The Equivalences feature enables administrators to define relationships between courses or templates that contain overlapping or equivalent content. This is particularly valuable in large or complex learning environments where multiple courses cover similar competencies, are offered in different formats (e.g., virtual vs. in-person), or evolve over time.
What organizations gain from configuring Equivalence rules:
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Eliminate redundant training by automatically marking related courses as "Covered" or let learners automatically pass courses when a learner completes an equivalent one.
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Accelerate learner progress by recognizing previously acquired knowledge, certifications, or versioned content.
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Maintain curriculum flexibility by allowing learners to voluntarily enroll in courses with a covering or passing relation for review or additional practice—without requiring them to.
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Simplify compliance tracking by ensuring learners are credited for meeting learning objectives, even if course formats or versions change over time.
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Support diverse learning paths by recognizing different combinations of courses as valid alternatives for a shared learning outcome.
Use Cases
There are two use cases:
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One course is replaced by another course with updated content and the learners must not be required to re-take the similar content. However, they should still be able to re-take it if they wish (A = B).
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Some courses are a combination of other courses. In this case, the learner can be required to take either the overall course or the courses from that it is combined but not both (C = A + B).
The multiple equivalence relation is possible, meaning that taking course A gives the learners credit for course B and C, taking course B gives the learner credit for both A and C, etc.
There a two types of equivalency relations:
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covering relations: mark courses as passed in the context of processes relation to prerequisites or learning paths
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passing relations: let learners actually pass courses automatically→ detailed explanation in “Equivalences with passing relations“
Equivalences are valid for all processes and trigger them accordingly, e. g. if a course is used as a prerequisite for another or assigned to a learning path.
A course marked as passed by the “covering relation” is not considered as a course passed directly: it does not appear in the learning history, it can still be started and completed by the learner (but it is optionally and never required).
When a learner gets passed by a “passing relation”, he/she will actually pass a course, which will affect the learning history.
Both ways, covering and passing courses are signalized by the same flag "Completion triggers/ triggered by component x" is introduced, that appears in the course tile, catalogue, and learning path.
The complete equivalences functionality including covering and passing relations is part of the base license, no additional add-on components are required to be purchased in order to use it.
Comparison between covering and passing relations
|
Features |
EQS with “covering” relation |
EQS with “passing” relation |
|---|---|---|
|
marks courses as passed |
yes |
yes |
|
change of course status |
no |
yes |
|
use course templates for defining relations |
yes |
no |
|
gain skills and certifications |
no |
yes |
|
supports sets of relations |
yes |
yes |
|
impact on learning logic and prerequisites |
yes |
yes (due to actual passing) |
|
EQS flag and on-hover information about related components |
yes |
yes (same info text as covering relation) |
|
deletion of relation automatically reverts covered/passed status |
yes |
status remains “passed” |
Functions in the Equivalences Administration
An equivalences manager is available that allows defining “covering” relations between courses and course templates. For “passing“ relations the equivalences can only defined between courses.
On the start page of the manager, all available equivalence relations are displayed. This list is paginated with a default number of 50 elements on page. Search is also available and can be done by Name, Identification code, Description, Object ID. The following columns are also available and they can be activated or deactivated from expanding the Columns section and sorted: Name, Identification code, Learning mode, EQS type, Relations type, Last update, Planning status, Language.
An element is present in this list as long there is at least one type of relation defined for it.
The user has the possibility to add a new component and define relations for it:
By selecting the "Relations for covering” a selection of course templates and courses is available. When selecting “Relations for passing“ only courses are available for selection.
After making the selection and clicking on Add, the edit mode will open, which allows the possibility to define the equivalence relations for the selected component.
Categories of Covering Relations of Equivalences
The following section regarding the three equivalence categories explains the categories of equivalence relations based on “covering relations”.
Category 1 → Triggers completion of → (Covers)
Goals: Defines which learning items (courses or templates) are automatically credited when a primary course is completed.
Benefit: Reduces unnecessary effort, shortens time to compliance and simplifies learner experience..
Rules/Constraints
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Administrators can only select individual items to be marked as Covered. No grouping or complex logic (eg: sets).
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One-way relationship: Completion of the main course triggers coverage of the others — not vice versa.
Category 2 → Completion triggered by (Is covered by)
Goal: Defines which courses or templates must be completed (individually or in combination) for the target course to be automatically marked as Covered.
Benefit: Enables flexible learning strategies, supports microlearning, and aligns with competency frameworks.
Rules/Constraints: Allows both simple OR and complex AND/OR combinations (eg: sets).
Category 3 → Mutual equivalence (Both ways)
Goal/Behavior: Defines a bidirectional equivalence between two learning items, where completing either one covers the other.
Benefit: Minimizes duplicate effort across global or multi-brand learning programs, ensures continuity during course migration or rebranding (eg: when companies offer regional, language, or vendor-specific variants of the same content, or when transitioning between course versions).
Rules/Constraints: Completing either item marks the other as Covered.
Category 1 → Triggers completion of → (Covers)
Goals: Defines which learning items (courses or templates) are automatically credited when a primary course is completed.
Benefit: Reduces unnecessary effort, shortens time to compliance and simplifies learner experience..
Rules/Constraints
-
Administrators can only select individual items to be marked as Covered. No grouping or complex logic (eg: sets).
-
One-way relationship: Completion of the main course triggers coverage of the others — not vice versa.
Category 2 → Completion triggered by (Is covered by)
Goal: Defines which courses or templates must be completed (individually or in combination) for the target course to be automatically marked as Covered.
Benefit: Enables flexible learning strategies, supports microlearning, and aligns with competency frameworks.
Rules/Constraints: Allows both simple OR and complex AND/OR combinations (eg: sets).
Category 3 → Mutual equivalence (Both ways)
Goal/Behavior: Defines a bidirectional equivalence between two learning items, where completing either one covers the other.
Benefit: Minimizes duplicate effort across global or multi-brand learning programs, ensures continuity during course migration or rebranding (eg: when companies offer regional, language, or vendor-specific variants of the same content, or when transitioning between course versions).
Rules/Constraints: Completing either item marks the other as Covered.
"Covered" is not an enrolment status, but an additional information which, when applicable for a user, will determine that the user has already completed objects which determine in turn that the component marked as "Covered" does not need to be processed anymore.
However, if the learner chooses to, he can still enroll and process that component.
Adding items to a preferred relation is done in the following way. User has to select a folder (each relation has the corresponding folder dedicated) and then click on “+” button where he/she can select either courses/course templates or by clicking on “New” button where set of components can be defined (excluding the 1st rule for which is not possible).
After defining all the needed equivalence relations, the changes can be saved.
By selecting Save, the defined equivalence relations are created and the user is redirected to the start page of the manager, showing the outcome.
For each object that did not previously have any relation defined, an entry in the manager will be now available.
Sets of components: Adding multiple components via add component creates an OR relation between them. The components added within a set have an AND relation.
When a course template is set to covered by an equivalence rule, all courses from this template will be set to covered.
The coverage rules defined for a template apply for all versions of the template. It will not be possible to define different coverage rules for different versions of the course template.
Learning path: All components that are marked for the learner as Covered, are displayed accordingly.
Categories of Passing Relations of Equivalences
The categories of “passing relations” can be defined in line with the categories of the covering relations:
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Triggers the completion of courses
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The passing of the component is triggered by a course
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The course completion triggered in both directions
However, the “passing relation” actually changes the enrolment status of a learner on a course in contrast to the “covering relations” that only mark courses as covered.
A further difference is that only courses can be selected for the definition of passing relations.
Set of components can also be defined as described in the above section regarding covering relations.
Edit of Equivalences
Edit
When editing such an entry from the manager, the defined relations for that object will be visible:
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Example |
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Example |
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The following equivalence relations have been defined for an object: Object A
When saving this configuration, instead of one entry in the manager (for Object A), we will have 5 entries, one for each of the components that, as a consequence of the defined rules, have now equivalence relations themselves. When editing Object E for example, there will be one relation available in the third category for this element, namely the equivalence relation with Object A. Editing Object C, we will see for this object in the Second category that it covers Object A. |
Delete
Delete
At the start page level, where all objects that have equivalence rules defined are displayed, the admin has the possibility to select one or more entries and remove them.
This will have as effect deleting also associated entries that will therefore be left without any equivalence relation.
In the example above, when I delete object A, all 5 entries will be deleted.
Validation Relevance
Equivalences can be set to be validation relevant in the description tab when creating or editing a relation. Activation and deactivation requires the confirmation with e-signature.
If an equivalence is validation relevant:
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all changes of the equivalence like activation and deactivation of the validation relevance and adding relations will be tracked in the audit trail
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status change by EQS through passing relations will be tracked in audit log
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deletion if validation relevant equivalences is not possible, only after deactivating the validation relevance (deletion of relations in the equivalence can lead to the deletion of the equivalence and is allowed therefore)
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deletion of relations that are pointing to a validation relevant equivalence is not possible
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deletion by import instruction will not be processed
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import of equivalences that contain validation relevant entries or cause changes in validation relevant equivalences in the system requires a confirmation by e-signature before importing.
Equivalence Export
The equivalences manager provides also the possibility to export the rules via a dedicated export button available in the action bar.
The export is a csv export that can be opened and converted to a table in MS Excel by using the function Text to Columns.
The exported file will contain the rules in the following order: Last updated > descending.
Equivalence Import
For a correct import of the equivalences rules into the system this file containing the instructions should be used → Equivalency Import V2.0 2026.pdf
Handling ACLs within the Equivalences Manager
Only the courses for which the user has at least Execute ACL will be visible in the manager.
The rule can be edited and deleted though the user does not have access to all components.
User will not see the courses for which he had NO ACL in the manager, nor in the export file.
Limitations
The columns in the manager are fixed and no advanced search or filtering is possible.
It is not possible to define clearances for the rules created in the manager.
Medias assigned to a course cannot be passed by equivalence.
If skills are assigned to an entity is “covered“ by equivalence but not to the entity passed by the learner directly, these skills are not set to achieved.
At this point we don’t offer the possibility of searching by courses which are included in an equivalence relation. Only the icon which is displayed on the Catalogue and Description pages for the corresponding courses/course templates is the indicator for the Equivalences function.
Further limitations of EQS with passing relations
Deletion of passing relations will not revert the course status of learners passed by EQS.
If a course status is changed by an administrator after it was once passed by EQS, the learner will not be set to passed by the EQS cronjob again.
Learners , which are in a target group with seat limitation, will be passed by EQS and the number of seats will be consumed. In addition the seat limitation is not applied for learners passed by EQS.