Access Expiration - Article

What Access Expiration helps you achieve

Access Expiration places an end point on a participant's access to the complete Training Activity.

It is useful when the right to use learning content is intentionally temporary. Common examples include:

• Give a customer 90 days to use purchased training after enrollment.
• Keep cohort materials available for one month after the scheduled program ends.
• Let participants revisit course resources for 12 months after completing the training.
• End access for everyone at the close of a licensing, academic, or contract period.
• Remove access manually when an individual exception or contractual decision requires it.
• Restore access for an approved extension without creating an entirely new activity.

When the rule takes effect, the participant's activity signup becomes Expired and the participant can no longer open the activity.

Expiration ends access; it does not erase history

The participant's signup remains in the administrative record. Administrators can still review the participant through the activity's Progress and reporting areas, and can reactivate access where appropriate.

Choose the correct lifecycle control

Several Eurekos features involve dates or access, but they answer different business questions.

These controls can be combined when each has a distinct purpose. For example, a mandatory compliance activity can have a completion deadline, remain accessible for 30 days after completion, and issue a certificate that remains valid for two years.

Avoid using certificate expiration as a substitute for activity expiration. A participant may no longer hold a valid qualification while still needing access to training materials, or may retain a valid certificate after the learning activity itself is no longer accessible.

Understand the scope of Access Expiration

Access Expiration is an activity-level feature. It applies to the participant's relationship with the complete Training Activity.

When access expires:

• The participant cannot open the Training Activity.
• All modules reached through that activity relationship become inaccessible.
• The signup status changes to Expired.
• The expiration is visible administratively rather than deleting the signup.

Access Expiration is not configured separately for one Course, Event, Assignment, or Existing Training module.

If only part of a learning journey should be unavailable:

• Use Access Restrictions to control when a supported Course or Event module opens.
• Use Course-page restrictions when the requirement concerns a page inside a Course.
• Use Event dates and attendance behavior for scheduled participation.
• Redesign the activity structure if different components need independent entitlement periods.

Do not place unrelated learning under one activity merely because it is administratively convenient. An activity-wide expiration rule will affect every module reached through that signup.

Permissions and ownership

Configuring Access Expiration requires permission to edit the Training Activity and its activity-level Features. Course Administrator, Support, Platform Administrator, and Global Administrator roles normally have access, subject to platform configuration and organization scope.

Expiring and reactivating participants also require access to the activity's Participants section and the relevant signup actions.

Define ownership for:

• Business policy—decides how long access should remain available.
• Course Administration—configures and tests the rule.
• Participant operations—reviews exceptions and performs manual expiration or reactivation.
• Communication—owns the warning email and any contractual wording.
• Reporting and compliance—confirms that retained records satisfy the required evidence model.
• Commerce or customer success—confirms that the period agrees with the purchased or contracted entitlement.

Time-limited access can affect paid customers and regulated learners. Do not change it on a live activity without an agreed owner and impact review.

Configure Access Expiration

To add the feature:

1. Open Course Administration.
2. Open the Training Activity.
3. Choose Edit activity.
4. Open the activity-level Features.
5. Add or enable Access Expiration.
6. Choose the expiration condition.
7. Enter the required number, date, time, and notification period.
8. Save the Training Activity.
9. Test with a new participant registered after the rule was saved.

The exact fields depend on the selected condition.

Important limitation for At the time of

The direct At the time of conditions can be selected in the configuration, but the current documented behavior does not evaluate these non-relative conditions. For example, selecting expiration exactly when the activity starts should not be relied on to remove access.

Use a supported Days after, Months after, or At specific date rule that has been tested for the intended scenario. Do not assume that entering zero in a relative rule is a supported substitute unless that behavior has been verified on your platform.

Choose the correct expiration model

The best condition depends on whether every participant should lose access together or receive an individual access period.

Fixed-date access

Use At specific date when everyone should lose access at the same moment.

Typical uses include:

• A content license ends on 31 December.
• A cohort portal closes after a defined review period.
• A customer contract grants access until an agreed date.
• Exam-preparation materials must close before a controlled assessment window.

Enter both the date and time. Review the time-zone context shown on your platform, especially when participants are in several regions. A date without a clearly understood time can close access earlier or later than stakeholders expect.

Before opening enrollment, compare the expiration date with:

• Activity Starts and Ends
• Latest registration
• Mandatory deadline
• Event dates
• Assignment due dates
• Feedback availability
• Certificate completion criteria
• Storefront or subscription entitlement
• Participant notification lead time

A shared expiration date becomes progressively less useful for late enrollees. Someone registered near the closing date may receive far less access than earlier participants.

Access relative to enrollment

Use Days after User enrollment or Months after User enrollment when each participant should receive the same access duration.

Example:

Every buyer receives six months of access from the day they enroll.

The resulting dates differ by participant:

This model is useful for self-paced learning, evergreen customer education, and individually purchased access.

Confirm what counts as the signup's enrollment time for each route you use, including administrator enrollment, Storefront purchase, onboarding automation, import, integration, nested training, or approved participation request. Test representative routes rather than assuming that every business process creates the signup at the same stage.

Access relative to activity start or end

Use the activity start or end when access should follow the scheduled delivery rather than the participant's personal enrollment time.

Examples:

• Access ends 30 days after the cohort finishes.
• Preparation remains open for 14 days after the program starts.
• Materials remain available for 12 months after the final scheduled day.

These rules depend on the applicable activity Schedule. Before registration begins:

• Confirm the activity has the required Starts or Ends value.
• Confirm the Schedule is configured at the correct level for the rule.
• Verify the time zone.
• Decide how a later reschedule should affect the business commitment.
• Test a participant registered before the relevant lifecycle date and one registered after it.

Changing a Schedule can affect status and completion elsewhere in the activity. Review access, automated emails, Events, Locations, Equipment, Mandatory deadlines, and commerce communication together.

Access relative to training completion

Use Days/Months after Training completed when participants should retain access for a defined review period after finishing.

The trigger is the participant's Completed training status. Opening every page, attending an Event, or submitting an Assignment is not enough unless those actions result in Completed status for the relevant activity signup.

Example:

1. The activity is configured to expire six months after Training completed.
2. The participant completes the required learning.
3. The signup receives Completed status.
4. Eurekos calculates the participant's expiration date.
5. A clock icon appears in the Participants section while expiration is pending.
6. At the calculated time, the signup becomes Expired and activity access ends.

This option provides a personal review period, but the expiry date is not permanently fixed if completion status changes.

Understand completion-based recalculation

For a completion-based condition, Eurekos recalculates expiration when the participant's training status changes from Completed to another status.

This can happen when an administrator changes the Course scope, content, activity structure, or Schedule and the participant no longer satisfies completion.

When completion is lost:

• The signup can return to In Progress.
• The existing completion-based expiration date is removed.
• The clock icon disappears because no completed-state countdown is active.
• A new expiration date can be calculated if and when the signup becomes Completed again.

This protects the logic from counting down from a completion state that no longer exists.

Before changing live learning after participants have completed it:

1. Identify which signups currently have completion-based expiration dates.
2. Determine whether the change can recalculate participant progress or completion.
3. Review certificate and re-certification consequences separately.
4. Test the change on a controlled copy where possible.
5. Plan communication for participants whose access period changes.
6. Recheck clock icons and expiration dates after saving.

Do not promise a fixed post-completion access date if administrators may later make changes that revoke or recalculate completion.

Plan the rule before enrollment

Access Expiration configuration is not retroactive in the same way as a general live policy update.

Changes apply to participants registered after the relevant condition was applied.

Participants who were already registered keep the expiration behavior associated with their existing signup. Adding, changing, or replacing the rule does not automatically make every historical signup adopt the new condition.

This means one Training Activity can contain participants with different access arrangements:

• Earlier signups with no automatic expiration
• Signups created under the previous rule
• New signups created under the current rule
• Individually reactivated signups with unlimited access
• Individually reactivated signups with a new expiration date

Before changing the rule:

1. Export or review the current participant list.
2. Identify the registration periods governed by each rule.
3. Decide whether existing participants need individual action.
4. Record the business reason and effective date of the new policy.
5. Update participant-facing descriptions and commercial terms.
6. Save the new activity configuration.
7. Test with a newly registered account.
8. Verify older representative signups remain unchanged.

The activity Change log can record changes to Access expires and User to be notified. Use it to establish what was configured, while retaining separate business documentation when you need to explain why the policy changed.

Notify participants before access expires

Access Expiration can notify the participant a specified number of days before the calculated expiration.

Configure the notification as part of the expiration rule. The platform uses the system email:

Settings → Email Sending → Activities → Activity access expiration – user

The email is commonly presented to the participant as Access to course is about to expire.

Use the message to explain:

• Which Training Activity is affected
• The expiration date and time
• What the participant should complete or download before then
• Whether earned certificates remain available separately
• Whether an extension, new enrollment, purchase, or support route exists
• Who to contact when the date appears incorrect

The built-in expiration notification is separate from an Automated Email Workflow. Use the native email for the defined pre-expiry warning. Use an automated workflow only for additional communication that its supported audiences and timing can reliably express.

Choose a useful notification period

Match the warning period to the participant's realistic ability to act.

Test the email with a newly created signup under the active rule. Confirm language, dynamic values, time zone, links, notification scheme, and sender configuration.

Understand what administrators see before expiration

When the expiration countdown is active, the activity's Participants section displays a clock icon next to the participant.

The tooltip identifies when access will end, for example:

Access expires on 14 Mar 2026 – 13:41 CET

The clock appears when the expiration has a calculable pending date. For example:

• A fixed date provides a date immediately for an applicable signup.
• An enrollment-relative rule can calculate from registration.
• An activity-start or activity-end rule requires the relevant Schedule value.
• A completion-relative rule cannot calculate until the signup becomes Completed.

The clock icon disappears when:

• The signup becomes Expired.
• A completion-based signup loses Completed status and no expiration date can currently be calculated.
• The signup is reactivated with unlimited access.
• The underlying signup state no longer has a pending expiration under its stored arrangement.

Use the tooltip as operational evidence for that participant. Do not infer one participant's date from the activity rule alone when historic and manually reactivated signups may have different arrangements.

Understand the participant experience after expiration

When the expiration time is reached, the signup becomes Expired and the participant loses access to the complete activity.

The activity is no longer displayed to the participant in:

• My progress
• My overview → Last visited
• Trainings I attend
• Profile → My trainings
• The participant's User transcript

Administrators continue to see the participant on the activity's Progress page and in administrative reporting.

This distinction supports audit and service work: expiration removes the learner's access route without deleting the underlying signup.

Expiration is not cancellation

Do not cancel a participant merely to implement a time limit. Cancellation and expiration describe different business events and can lead to different participant communication, capacity, reporting, and reactivation behavior.

Understand what expiration does not automatically change

Access Expiration is scoped to the activity signup. Treat related records as separate lifecycles.

The current public User Profile guidance also distinguishes time-limited learning access from historical credentials: certificates and related achievements follow their own records and validity. Confirm the current display behavior on your platform when participant-facing proof must remain available after the activity disappears.

Account for seat capacity

An Expired signup still occupies a seat in the Training Activity.

This is important for scheduled or commercially limited training. Do not assume that automatic or manual expiration returns the seat to general availability.

Before using Access Expiration as part of a capacity process:

• Review the Seats configuration.
• Review organization seat limits.
• Check waiting-list and automatic-promotion behavior.
• Decide whether the expired participant should remain represented in capacity.
• Test how later new signups behave at the limit.
• Define the administrative action for a genuine seat release.

If the business requirement is to cancel attendance and free capacity, use the supported cancellation and participant-management process rather than relying on expiration.

Expire access manually

An authorized administrator can expire a registered participant without waiting for the activity rule.

To expire one participant:

1. Open the Training Activity.
2. Open Participants.
3. Find the participant with a Registered signup.
4. Select the participant.
5. Choose Expire access from the toolbar or the row's context menu.
6. Confirm the action.
7. Verify the signup now shows Expired.
8. Confirm the activity is no longer accessible to the participant.

The action can also be available as a bulk operation for selected signups.

Use manual expiration for an individual access decision, such as:

• A contractual entitlement ends early.
• Access was granted to the wrong person.
• A controlled assessment window has closed for one participant.
• A support correction must reproduce an Expired state.

Do not use it when the real requirement is to remove the user from the platform, cancel an Event, revoke a certificate, or stop re-certification. Those require their own processes.

Reactivate an expired signup

Reactivation restores a signup that is Expired. The action can also be available for a Cancelled signup, subject to the participant state and permissions.

Two reactivation options are available:

To reactivate one participant:

1. Open the Training Activity.
2. Open Participants.
3. Find the Expired signup.
4. Select the participant.
5. Choose Reactivate.
6. Select unlimited access or enter the new expiration date.
7. Confirm the action.
8. Verify the signup becomes active and the participant can open the activity.
9. Confirm any new clock icon and tooltip show the approved date.

Before reactivation, check:

• Whether a new purchase or approval is required
• Whether the participant should resume the same signup or receive a new signup
• Whether Courses, Events, and Assignments have changed
• Whether earlier progress is still appropriate
• Whether the Schedule, deadline, certificate, and re-certification rules remain meaningful
• Whether the activity still belongs to the participant's organization or entitlement
• Whether reactivation affects a full activity with limited seats

Reactivate with unlimited access only when indefinite access is intentional. It creates an exception to the normal time-limited model and should have a recorded owner and reason.

Use bulk reactivation carefully

When several Expired signups exist for the same email address, bulk reactivation does not create duplicate active signups. Eurekos reactivates only the signup that expired most recently.

This protects the participant list from multiple active records, but it also means the administrator must not assume every historical attempt was reopened.

Before a bulk action:

1. Filter the list to the intended participants and statuses.
2. Check whether duplicate historical signups exist.
3. Identify which signup expired last.
4. Confirm whether progress and completion on that signup are the correct records to restore.
5. Select unlimited access or a new expiration date deliberately.
6. Recheck a sample of participants after processing.

For a compliance or paid-access exception, validate each affected participant individually after the bulk operation.

Decide between reactivation and a new signup

Reactivation and new enrollment serve different lifecycle models.

Some enrollment routes can create a new Registered signup while preserving the older Expired record.

User import behavior

When user import is configured with the Activity column and Reactivate expired signups, importing an existing user with an expired signup creates a new signup for the listed activity. The behavior is similar to a new Storefront purchase rather than simply reopening the historical signup.

If the active expiration rule has already passed and a newly created signup would immediately become Expired, the import skips signup creation. This prevents the next scheduled expiration process from immediately expiring a signup that never had usable access.

Test imports with:

• One participant whose previous signup is Expired
• One participant whose previous signup is Cancelled
• A future fixed expiration date
• A fixed expiration date that has already passed
• A participant at the activity's seat limit
• The applicable organization filter and administrative scope

Participation approval behavior

When an approved-request signup later becomes Expired and the participant submits a new request for the same activity, approving the new request creates a new Registered signup. The old Expired signup remains in the Participants section.

This is a new participation cycle, not a restoration of the old signup. Review questionnaires, payments, capacity, and approval evidence accordingly.

Understand completion across old and new signups

A participant can have an old Expired signup and a newer Registered signup for the same Training Activity.

In this special case, the action choices for the older expired record can be limited. When an administrator uses Mark as completed on the expired signup, the participant's current Registered signup receives Completed status automatically.

Do not use this behavior casually as an attempt-management shortcut. Before forcing completion:

• Confirm which signup represents the current entitlement.
• Confirm the participant has actually met the completion requirement.
• Review whether completion should issue a certificate or start completion-based expiration.
• Check re-certification and attempt rules.
• Record the reason for the administrative completion.

Coordinate Access Expiration with activity schedules

Activity-start and activity-end rules depend on the Schedule that supplies those lifecycle dates.

Before using them, confirm:

• The Training Activity has an applicable activity-level Schedule.
• Starts and Ends are complete and correct.
• The time zone matches the delivery and participant communication.
• The activity is not relying only on several unrelated module dates.
• Repeating or linking activities will not apply a date from the wrong occurrence.

If a learning path contains several module schedules but no meaningful overall activity period, enrollment-relative, completion-relative, or fixed-date expiration may express the entitlement more clearly.

Do not treat the final Event end as the activity end unless the activity Schedule actually represents it.

Coordinate Access Expiration with Mandatory deadlines

A Mandatory deadline answers When should this be completed? Access Expiration answers When should access stop?

They can create four distinct states:

Normally, give participants enough time to complete before access ends. If access expiration precedes the Mandatory deadline, the participant can be asked to complete training they can no longer open.

When a participant is reactivated, review the Mandatory deadline separately. Deadline recalculation follows its own rules and should not be assumed from the new access date.

Coordinate Access Expiration with certificates and re-certification

Three dates can coexist:

1. The activity-access expiration date
2. The certificate expiration date
3. The re-certification availability or deadline

They do not describe the same thing.

Example:

Access Expiration does not itself:

• Revoke an issued certificate
• Extend a certificate
• Start a re-certification attempt
• Carry progress to a new attempt
• Decide whether certificate-derived Skills remain valid

If an expired participant must renew a qualification, use the supported re-certification lifecycle. If they only need temporary access to the original materials, reactivate the signup according to policy.

Coordinate Access Expiration with commerce

For paid training, the configured access period should match what was presented during purchase and in the governing terms.

Before selling the activity, confirm:

• Whether the entitlement starts at purchase, enrollment, activity start, or completion
• Whether the period is measured in days, months, or to a fixed date
• Whether late buyers receive a shorter period
• What happens to Additional Products after activity access ends
• Whether a subscription or individual purchase is the actual source of access
• Whether tax, invoices, refunds, and Transactions require separate treatment
• Whether renewal means reactivation, a new signup, a new purchase, or re-certification
• What the pre-expiry email may promise

Do not manually reactivate paid access unless the commercial exception has been approved. The action restores training access; it does not automatically create a new Transaction or charge.

Clone, repeat, and link activities safely

Clone

Cloning an activity copies its enabled features and configured values, subject to the documented cloning behavior. Review Access Expiration before enrolling anyone in the clone.

Check:

• Whether the same access duration applies to the new audience
• Whether a copied fixed date is already in the past
• Whether copied activity-start or activity-end rules have a valid new Schedule
• Whether the notification period and email wording remain correct
• Whether commercial terms match the new activity

Repeat

Repeating a scheduled activity creates a linked delivery. A copied fixed expiration date can close the new occurrence too early, while a schedule-relative rule can be more reusable if the new activity has correct dates.

Review every repeated occurrence before publication. Do not assume the relationship between copied rule, new Schedule, and new signups is correct merely because the activities are linked.

Linked activities and Apply to all

Activity-level features can be synchronized across linked activities when the administrator saves and selects Apply to all. Access Expiration can therefore be changed across the linked group.

Because configuration changes govern new signups rather than rewriting every existing signup, two different dimensions can coexist:

• Different linked activities can receive the same new configuration.
• Existing and new signups inside each activity can still have different expiration arrangements.

Use Apply to this only when dates, access terms, cohorts, regions, or commercial offers differ. After an Apply to all change, test one new signup in each materially different activity.

Verify the configuration

Use test accounts and shortened dates in a controlled environment or unpublished activity. Do not rely only on administrator Preview because expiration belongs to a participant signup.

Build a test matrix.

Where time must pass, use a controlled test window with enough time to observe notification and expiration processing. Allow for scheduled background processing before declaring a failure, but escalate persistent delay with exact timestamps.

Practical configuration patterns

Troubleshooting