Hi Clare,

the main difference between a Certification and a Programme is that a Certification can be set to "Expire" so that the learner has to re-complete the course/s in order to remain "Certified" so it sounds like Certifications may suit your needs.

Things to note about Certifications:

 * In order to reset the course/s for re-completion, Totara will archive the previous completion data - the data is held in a report so it can be retrieved if needed. However, the grade/pass mark will no longer appear in the RoL.

 * You can set one expiry date per Certification - this means that for your scenario, you would need to set up two Certifications - one for the yearly, and one for the every 3 years.

 * You set the Re-certification pathway and can use part or all of the course/s and activities from the original Certification.

 * Ensure that you have the "Program" enrolment method enabled.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Why can I not pick a certification manual like I can a program?"

More reading on Certifications (if you haven't already) can be found on Totara Help here (though you may want to filter first by the version of Totara that you use): https://help.totaralearning.com/display/TL12/Certifications

Here is a link to the Totara Academy - you can filter the courses by the version of Totara that you use: https://totara.community/totara/catalog/?cfp_multiselect_typetype_90594%5B0%5D=Course&cfp_multiselect_typetype_90594%5B1%5D=Program&orderbykey=featured&itemstyle=narrow

Kind regards,

Lisa