(Pro) Sometimes you want to store information against a certificate for your own records without showing it to the public — an internal reference, a payment note, an assessor’s ID. Custom fields can be marked as not public.
How it works
When you add or edit a custom field, you choose whether it appears on the public verification result:
- Public — the field’s label and value show on the verification page for anyone who checks the certificate.
- Not public — the field is stored against the record and visible to you in the admin area, but never shown on the public page.
A useful pattern
Keep learner-facing details public (grade, completion type) and internal details private (invoice number, internal notes). Verifiers see a clean, relevant result; you keep the full context in your own records.
How to Make a Custom Field Private?
Note: Custom columns brought in through a CSV import are treated as public by default. If some of those should be private, open the affected records and switch those fields to not public after importing — or set them as private on the record before you rely on the public page.
There are two ways to make a custom field private. You can either make it private while adding a custom field manually or editing an already added records from the Manage Data option.
To add a custom field manually, simply go to to Certificate Validator → Data Management and open the Add Data tab. After clicking “Add Custom Field,” you can enter any additional details specific to your document type. Here, you will find a tickbar.
You will find a checkbox labeled “Show publicly” right after or below the value field. If you select this checkbox, the custom field data will be visible to the public. If you leave it unchecked, the specific custom field data will remain private and can only be viewed by you from the backend.
How to Make Multiple Records or Fields Private?
As mentioned earlier, when you bulk upload certificate data, all custom fields are set as public by default. However, you may want to make certain custom fields private for specific certificate records.
To make custom fields private, go to Certificate Validator → Data Management and open the Manage Data tab. Select the certificate record you want to update, then click the + button next to the record. From there, you can view the existing custom fields for that certificate, add new custom fields, and change their visibility settings between public and private.
Once you have made the necessary changes, click Save Extras to apply the updates.
Please note that you cannot change the visibility status of custom fields for multiple certificate records at the same time. Each certificate record must be updated individually. However, within a single certificate record, you can update the visibility status of all custom fields at once using this method.
