new assignments — The instructor stops appearing in the booking widget for lessons that require the expired certification, and the admin assignment list labels them as unqualified. Existing lessons that were assigned before the expiration are not changed.
Block and clear upcoming lessons — The instructor is removed from all future lessons that require the expired certification. Past and in-progress lessons are never rewritten. No booking is cancelled; the lesson remains on the schedule with the instructor unassigned, and the admin must reassign it to someone else.
The school-wide setting is the default, but you can override it per certification if needed. A first aid certification might warrant a strict block-and-clear policy, while a sport-specific endorsement might only need a warning.
When an instructor renews the certification, update the expiration date on their profile, and they immediately become eligible again for lessons that require it.
How Admins Can Still Assign an Unqualified Instructor
Certification requirements filter the booking widget automatically, but they do not prevent an admin from assigning an unqualified instructor from the schedule screen. Sometimes a school needs to make an exception: a provisional instructor teaching under supervision, a temporary gap while a renewal is in process, or a one-time situation where the admin knows the instructor is qualified even if the system does not.
When you try to assign an instructor who does not hold the required certification, Seshana asks for confirmation. A dialog appears with a warning, a text box for a reason, and a confirm button. Enter the reason, confirm, and the assignment goes through. The reason is recorded on the lesson so the school has a log of why the override happened.
This is intentional. The product should make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing by accident, but it should never block the operator from making a judgment call. Certification requirements are a filter and a safety check, not a lock.
What a Customer Sees When Only Some Guides Are Qualified
A climbing school employs five guides. Two hold AMGA Rock Guide. One holds AMGA Single Pitch Instructor. Two are in training and hold nothing yet. The school offers two lesson types: Intro Climb, which requires Single Pitch Instructor, and Multi-Pitch Climb, which requires Rock Guide.
A customer opens the booking widget and selects Intro Climb. The widget shows three instructors: the two Rock Guide holders and the one Single Pitch Instructor holder. Rock Guide satisfies the Single Pitch Instructor requirement because the school configured it that way when defining the certifications. The two trainees do not appear.
The customer selects Multi-Pitch Climb instead. Now the widget shows only two instructors: the two who hold Rock Guide. The Single Pitch Instructor holder does not appear because that certification does not satisfy the Multi-Pitch requirement. The two trainees still do not appear.
The customer picks a date and time, selects one of the two qualified guides, and completes the booking. The lesson is confirmed, the instructor is notified, and the customer receives a confirmation email. No phone call to check whether that guide is actually qualified. No surprise reassignment later. The booking widget showed only instructors who could teach that lesson, and the customer picked one of them.
That is what certification tracking does: it moves the qualification check from after the booking to before it, so the customer never books someone who should not be teaching them.
FAQ
What if an instructor holds a certification that is not in our catalog? Add it to the catalog first. Open the Team screen, navigate to Certifications, and define the certification with its name and issuing organization. Then add it to the instructor's profile. The product will not count an unmapped credential toward a lesson-type requirement.
Can I require multiple certifications for one lesson type? Yes. Add as many required certifications as the activity demands. An instructor must hold all of them with current expiration dates to be considered qualified.
What if a certification never expires? Leave the expiration date field blank when adding the credential to an instructor's profile. Seshana treats it as perpetually current, and no expiration reminders are sent.
Can I override the school-wide expiration policy for a specific certification? Yes. When defining or editing a certification in the catalog, you can set a custom expiration policy that overrides the school-wide default. A critical credential like wilderness first responder might block and clear upcoming lessons, while a sport endorsement might only warn.
Does Seshana verify that an uploaded certificate is genuine? No. The uploaded certificate is stored and displayed on the instructor's profile, but nothing checks it against an issuing body. That verification is the school's responsibility.
What happens if I delete a certification from the catalog? Instructor credentials tied to that certification are not deleted, but they no longer satisfy any lesson-type requirement. The credential remains on the instructor's profile as a record, but it is treated as unmapped until you add the certification back to the catalog.
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