How to Copy a Custom Certificate Design From One Moodle Course to Another

Root cause

Where Moodle actually stores a certificate design

Three tables, one pointer. Each activity row in mdl_customcert carries a templateid pointing at one row in mdl_customcert_templates. The template owns pages (mdl_customcert_pages), and each page owns elements (mdl_customcert_elements) — every text block, image, border, and signature line, with its posx, posy, font, fontsize, colour, width, and a data blob of element-specific settings.

The design is the pages plus the elements. Copying a design means replacing the target template's pages and elements with clones of the source's — while leaving the target's template row, activity row, and issue history alone. That's exactly what \mod_customcert\template::copy_to_template() does; the plugin itself uses it when you save an activity design as a site template.

The fix

Copying the design with copy_to_template()

First, get your two template ids and confirm nothing shares them:

-- Find the template behind each certificate activity
SELECT id, course, name, templateid
FROM mdl_customcert
WHERE course IN (:sourcecourse, :targetcourse);

-- Safety check: no template should serve more than one activity
SELECT templateid, COUNT(*) AS activities
FROM mdl_customcert
GROUP BY templateid
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

If the second query returns your target template, stop — you're about to redesign more than one course's certificate. Otherwise, drop this in your Moodle dirroot and run it with php copy_cert_design.php:

<?php
define('CLI_SCRIPT', true);
require(__DIR__ . '/config.php');

$srcid = 41;   // template id of the good design (course B)
$dstid = 57;   // template id to overwrite (course A)

$srcRec = $DB->get_record('customcert_templates', ['id' => $srcid], '*', MUST_EXIST);
$dstRec = $DB->get_record('customcert_templates', ['id' => $dstid], '*', MUST_EXIST);

$src = new \mod_customcert\template($srcRec);   // good design
$dst = new \mod_customcert\template($dstRec);   // target

// Dump target pages/elements to JSON for rollback, then:
$backup = [];
foreach ($DB->get_records('customcert_pages', ['templateid' => $dst->get_id()]) as $p) {
    $p->elements = array_values(
        $DB->get_records('customcert_elements', ['pageid' => $p->id], 'sequence'));
    $backup[] = $p;
}
file_put_contents("customcert-rollback-{$dstid}.json",
    json_encode($backup, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT));

foreach ($DB->get_records('customcert_pages', ['templateid' => $dst->get_id()]) as $p) {
    $dst->delete_page($p->id);
}
$src->copy_to_template($dst);
purge_all_caches();

Why delete the target's pages at all? Because copy_to_template() adds the source's pages to whatever the target already has. Skip the delete and you get the new design stacked after the old one — a four-page certificate where two pages are the broken layout you were trying to get rid of.

If you'd rather hand this off

Everything above is the complete procedure — script, safety checks, rollback. If your situation is messier — dozens of courses to restamp, a shared template already causing crosstalk, or a design that needs rebuilding rather than copying — this is routine work for our Moodle development service. Tell us what you're seeing and we'll reply within one business day with what it would take.

Quick answers

Questions people ask about this