Traders -> Certificates in your admin dashboard.
A certificate is the PDF and image a trader receives at a moment worth sharing: a payout that was approved, or a challenge passed and a funded account. It carries their name, the figures of that moment, a serial and a QR code that opens a public page where anyone can check it is genuine. This screen is where you design them.
You need view_certificates to open the screen, look at every template and its
issued certificates, and manage_certificates to make, change, duplicate,
convert, test render or delete one. Somebody with only the first sees
everything, with the fields switched off and a line saying why. The Activity tab
also needs view_activity_logs, and a trader's name in the issued list only
leads to their page for whoever has view_traders.
Which design a trader receives
One template per certificate is the default. When a trader earns a certificate, they receive the default of that kind, and only while it is switched on. Where you have no default that is switched on, they receive Propper's standard design, so a trader always gets a certificate, also before you made one of your own.
That makes the two switches on a template the whole story. A template that is switched on but not the default is never issued. A default that is switched off hands its kind back to the standard design. The screen says what each template reaches in its own words, so you never have to work this out.
Milestones
Milestone is a kind of certificate you can design today, but nothing on the platform issues it yet. The screen says so wherever it matters, and a milestone template reaches nobody until that changes.
A certificate keeps the design and the values it was issued with. Changing or deleting a template never alters one that is already out there.
The list
The screen opens on the list alone, across its whole width, and opens no template until you pick one.
Each row is a template with its name, which editor builds it and its page, which certificate it is, how many certificates were issued from it, when it last changed, and where it stands:
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Default | Switched on and the default. Traders receive this one |
| Default, switched off | The default, but off. Traders receive the standard design |
| On | Switched on, but not the default, so nobody receives it |
| Off | Switched off and not the default |
The line under the title counts your templates, how many are in use and how many are a default that is switched off, and for how many kinds of certificate your traders receive Propper's standard design. The first two are filters: click one to see only those.
Search finds a template by its name, its id or its description. The filter menu sorts the list (newest, name, last changed, most issued or by certificate) and narrows it by certificate, by where it stands and by editor. Search, filters, sort and page live in the address, so a link shows the same list.
J and K move through the list and Enter opens the lit template. Right click
a row to open it, see what was issued from it, duplicate it, copy its name, id
or link, or delete it.
A template
A template opens beside the list, which folds into a column, and has its own address, so a link you copy and send opens on it, with the open tab part of the address. The cross or Escape folds the list back to the same filters and page.
The head shows the name, which certificate it is and its id (click it to copy). Under that, where it stands, who receives which design for its kind, and when it was last issued. Then a row of facts: the certificate and when it is issued, how many were issued, the page, and when it was made and last changed.
Test render in the head sends the design as it stands, unsaved changes included, through the same engine that makes the real certificate, and shows the result with sample values. The more menu holds the rest: the issued certificates, duplicate, the copies, and delete.
The tabs are Design, Settings, Issued and Activity. Design and Settings are two halves of one form with one save dock under both, so you can change the design, make it the default and save once. Moving between the two never loses what you typed, and the canvas keeps what is picked and its undo history. Leaving them for another tab or another template with unsaved changes asks first. A save sends only the settings you changed, so a template a colleague switched off while you had it open stays off unless you switched it yourself.
A save that fails marks the tab holding the refused field with a dot and opens it.
Design
Visual gives you a page to lay out. Add text, shapes, lines, your logo, images you upload, a QR code and a signature from the toolbar, drag them where you want them, and set fonts, colours and sizes in the panel beside it. Placeholders such as the trader's name or the payout amount are drawn with sample values and filled with the real ones when a certificate is issued. Delete removes what is picked, Cmd or Ctrl+D duplicates it, the arrow keys nudge it, and Escape lets go of it before it closes anything else.
Changing the page size scales the whole design to fit the new page. Turning the page from landscape to portrait leaves everything where it is, because a design for the other orientation has to be laid out again.
Fonts
The certificate is set in typefaces that travel with the platform, so the PDF a trader downloads looks exactly like the canvas, on any machine:
| Font | Kind | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Cormorant Garamond | Classical serif, italics | Names and headings in a formal design |
| Instrument Serif | Condensed display serif | A very large name or figure |
| Inter | Sans serif, light to bold | Body text, labels, small print |
| IBM Plex Mono | Monospace | Serials and links |
| Allison | Handwritten script | Typed signatures |
All five are published under the SIL Open Font License, which allows using and embedding them in documents you send. The fonts certificates used before (Liberation and DejaVu) stay available, so a template made with them renders as it always did.
Each font is drawn in its own typeface in the picker. A text can be set light, regular, medium, semibold or bold, and its figures lining or old-style.
Long names and large amounts
A text can Shrink to fit. When the name or amount filled into it would not fit its box, it is set smaller, step by step, until it does, and never smaller than 8 pixels. The canvas shows the size it arrives at for the sample, and a trader with a name of sixty characters gets the same treatment in their PDF. Vertical position keeps a short text at the top, middle or bottom of its box, so a name that shrank still sits on the same line.
Signature
A signature is a mark standing on a fine line, with a name and a title under
it. The mark is either a name you type, written in a script such as Allison, or
a scan you upload, ideally on a white or transparent background and cropped
close. Placeholders work in all three lines, so a design can sign with
{{firm_name}}. Ink, line and text take a colour of their own or your brand
colour, and the whole signature aligns left, centred or right. A long name
written in the script is set smaller to stay on one line.
Your logo
A logo can use your main logo, or the one you set under Branding for a light or a dark page. A dark design asks for the logo made for a dark background and falls back to your main logo when you have none. A logo or an image aligns left, centred or right inside its box.
HTML and CSS gives you the page size and orientation, a box for each, and the certificate drawn beside them as you type. Click a placeholder under the HTML to put it where your cursor is.
Converting a visual design to HTML
A visual template has a Convert to HTML button above the page. It compiles the design into HTML and CSS you can then edit by hand, keeping your placeholders. The conversion lands in the form and is stored with your next save, so Discard still brings the canvas back.
This only goes one way
Hand written HTML cannot be mapped back onto the canvas, so the template stays in code from that point on.
An uploaded image that is too large to fit inside the HTML is left out, and a QR code that pointed anywhere other than the verification page is pointed back at it. Both are listed after converting. A text set to shrink to fit keeps its full size in HTML, because HTML cannot measure the name it is filled with, and the conversion says so too. The fonts come along: hand written HTML can use the same five typefaces by name.
Settings
Details is the name and description your team knows the template by, and the certificate it is, which is fixed once the template exists because it decides when a trader receives it. Who receives it holds the two switches: Default and Switched on. Making a template the default takes that place from the template that held it, and the form says which one before you save.
Beside the settings, from a wide enough screen, stands the certificate drawn with sample values, and under it what the form reaches once it is saved: when this certificate is issued, which design your traders receive for it, and how many were issued from this template. Under that the combinations that quietly do something else than you meant:
- A default that is switched off, so traders receive the standard design or none.
- A milestone template made the default, which nothing issues yet.
- Your logo on the page while no logo is set under Branding.
- An image on the page with no picture in it.
- A signature set to an uploaded image that has none, so only its line and name show.
- Part of the design past the edge of the page, where the certificate cuts it off.
None of these stop a save.
Issued
Every certificate made from this template, newest first and fifty to a page, with the trader, what it was for, its serial and when it was issued. Search finds one by its serial, the name on it or the trader's email address. Use a row's menu to open the trader, open its public page, download the PDF, or copy the link, the serial or the email address.
Activity
When the template was made and every change your team saved to it, with the old and the new value of each setting, newest first. A change to the design itself says only that the design changed. The Activity log has the same lines with every filter.
A new template
New template opens in the same place, in two steps.
Which certificate is it, and how do you want to build it? Payout, Funded or Milestone, and the visual canvas or HTML and CSS. Both editors make the same PDF. The certificate cannot change later, and a template built in code stays in code.
Pick a design. For each certificate there are six visual designs and one hand written one, each in a light and a dark palette, drawn as a trader will receive them. Filter them by theme, or start from an empty page. Every design puts the trader's name first, shows the amount or account size as a figure, carries the serial, the date, the verification link and its QR code, and is signed. Your brand colour appears in a few fine rules and marks, never as a fill behind text, so any colour reads well. The wording follows the certificate: a payout names the amount paid, a funded certificate the account size, and a milestone what was reached.
| Design | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Laureate | A double hairline frame and the name in a classical serif, with date, signature and verification along the foot |
| Meridian | Editorial and left aligned, a thin bar of your colour along the top, the name very large and the figure answering it on the right |
| Ledger | A tinted panel with your logo and the QR code, beside the name and the figure set out like a statement |
| Atelier | One fine frame in your colour, everything centred, plenty of room around the name |
| Seal | The text in a column and the QR code inside two rings of your colour, like a seal |
| Monolith | A solid block of ink carrying the name in a heavy sans serif, edged with a rule of your colour |
| Engraved | Hand written HTML with an engraved line frame and a layout that grows with a long name |
Every design is drawn on A4 in landscape. On Letter it scales to fit the page. A portrait page needs a design of its own.
Propper's standard design, which your traders receive where you have no default of your own, is Laureate on a light page.
You then get the same Design and Settings as every template, and the dock creates it. A new template is switched on and not the default, so it reaches nobody until you make it one. Start from another design goes back to the gallery, after asking, since what you changed is thrown away.
Duplicating and deleting
Duplicate makes a copy with the same design under "Copy of" its name, switched on but not the default, and opens it.
Deleting a template asks first, saying how many certificates were issued from it and, when it is the default, which design your traders receive from then on. Certificates issued from it keep their design and stay valid.
In the older designs
A firm on Propper - OG or Tactical keeps the screen it launched with: a table of
templates with their name, type, default and status, a full page to make one
from a gallery of ready made designs, and a full page to edit one with its
settings above the designer. Those designs have no search, filters or sorting,
no list of issued certificates, no Activity tab, no line saying which design a
trader receives, and need manage_certificates to open a template at all.
Their gallery offers the same designs, and their designer draws everything described above, signatures included. A signature can only be added in the new design, though: in Propper - OG and Tactical it can be moved, resized, duplicated and deleted, but not added or edited.