If your organization uses both CompTIA products and a Learning Management System (LMS), it's worth looking into setting up an integration between our products and your system. This article provides a high-level overview of the following:
- Requirements
- Features
- Purchasing Methods
- Process Overview
Requirements
- CompTIA products use the LTI 1.3 Advantage standard to integrate. We do not support integration via API at this time.
- The following products support LMS integration: CertMaster Learn, CertMaster Labs, CertMaster Perform, and CertMaster Practice.
- Ebooks do not support integration.
- Certification Exams do not support integration.
- At this time, CompTIA supports integration with the following LMSes: Canvas, D2L Brightspace, Blackboard, and Moodle (version 4.0+)
Features
Account Creation – The first time users click into our products from an integration link in your LMS, an account in our platform is automatically created for them in the background using user info provided by the LMS. No need to manually create or upload users.
Class Creation and Enrollment* - The first time a user clicks into our product from a given LMS course, a corresponding course is created in the appropriate CompTIA platform, and all users who click in from that LMS course are enrolled in that class.
Role Recognition* - If an instructor or administrator clicks an integration link, they'll automatically be assigned the Instructor role in our platform, granting them reporting visibility into student progress for that LMS course.
Single Sign-on (SSO) – When a user returns to our platform via an integration link, they’re automatically logged into their account on our platform through information sent by your LMS. No need for students to retain or remember credentials, or to deal with yet another log-in page.
Easy Course Building with the Content Selector (Deep Linking) – Our integration tools include a content selector that allows instructional designers to select which of our assets they wish to include in their LMS course. Multiple assets can be added simultaneously from the content selector (as well as automatically creating corresponding gradebook entries in the LMS when desired), allowing you to build a fully fleshed-out course in your LMS very quickly. Template courses built in this way can be cloned/copied and retain integration functionality.
Assignment and Grade Services (AGS) – Within seconds of student completion, scores of graded activities are returned to the LMS Gradebook. You’ll still have all the normal reporting capabilities of our products, but grades can also be viewed at a glance from the LMS without having to enter our platform.
Flexible Purchasing Methods* – Read the next section for more info!
*At the time of writing, CompTIA is in the process of moving our Learn and Labs content from our old CertMaster platform to our brand new one. If your organization is using products that still live on the old platform, some or all aspects of the starred features may not be supported. We intend to have fully completed this content migration to the new platform by the end of 2025.
Purchase Methods
Access Keys -- When a student first clicks a link to a given CompTIA product, they'll be presented with an Access Key prompt. They can purchase this access key from the CompTIA store or from a number of online bookstores. Another benefit of this method is that they make for quick activation and immediate deployment.
Pre-purchased License Pools -- Your organization can buy a license that contains a set number of activations. If this is done, students will be given instant access the first time they click an integration link, and a seat will be deducted from the license pool associated with that product.
Unlimited Licenses/Usage-based Billing (UBB) -- This method takes some additional time to set up, but eliminates a large amount of recurring logistics once it's ready. After completing a discovery call and a signed agreement between your organization and CompTIA, unlimited licenses will be set up for the desired products. If this is done, students will be given instant access the first time they click an integration link, and CompTIA will bill your organization monthly for student usage provisioned in this way.
What if I'm interested in License Pools or Usage-based Billing (UBB), but my class starts in a week and I don't have time for sales conversations and legal agreements?
License Pools and UBB can eliminate a lot of manual labor, but they can take some time to get running, and sometimes you just need to get something going fast. In this case, we recommend starting with Access Keys for student access. These are very quick and easy to configure (a few days to a week), and in addition, switching from Access Keys to one of the other purchase methods requires no additional configuration or course-building work on your end.
Once that's set up, you can then start a conversation with CompTIA about License Pools or UBB so that you can have it ready by next term!
Process Overview
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Check Requirements - Confirm your system and desired products meet the requirements listed at the top of this article.
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Determine Timeline and Purchase Method - Read through the Purchasing Methods above and the rest of the process below, and determine a timeline for when you need the integration completed. For Access Key based integrations, we recommend dedicating a week to steps 3-7. For UBB, a month. Do not forget to include the time required for you or your team to build out your course in step 8.
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Speak with Sales and complete requirements - Speak to your organization's Sales Representative, or if you're unsure who that is, fill out this brief form and they will reach out to you shortly.
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Usage-Based Billing (UBB) specific requirements:
- LMS Integration Discovery call - Our Sales Engineering team will speak to you about your organization's requirements and confirm that this is a good fit for both parties.
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Complete required paperwork - If using Usage-based Billing, you'll need to have a signed agreement in place before continuing. Note that depending on the speed of your organization's legal team, this can take time.
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LMS Intake Form - Fill out our LMS Setup form and our Technical Implementation team will reach out to you within 1 business day with some documentation and next steps.
- If you're using UBB and have gone through the steps for that, we'll handle this part for you once the signed agreement is received.
- If you didn't fully complete the previous steps, your ticket may be put On Hold. We'll let you know if that's the case.
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Configure - Find your LMS's section on this page for more information about configuration. Note that you will need the organization-specific Registration URL provided to you by our Technical Implementation team to complete the process.
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Test - It's very easy to skip this part. Please don't! As soon as your integration is configured, we encourage testing link placement with an instructor or admin account, as well as link launch and grade syncing using an actual student account in the LMS.
- Note that issues with grade syncing are often only resolved with the complete rebuilding of the links in question, and can often affect an entire course, which is why we recommend testing before building everything out.
- If you run into any unexpected behavior, please reply to your LMS Setup ticket with a screenshot and description of any issues that come up. This is what we're here for!
- Build - It's important to note that though we make it easy to replicate our courses in your LMS using the integration, CompTIA does not provide pre-built course cartridges. You will need to build out the links in your LMS course using our tool. More information on how to use the tool to build out these links can be found in your LMS's section on this page.