How to Run Policy and Compliance Acknowledgements

In this article:

• Overview
• Step 1: Publish the policy
• Step 2: Require an acknowledgement
• Step 3: Get it to the right people
• Step 4: Automate it with a Workflow
• What learners see
• Step 5: Report on who has acknowledged
• Re-acknowledging a policy on a cycle
• When to use a Form instead
• Things to keep in mind
• FAQs
• Who can do this

Overview

A policy acknowledgement is a record that a named person read a named document on a named date. SuperPath lets you require one on the learning itself. Switch on Require acknowledgement when you assign a policy, or on the policy's step in a Pathway, and write the statement learners must agree to. The learner cannot complete the learning until they have ticked that statement, and SuperPath records the date and the exact wording they agreed to on their learning record.

This article walks through the whole pattern end to end: publishing the policy, requiring the acknowledgement, getting it to the right people, automating it for new starters and reporting on who has acknowledged. It is the approach we recommend for codes of conduct, privacy and security policies, workplace health and safety documents, annual compliance declarations, and any other document where you need defensible evidence that someone has read and accepted it.

Step 1: Publish the policy

Put the policy somewhere learners can read it inside SuperPath. You have two good options.

A Library content item works best when the policy is an existing PDF or document produced elsewhere. Upload it as a Document or File and it becomes assignable like any other content. See How to Upload Content From Your Computer.

A Knowledge article works best for a policy you maintain in SuperPath and expect to revise. You write it in the editor and can update it in place. See Creating a Knowledge Article. A Knowledge article cannot be assigned on its own, so to require an acknowledgement on it, add it as a step in a Pathway (Step 2).

Tip: If your policy is a controlled document that legal or compliance owns as a PDF, upload the PDF rather than retyping it into a Knowledge article. Keeping one authoritative version stops the two drifting apart.

Step 2: Require an acknowledgement

You can require an acknowledgement in two places. Choose the one that matches how you deliver the policy.

On an assignment

Use this when you assign the policy on its own, for example a single PDF. It works for Library content of every kind (files, links, videos, documents and courses) and for Events.

1. Open the content or Event and click Assign, then choose who to assign it to (see Step 3).
2. In the assign popup, click Advanced.
3. Under Acknowledgement, turn on Require acknowledgement.
4. Check the statement in Statement learners must agree to. It is prefilled with "I confirm that I have read and understood this learning and agree to comply with it." Edit it to name your policy if you like, for example "I confirm that I have read and understood the Code of Conduct and agree to comply with it."
5. Finish assigning as usual.

On a Pathway step

Use this when the policy sits inside a Pathway, for example an induction Pathway, or when the policy is a Knowledge article. It works on content, Knowledge, text and Event steps.

1. Open the Pathway in the builder, hover over the policy step and click the cog icon to open its settings.
2. Under Acknowledgement, turn on Require acknowledgement.
3. Check or edit the statement in Statement learners must agree to.
4. Publish the Pathway so the requirement reaches your learners.

Note: The statement is required while the switch is on, and can be up to 1,000 characters. If you clear it, SuperPath will not save the setting until you enter one.

Good to know: Acknowledgement works alongside the other completion settings. You can also require evidence, an approval or both on the same assignment or step. The learner always acknowledges first, then submits evidence or submits for review.

Step 3: Get it to the right people

Assign the policy (or the Pathway that holds it) to the people or Teams who must acknowledge it, and set a due date so the deadline is visible to everyone.

1. Assign the policy or Pathway to people or Teams. See Assigning Pathways to People or Teams.
2. Set a Due date for the acknowledgement deadline.
3. Leave Notify people on so assignees are told the policy is waiting for them.

For a policy that everyone in the organisation must acknowledge, assign it to everyone at once rather than picking people individually. See How to Assign a Pathway to Everyone at Once.

For a policy that applies to only part of the organisation, build a Dynamic Team whose rules match the people it covers, then assign the policy to that Team. Membership updates itself as people join, move or change roles, so the policy reaches new starters without anyone remembering to add them. See Dynamic Teams.

Step 4: Automate it with a Workflow

A Workflow removes the manual step for everyone who joins after the initial rollout.

1. Go to Settings → Workflows and click Create workflow.
2. Under When, choose Person joins.
3. Add criteria if the policy applies to only part of the organisation. You can match on Position, Role, Manager, country and state, and on your Custom Fields. Use Is any of to list several values in one condition, for example every clinical job title. With two or more conditions, choose whether a person must match all of them (the default) or any of them.
4. Under Then, choose the action that assigns your policy: the content or Event assignment action for a policy assigned on its own, or Assign a pathway for a policy Pathway.
5. For content or an Event, open Advanced options and turn on Require acknowledgement under Acknowledgement, then check the statement. For a Pathway there is nothing to set here, because the acknowledgement lives on the Pathway step you set up in Step 2.
6. Leave Notify people on assignment on, then turn on Due date and choose either a Specific date or a number of Days after assigned, so new starters get the same deadline as everyone else.
7. Under For people who already have this learning, choose how repeat assignments behave. Assign only if completed (default) will not re-assign to someone who still has the policy outstanding, Always assign sends it regardless, and Never assign skips anyone who already has it.
8. Click Create workflow.

Note: A Workflow only responds to events that happen after it is active. It will not reach back and assign the policy to people who joined earlier. Roll the policy out to your existing people using Step 3, then let the Workflow cover everyone who joins from that point on.

Scheduled learning works the same way. When you edit a schedule for content or an Event, the Acknowledgement block sits with the other advanced options.

What learners see

A learning that needs an acknowledgement shows an Acknowledgement required chip. Learners can open it to read the statement before they start.

Where the learner would normally click Mark as complete, they see an Acknowledge button instead. It opens a window that shows the statement and a tick box, "I have read the statement above and agree to it." Once they tick it, one button finishes the job. It reads Acknowledge and mark as complete (Acknowledge and mark as attended for an Event), or Acknowledge and submit for review when an approval is required. If evidence is required, the button reads Acknowledge and the learner submits their evidence next.

For content SuperPath can track, the Acknowledge button stays unavailable until the learner has finished it:

• Videos played in SuperPath unlock once the video has been watched.
• SCORM courses unlock once the course is finished, and Mindsmith courses once the learner has passed.
• Events unlock once the Event has started.
• PDFs shown in SuperPath unlock once the learner has scrolled to the end of the document.
• Word and PowerPoint files, links, Knowledge articles and text steps unlock straight away.

A course that finishes does not complete itself while an acknowledgement is outstanding. The learner sees "One more step: acknowledge the statement to finish this learning." until they acknowledge it.

Once acknowledged, the learning record reads Acknowledged on with the date, and View statement shows the exact wording the learner agreed to. Approvers see the same record next to any evidence when they review.

Step 5: Report on who has acknowledged

This is the part an auditor asks for, so it is worth knowing all three views.

In the reports. The learning reports show an acknowledgement icon next to each record that needs one. It is green once the person has acknowledged (click it to see the date and the statement) and grey while it is still outstanding.

In a CSV export. Learning report exports include Acknowledgement Required and Date Acknowledged columns, so you can hand an auditor one file. A Pathway row leaves both blank, because the requirement is set on each step. The step rows carry the values. See How to Export a Report to CSV.

Who is outstanding. The Learning Matrix Report shows people down one axis and learning across the other, so the gaps are the people who have not acknowledged yet. See Learning Matrix Report. You can also filter a report by learning status to list only the incomplete assignments, then notify exactly those people from the report itself. See How to Filter a Report by Learning Status and How to Send a Notification to Learners From a Report.

Tip: Save the outstanding-acknowledgements report and schedule it to send weekly to the policy owner. Chasing then happens without anyone running a report by hand. See How to Schedule a Report to Send Automatically.

Re-acknowledging a policy on a cycle

Most compliance policies need re-acknowledging on a cycle. Workflow assignment actions have a Recurring schedule? toggle, which re-assigns the same item to the same person on a cycle. Choose Monthly or Yearly under Repeat, then set Every to the number of months or years between rounds, for example every 6 months or every 2 years. Repeat for sets how many rounds there are in total. Each round is a new assignment, so it needs a fresh acknowledgement.

Turn it on when you build the Workflow in Step 4, and set a Due date so each round carries its own deadline. Your choice under For people who already have this learning decides what happens to stragglers: Always assign sends the new round even to someone who never finished the last one, while Assign only if completed (default) leaves them on the outstanding assignment they already have.

If your policy text changes materially between rounds, update the statement before the next round goes out. Acknowledgements already given keep the wording people agreed to at the time.

Example: a first aid refresher every three years.

1. Under When, choose Person joins, so every new starter enters the cycle.
2. Under Then, choose the assignment action and select the refresher, for example the first aid content or the first aid Pathway.
3. Turn on Recurring schedule?, leave Repeat on Yearly, and set Every to 3 and Repeat for to 4.
4. Check the sentence under the fields. It reads Assigned when the workflow runs, then every 3 years, 4 times in total., so each starter is assigned on joining and again after three, six and nine years.
5. Set a Due date a number of days after assignment, for example 90, so each round has its own deadline.

When to use a Form instead

The acknowledgement switch records one statement per learning. If you need to capture more than that, such as a typed name, a declared conflict of interest, or several separate declarations, build a Form and put it in a Pathway after the policy.

1. In the left-hand menu, go to Forms & Quizzes and create a new Form. See How to Create a Form.
2. Give it a title that names the policy and the year, for example "Code of Conduct 2026 Declaration", so it is unambiguous in reporting later.
3. Add a Checkboxes question worded as the declaration you want on record, with a single option such as "I confirm", and turn on Required. See How to Add a Checkbox Question to a Form. Add an Open text question for anything else you need to capture.
4. Create a Pathway with the policy as the first step and the Form as the next. See How to Create a Pathway and How to Add a Form/Quiz Step to a Pathway.
5. Make both steps required and set the policy step as a prerequisite for the Form step, so a learner cannot reach the declaration until they have opened the policy. See How to Make a Pathway Step Required and How to Set a Prerequisite for a Step.

Note: Leave the Answer column empty and do not set a pass score. A declaration is not a quiz, so grading it adds nothing and makes the reporting harder to read.

Form responses are reported from the Form itself. Open Forms & Quizzes, find the Form and click the view responses icon, or export the responses. See How to View Responses to Forms and How to Report on Form and Quiz Responses and Export Them. Two Workflow triggers help here: Form is submitted with Send a notification alerts a compliance owner as declarations come in, and Form is submitted with Add to team builds a live list of everyone who has declared.

Things to keep in mind

• Acknowledgement is available on content, Events, and content, Knowledge, text and Event steps in a Pathway. It is not available on Forms, Goals, Roadmaps, sections, sub-pathway steps or on a Pathway as a whole.
• Only the learner can acknowledge their own learning. If an admin marks the learning as complete for them, or completes it in bulk, it is completed without an acknowledgement and the date stays empty, so your reports will show it as not acknowledged.
• Changing the statement, or switching the requirement off, never removes an acknowledgement already given. Turning it on for a Pathway step applies to learners who have not finished the step yet. It never reopens a completed one.
• There is no "I do not agree" option. A learner who does not acknowledge simply leaves the learning incomplete, and that shows in your reports.
• The acknowledgement settings on an existing assignment cannot be changed from the assignment. To change them, assign the policy again.
• Editing a Knowledge article or replacing an uploaded document changes what future learners see. It does not invalidate acknowledgements already recorded, so re-assign deliberately when a policy changes materially.
• Workflows are only available on a paid plan. If the Workflows screen shows an upgrade message, you can still run acknowledgements manually using Steps 1 to 3 and Step 5.
• Workflows are not retrospective. Existing people need a one-off manual assignment when you first roll a policy out.

FAQs

Is there a dedicated policy acknowledgement feature in SuperPath?
Yes. Turn on Require acknowledgement when you assign content or an Event, or in a Pathway step's settings. The learner must agree to your statement before the learning completes, and their record keeps the date and the exact statement they agreed to.

Can I prove someone actually opened the policy before they acknowledged it?
For videos played in SuperPath, SCORM courses, Mindsmith courses and Events, the Acknowledge button stays unavailable until the learner has finished the content (or the Event has started). For a PDF shown in SuperPath, it stays unavailable until the learner has scrolled to the end of the document. That shows they reached the end, not that they read every line. For Word and PowerPoint files, links and Knowledge articles, SuperPath cannot tell whether the learner read them, so the button is available straight away. The record still shows who agreed to which statement, and when.

What exactly is recorded?
The learner, the date and time they acknowledged, and the statement exactly as it read when they agreed to it. If you edit the statement later, their record keeps the original wording.

How do I handle an annual re-acknowledgement?
Use the Recurring schedule option on a Workflow assignment action. It re-assigns a year later and repeats on that cycle, and each round needs a fresh acknowledgement. For a policy reviewed every two or three years, set Every to that number of years.

How do I find out who has not acknowledged yet?
Look for the grey acknowledgement icon in the learning reports, run the Learning Matrix Report to see the gaps, or filter a report by learning status to list the incomplete assignments. You can send a reminder to exactly those people straight from the report.

Can I require evidence or an approval as well?
Yes. The learner acknowledges first, then submits their evidence or submits for review. An approver only ever sees learning that has already been acknowledged.

Do acknowledgements work for contractors and other Restricted users?
Yes. Restricted users can be assigned learning, can start, acknowledge and complete their assigned content, and receive assignment and due-date notifications.

Who can do this

The pieces of this pattern have different permissions, so check who on your team can do which part.

Owners, Admins, Managers and Content Managers can create the policy as a Knowledge article. Instructors, People Managers, Employees and Restricted users have read-only access to Knowledge.

Owners, Admins, Managers, Content Managers and Instructors can assign learning and edit Pathway steps, so they can require an acknowledgement, build the Form and the Pathway, and view Form responses. People Managers, Employees and Restricted users have read-only access to Pathways and do not see the Forms & Quizzes area.

Only Owners and Admins can create Workflows. Workflows are also a paid-plan feature, so the option only appears for accounts where it has been enabled.

Every learner, whatever their role, acknowledges their own learning. A learner cannot change the acknowledgement settings on their own assignment.

Updated on: 11/11/2026